The 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election was held on November 8, 2022, to elect the governor of Arizona. Democratic secretary of state Katie Hobbs defeated Republican former television journalist Kari Lake. Hobbs succeeded Republican incumbent Doug Ducey who was term-limited and ineligible to seek a third term.
Primaries were held on August 2 for both parties, with Lake winning the Republican nomination and Hobbs winning the Democratic nomination, making this the first gubernatorial election in Arizona history in which both major party candidates for governor were women. With Hobbs elected the fifth female governor of Arizona, Arizona set a record for the most female governors in American history. The concurrent passage of Proposition 131, which establishes the office of lieutenant governor of Arizona, makes this the last gubernatorial election in Arizona to not have one.
Going into the election, most polling had Lake leading and analysts generally considered the race to either be a tossup or leaning Republican. Nonetheless, Hobbs won with 50.32% of the vote, becoming the first Democrat to win a gubernatorial election in Arizona since Janet Napolitano in 2006. Lake refused to concede and filed a post-election lawsuit in an attempt to overturn the results. Most of her lawsuit was rejected by Arizona's state courts, with the remaining part dismissed at trial in May 2023. The race was riddled with voting machine issues, but did not prove to show any evidence of election fraud.
This race was one of six Republican-held governorships up for election in 2022 in a state Joe Biden won in the 2020 presidential election. With a margin of 0.67%, it was the closest gubernatorial election in the state since the 1990–91 election, and the closest of the 2022 cycle. According to Ron Brownstein of CNN in 2023, Hobbs won independent voters by 7 percentage points, which contributed to Lake's defeat.
Background
Arizona was a former longstanding Republican state; however, the state had been trending purple in recent years. In the presidential election two years prior, Democrat Joe Biden became the first Democrat to carry Arizona since 1996. In 2018 and 2020, Democrats also won the two Senate seats in the state. Additionally, Democrats took 5 of the 9 house seats in the state in the House. However, Arizona Republicans maintained control of the legislature after 2020, and won the previous governor race, maintaining a trifecta in the state.
Republican primary
Candidates
Nominee
- Kari Lake, former KSAZ-TV news anchor
Eliminated in primary
- Scott Neely, businessman
- Karrin Taylor Robson, land developer and member of the Arizona Board of Regents
- Paola Tulliani-Zen, businesswoman
Withdrew
- Steve Gaynor, businessman and nominee for Arizona Secretary of State in 2018
- Matt Salmon, former U.S. representative for Arizona's 1st congressional district and nominee for governor in 2002 (endorsed Robson)
- Kimberly Yee, Arizona State Treasurer (ran for reelection, won)
Declined
- Kirk Adams, former Chief of Staff to Governor Doug Ducey and former Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives
- Andy Biggs, U.S. representative for Arizona's 5th congressional district (endorsed Salmon)
- Mark Brnovich, Arizona Attorney General (ran for the U.S. Senate)
- Steve Chucri, Maricopa County supervisor
- David Schweikert, U.S. representative for Arizona's 6th congressional district (endorsed Salmon)
- Kelli Ward, chair of the Arizona Republican Party, former state senator and candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2016 and 2018
Polling
Aggregate polls
Democratic primary
Candidates
Nominee
- Katie Hobbs, Arizona Secretary of State
Eliminated in primary
- Marco López Jr., former Chief of Staff for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and former mayor of Nogales
Withdrawn
- Aaron Lieberman, former state representative for the 28th district
Declined
- Charlene Fernandez, Minority Leader of the Arizona House of Representatives
- Kate Gallego, Mayor of Phoenix
- Ruben Gallego, U.S. representative for Arizona's 7th congressional district (running for re-election)
- Tom O'Halleran, U.S. representative for Arizona's 1st congressional district (running for re-election)
- Greg Stanton, U.S. representative for Arizona's 9th congressional district and former mayor of Phoenix (running for re-election)
Endorsements
Katie Hobbs
Marco López Jr.
Libertarian primary
Candidates
Eliminated in primary
- Barry Hess, perennial candidate
Results
Write-in candidate Barry Hess was unopposed in the Libertarian primary, but failed to secure the minimum number of votes to receive the nomination.
Certified write-in candidates
- Anthony Camboni (independent)
- Steph Denny (Republican)
- Mikki Lutes-Burton (Libertarian)
- Shawn Merrill (independent)
- Alice Novoa (Republican)
- William Pounds IV (Independent-Green)
- Liana West (Green)
General election
Lake was criticized for her denial of Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 presidential election. She had made her closeness to former president Donald Trump central to her campaign. Hobbs refused to debate Lake by arguing that would create a "circus", which became a highly discussed issue of the campaign, resulting in criticism from Republicans. On October 16, 2022, Lake twice refused to say that she would accept the result if she did not win the election: "I'm going to win the election, and I will accept that result."
According to Politico, the race was considered a toss-up. Lake called both the primaries and current round of elections "incompetent" and stated that "honest elections are needed" and that "the system we have right now does not work".
Debates and forums
Katie Hobbs refused to debate Kari Lake, though one debate-like forum was held.
Post-primary endorsements
Katie Hobbs (D)
Executive branch officials
- Barack Obama, 44th president of the United States (2009–2017)
U.S. senators
- Kyrsten Sinema, Arizona (2019–2025)
U.S. representatives
- Liz Cheney, WY-AL (2017–2023) (Republican)
- Adam Kinzinger, IL-16 (2011–2023) (Republican)
Local officials
- Sam Campana, former mayor of Scottsdale (Republican)
- John Giles, Mayor of Mesa (2014–2025) (Republican)
State legislators
- Lela Alston, former state senator from 24th district (2019–present)
- Richard Andrade, state representative for 29th district (2015–present)
- Sean Bowie, state senator from 18th district (2017–present)
- Lupe Contreras, state senator from 19th district (2015–present)
- Andrea Dalessandro, state representative for 2nd district (2021–present)
- Kirsten Engel, former state senator from 10th district (2021)
- Stephanie Stahl Hamilton, state representative for 10th district (2021–present)
- Pamela Hannley, state representative for 9th district (2017–present)
- Steve May, former state representative for 26th district (1997–2000) (Republican)
- Jamescita Peshlakai, former state senator from 7th district (2017–2021)
- Martín Quezada, state senator from 29th district (2015–2023)
- Victoria Steele, state senator from 9th district (2019–2023)
Individuals
- Camila Cabello, singer
- Kerry Washington, actress
Labor unions
- Communications Workers of America
- National Education Association
- United Mine Workers of America
Organizations
- Chicanos Por La Causa
- Emerge America
- EMILY's List
- End Citizens United
- Equality Arizona
- Feminist Majority PAC
- Human Rights Campaign
- Let America Vote
- MoveOn
- NARAL Pro-Choice America
- National Women's Political Caucus
- Planned Parenthood
- Stonewall Democrats
Polling
Aggregate polls
Results
Hobbs defeated Lake by a margin of 0.67%, narrowly outperforming Joe Biden's 0.3% margin of victory in 2020 in Arizona. Hobbs won by 37,638 votes in Maricopa County, home to a majority of Arizona's population, which was larger than her statewide margin of 17,117 votes.
By congressional district
Hobbs won five of nine congressional districts, including two that elected Republicans.
Dispute over results
On November 17, Lake refused to concede defeat, and announced she was assembling a legal team to challenge the results. Lake alleged voter disfranchisement due to ballot printing problems and long waiting lines in Maricopa County, which had elections run by local Republican officials Bill Gates and Stephen Richer. In 70 out of 223 Maricopa County polling sites, voting machine ballots were printed too lightly to be read by tabulators; the problem was caused by a printer setting which had not shown widespread issues during prior testing. If voters did not want to wait in line for the issue to be fixed, they could leave to vote at another Maricopa County polling site, with wait times for polling sites being shown online, and many polling sites had little to no waiting lines, stated Maricopa County election officials. Alternatively, voters could drop their ballots into a secure box ("Box 3"), with these ballots being later tabulated at Maricopa County's elections headquarters, under monitoring from observers from both parties; ultimately, around 17,000 Maricopa County ballots were dropped into Box 3.
Bill Gates, the Republican chair of Maricopa's Board of Supervisors, partially blamed the long lines on Arizona Republican Party chairwoman Kelli Ward for discouraging voters from using Box 3; she had claimed that Box 3 should not be used as "Maricopa County is not turning on their tabulators downtown today". Lake herself told her supporters to stay in line to vote, while a lawyer for Lake's campaign assuaged concerns about using Box 3 to vote. Lake's campaign filed a lawsuit on Election Day to extend voting for another three hours, but Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Tim Ryan declined to do so, stating: "The court doesn't have any evidence that any voter was precluded from their right to vote".
While Lake alleged that Republican-dominated areas in Maricopa County were disproportionately affected by the printing problems, The Washington Post found that the percentage of registered Republicans in affected precincts (37%) was very close to the percentage of registered Republicans across Maricopa County (35%), and also found that some Democrat-dominated areas also faced the printing problems. According to the Associated Press: "Democrats voted overwhelmingly via ballots received in the mail. In-person Election Day votes heavily favored the GOP because Lake and other prominent Republicans had claimed it was more secure, which election experts dispute." Meanwhile, The New York Times analyzed 45 of the claims of irregularities reported by voters, finding that in 34 of these 45 claims, the voters were able to cast their vote despite an inconvenience; while for the others, three raised problems with voter registration; seven gave unclear accounts as to what exactly happened; and only one said she had been denied the opportunity to vote, though she acknowledged she had arrived at her polling place at the time it closed.
Arizona's Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Wright demanded that Maricopa County explain the election problems, stating: "These complaints go beyond pure speculation, but include first-hand witness accounts that raise concerns regarding Maricopa's lawful compliance with Arizona election law".
Delays in certification of voting results
14 of Arizona's 15 counties certified the voting results by the November 28, 2022 deadline; the exception was Cochise County. Despite no evidence of irregularities with vote counting, Cochise County's Republican officials delayed their certification vote to December 2, 2022, to accommodate a hearing on the certification of voting machines. On November 21, Arizona's State Elections Director, Kori Lorick, had sent county officials' confirmation that the county's voting machines had been certified by the United States Election Assistance Commission in an accredited laboratory. However, the county's officials insisted on hearing more from those who had alleged that the voting machines were not properly certified.
On November 29, Hobbs, as secretary of state, sued the county for being unable to certify results by the deadline.
On December 1, the Pima County Superior Court ruled that the Cochise County Board of Supervisors must hold an emergency meeting on the same day to certify and approve the canvass. Hours later, the Board voted 2–0 to do so.
Lawsuit
On December 9, 2022, after Arizona certified the election, Lake initiated a lawsuit seeking a court order to either overturn Hobbs' victory and declare Lake as the winner of the election, or redo the election in Maricopa County. Lake's complaint alleged that there were hundreds of thousands of illegal votes in the election, but no evidence was provided. On December 19, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson dismissed eight of ten counts of Lake's lawsuit, regarding invalid signatures on mail-in ballots, incorrect certification, inadequate remedy, as well as violations of freedom of speech, equal protection, due process, the secrecy clause, and constitutional rights. The judge allowed the remaining two counts to go to trial, these being allegations that election officials intentionally interfered with Maricopa County ballot printers and with the chain of custody of Maricopa County ballots. The judge ruled that Lake needed to prove during the trial that the above allegations were true, and that the alleged actions "did in fact result in a changed outcome" of the election.