Who Won The Arizona Governor Race? Trump-Backed Republican Kari Lake Refuses To Concede

Kari Lake, the Republican nominee for Arizona governor, has refused to concede after losing to Democrat Katie Hobbs.

The Associated Press called the election for Hobbs on Monday. As of Thursday, Hobbs has maintained a lead of more than 17,000 votes.

Lake, who has denied the results of the 2020 election and was endorsed by Donald Trump, posted a video to Twitter on Thursday, saying she will "fight on" and is in the process of developing a legal team to dispute the election results.

"Rest assured, I have assembled the best and brightest legal team and we are exploring every avenue to correct the many wrongs that have been done this past week," Lake said in the video.

"I'm doing everything in my power to right these wrongs."

Before the election, Lake was asked if she would accept the results of the election if she lost. Lake declined to give a direct answer.

Lake has claimed that a printing issue in Maricopa County, the most populous county in the state, disenfranchised voters.

On Election Day, 70 voting centers in the county out of 223 printed out ballots with ink that was too light and couldn't be tabulated by machines. Voters at the 70 stations had the option to wait in line until the issue was fixed, deposit their ballot in a secure box to be sent to the county's central tabulation facility, or cast a ballot at a different voting center.

In a post to Truth Social, Trump added to Lake's unfounded allegations of voter disenfranchisement.

"So in Maricopa County they're at it again. ... but only in Republican districts," Trump posted. "Do Election over again!"

Election officials said that no one was denied the right to vote and that the issue impacted less than 7% of votes. Conservative pundits across the country have argued that since more Republicans vote in person on Election Day that the ballots affected by the printing issue would skew to Republicans.

A Washington Post analysis found that Republican voters were not disproportionately impacted by the printing issue. "...The proportion of registered Republicans in affected precincts, about 37 percent, is virtually the same as the share of registered Republicans across the county, which stands at 35 percent," the report noted.

In a joint statement, Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chair Bill Gates and Vice Chairman Clint Hickman clarified the issue. "Voters impacted by the printer issue had several ways to cast their ballot yesterday, including dropping their completed ballot into a secure box (door 3) on site. Those ballots will be verified as legitimate and then tabulated."

Since the video was posted, Lake has continued to post videos of alleged disenfranchised voters from the election on her Twitter page.

She posted an advertisement to voters on Thursday which wrote,"Are you one of the thousands of Maricopa County voters that experienced serious issues on Election Day? Our attorneys want to hear from you!"

Trump's choice for Arizona Secretary of State, Mark Finchem, lost by over 5 points to his Democratic opponent. In his campaign, Finchem had called for an overhaul of Arizona's voting process.