A serious threat to voting rights in Arizona has been averted as Democratic gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs defeated her far-right, Trump-endorsed opponent.
Hobbs, Arizona’s outgoing secretary of state, defeated Kari Lake, a former TV anchor who refuses to accept the 2020 election results. However once Monday’s results came in Lake tweeted, “Arizonans recognise BS when they see it.” Lake has not said whether or not she will accept loss this time. On Monday night, with more than 95% of the ballots counted the Associated Press called the election for Hobbs.
As She was Declared the Winner, Hobbs Tweeted, “Democracy is Worth the Wait”
Hobbs gained notoriety as a vocal opponent of Lake and an outspoken defender of the election’s veracity. This defeat for Lake is additional proof that Trump is dragging down his allies in a key battleground state as the former president prepares to make a run for the presidency in 2024.
In the weeks leading up to the election, Hobbs’ supporters were anxious that she wouldn’t win because of her lacklustre performance in TV appearances and her refusal to debate Lake despite the fact that the two candidates were almost matched in the polls.
As Arizona’s top election official Hobbs won support and national prominence despite receiving death threats after defending the state’s results against a flurry of disinformation and repeated efforts by Republicans to question and tarnish Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in the state.
Supporters of voters’ rights are relieved by Hobbs’ decision, which prevents further damage to Arizona’s electoral processes. Over the course of 2021 and ’22, at least 81 proposals trying to limit voting rights were submitted by Republicans in the state legislature.
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Lake had vowed to further dismantle voting norms in the state had she been elected, saying that winners should be declared on election night (uncommon in Arizona, where mail-in votes can take days to count) and that ballot counting machines should be abandoned in favour of slower and less accurate hand counts.
Meanwhile, right-wing activists have been very active in the state in recent months. On multiple occasions, Hobbs forwarded allegations of voter intimidation to the FBI and the US Department of Justice. Clean Elections USA a conspiracy theory organisation has been filming and threatening election officials and voters outside the Maricopa county election offices in Phoenix.
Katie Hobbs Wins Arizona Governor’s Race
Changes in the demographics of the country as a whole, as well as a decade of engagement by grassroots progressive groups, have empowered young and Latino voters to play a pivotal role in electing Democratic candidates.
Her victory is also a big midterm upset for the Democrats, who managed to keep their Senate majority despite widespread predictions that the GOP would gain control of the House of Representatives.
Many voters may have been moved by concerns over abortion rights. More than ninety per cent of Arizona citizens according to a new poll are against outlawing all abortions. Since Arizona reinstated a pre-statehood ban on abortions Hobbs has made it a prominent part of her campaign, discussing the ban’s effects on women and families in very personal terms.
Democracy is worth the wait.
Thank you, Arizona.
I am so honored and so proud to be your next Governor. pic.twitter.com/O6ZFSHbIBe
— Katie Hobbs (@katiehobbs) November 15, 2022
Meanwhile, Lake campaigned on a staunchly conservative platform calling for a complete ban on abortion and promising to declare an “invasion” at the southern border. She was a Trump fan who had promised to reject the election results unless she herself had won.
Hobbs worked as a social worker at a big domestic violence shelter in the Phoenix region and with homeless adolescents before entering politics. In 2010 she ran for and was elected to the state legislature where she has since served four terms (one in the Senate, three as minority leader) in various capacities.
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As Arizona has become the epicentre of the efforts by Trump and his allies to change the results of the 2020 election Secretary of State Hobbs who won a razor-thin election in 2018, has found himself at the centre of a political tempest. She made numerous appearances on cable television to defend the legitimacy of the vote tally.
She was able to gain national prominence and millions of money thanks to all the buzz and she went on to easily win the primary election.
She will take over for Republican Governor Doug Ducey, who could not run again due to term limits. She replaces Janet Napolitano as Arizona’s governor and becomes the state’s first Democrat to hold the office since 2006.
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