Katie Hobbs' lead over Kari Lake narrows in Arizona's gubernatorial race
As of early Wednesday, Katie Hobbs' lead over Kari Lake in Arizona's gubernatorial race has narrowed to about three points, or roughly 40,000 votes, following the last big Election Day drop from Maricopa County for the night.
We won't see more votes from Maricopa County until Wednesday evening. As expected, more early votes are going to Hobbs, a Democrat who currently serves as Arizona's secretary of state, while more Election Day votes -- many of which still need to be counted -- are going to Lake, a Republican who previously worked as a television news anchor in Phoenix for 22 years.
The vibe at the Republican Watch Party in Scottsdale drastically changed over the course of Tuesday night. What started as a celebration packed with people ended with worried faces scattered around an empty ballroom. One attendee was overheard calling the night "so sad."
Only Lake and Abe Hamadeh, Republican candidate for Arizona's attorney general, briefly spoke to supporters at the event. Blake Masters, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, and Arizona Rep. Mark Finchem, the Republican candidate for Arizona's secretary of state, never took the stage, even though some attendees paid $1,000 to be there with them. Hundreds of red, white and blue balloons in a net above the stage were also never released.

Lake's team asked members of the press to hang around until 2 a.m. local time, when the ballroom reservation ended. But with the room largely cleared out by 12:30 a.m., it was clear Lake would not take the stage again. This was a stark contrast from primary night on Aug. 2, when Lake declared victory before any projection, took to the stage three times and had her team extend the ballroom reservation until 4 a.m.
"God did not put us in this fight because it was going to be easy," Lake told a crowd of hundreds in her single on-stage appearance on Tuesday night. "When corruption has risen to the level that it’s at right now, it takes tough, strong people. Are you tough and strong. Are you willing to continue this fight?"
"I think it will be within hours. We will declare victory, and we will get to work turning this around," she added.
"As they continue to come in and our numbers go up, up, up -- like they did last time -- when we win, the first line of action is to restore honesty to Arizona elections," she continued, firing up the crowd. "We will not stop fighting until we have every legal vote counted, so we're going to be patient. We're going to be patient guys. We're going to wait right now."
-ABC News' Libby Cathey




