Honestly, if you were watching the news on election night back in November 2022, you probably went to bed more confused than when you started. Arizona has this way of making everyone wait. It's not just the desert heat; it's the sheer mountain of mail-in ballots that election workers have to verify, signature by signature.
By the time the dust finally settled weeks later, the landscape of Arizona politics had shifted in a way that very few people—including the pollsters—actually saw coming.
The Big Ticket: Hobbs vs. Lake
The race for Governor was the one everyone couldn't stop talking about. You had Katie Hobbs, the Democrat who basically refused to debate, going up against Kari Lake, a former news anchor who was essentially the face of the MAGA movement in the state.
It was incredibly tight. Like, "don't breathe or you'll miss the lead change" tight. Eventually, Hobbs pulled it off with 1,287,891 votes compared to Lake's 1,270,774. That’s a margin of about 0.67%. If you’re doing the math, that is roughly 17,000 votes in a state with millions of people.
Hobbs won by sticking to a strategy that frustrated her own party at times. She didn't give Lake the "spectacle" of a debate. Instead, she banked on the idea that enough Arizonans were tired of the 2020 election talk.
What went down in the Senate?
While the Governor’s race was a nail-biter, Mark Kelly had a slightly smoother ride, though "smooth" is a relative term in Arizona. He was up against Blake Masters. Kelly managed to win with 51.4% of the vote.
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Masters, who had the backing of Peter Thiel and Donald Trump, struggled to bridge the gap with moderate voters in the suburbs of Maricopa County. Kelly, the former astronaut, played it right down the middle, focusing on things like water rights and microchips. It worked. He beat Masters by about 125,000 votes.
The Drama in Maricopa County
You can't talk about the Arizona election results 2022 without mentioning the printer glitches. It’s the stuff of nightmares for election officials. On Election Day, about 70 of the 223 voting centers in Maricopa County had issues with their printers.
Basically, the ink wasn't dark enough.
The on-site tabulators couldn't read the ballots because the "timing marks" were too faint. It caused massive lines and, predictably, a lot of anger. An independent review by retired Justice Ruth McGregor later found that a combination of 100-pound paper (which was thicker than usual) and a 20-inch ballot (the longest in county history) pushed the printers past their limit.
The fusers just couldn't stay hot enough to bake the toner onto the paper properly.
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While every ballot was eventually counted—they were put into a secure "Door 3" and taken to a central facility—the optics were a disaster. It fueled months of lawsuits and protests, even though no evidence of actual fraud was ever found in the recount or the audits.
The Closest Race You Never Heard Of
Forget the Governor. The real "hold your breath" moment was the Attorney General’s race. Kris Mayes (D) and Abe Hamadeh (R) were separated by a microscopic margin.
When the first count finished, Mayes was up by 511 votes.
After a mandatory recount? That lead shrunk to just 280 votes.
To put that in perspective, that’s fewer people than you’d find in a single large high school cafeteria. It remains one of the closest statewide elections in U.S. history.
A Quick Look at the Winners
- Secretary of State: Adrian Fontes (D) beat Mark Finchem (R) by a pretty solid margin, about 120,000 votes.
- Superintendent of Public Instruction: This was a win for the GOP. Tom Horne narrowly unseated the incumbent Kathy Hoffman.
- Treasurer: Kimberly Yee (R) was actually the biggest vote-getter on the Republican side, proving that being a "quiet" incumbent with a focus on the books still pays off.
What about the Ballot Measures?
Arizonans are big on direct democracy. We love a good proposition. In 2022, there were some heavy hitters on the ballot.
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Proposition 308 passed, which was a huge deal. It allows non-citizen students (Dreamers) to get in-state tuition if they graduated from an Arizona high school.
Proposition 211, the "Voters' Right to Know Act," passed with a massive 72% of the vote. It basically requires big donors behind "dark money" campaign ads to actually identify themselves. It turns out, whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, you probably don't like anonymous people screaming at you through your TV.
Proposition 131 was also approved, meaning that starting in 2026, Arizona will finally have a Lieutenant Governor. No more "who is second in command?" confusion.
Why Maricopa County is the Center of the Universe
If you want to understand why these races were so close, look at Maricopa County. It represents about 60% of the state's population. It's no longer the rock-ribbed conservative stronghold it was in the Barry Goldwater era. It's purple.
The "Ticket Splitters" are the ones who decided 2022. There was a significant chunk of voters who voted for a Republican for Treasurer (Kimberly Yee) but then turned around and voted for a Democrat for Senator (Mark Kelly).
How to use this info today
The 2022 results weren't just a moment in time; they set the stage for everything we're seeing in 2024 and 2026.
- Check your registration: If you moved since 2022, you've gotta update your info. Arizona's "Active Early Voting List" (AEVL) is great, but it only works if your address is right.
- Trust the "Door 3": If there's a printer glitch again, don't panic. Your ballot is secure. The 2022 litigation proved that the backup systems for unreadable ballots actually work.
- Watch the margins: In Arizona, 300 votes can change the law for 7 million people. Your vote isn't just a "drop in the bucket"; it's basically the bucket.
The 2022 cycle proved that Arizona is the ultimate "toss-up" state. It's a place where personality often matters more than party, and where the results won't be ready until the week after you've already stopped checking the news.