Democrat Fontes elected over GOP's Mark Finchem as Arizona secretary of state

Democrat Adrian Fontes will defeat Republican candidate Mark Finchem in the Arizona secretary of state race, the Tucson Sentinel projects. Fontes is leading 53-47 in the latest vote count, and has widened his lead.

While there are still about 370,000 ballots yet to count in Arizona, Fontes' vote total is far enough ahead that the GOP candidate will not be able to take the lead, a Sentinel analysis indicates. An update of 74,951 votes from Maricopa County on Friday evening had a 56-44 split for the Democrat, putting the election well out of reach for Finchem.

"I am honored to be presumptively elected Arizona's next secretary of state," Fontes said in a brief press release, stopping short of declaring victory himself.

"I will make it my mission to bring us closer together than we have been during these last few years," he said. "The America of tomorrow can be a place where being an American is more important than your political party. We must embrace dignity for our fellow human beings and work to become Americans who respect our neighbors, regardless of how they vote. I promise to always honor and defend the ideal of fair and honest elections with the voters of Arizona and I will help reignite the flame of unity in our republic."

Fontes, a former Maricopa County recorder who lost a re-election bid in 2020, will be set to take over the Secretary of State's Office next year. He pursued a firebrand primary campaign to move on to this year's general election, forcefully making the case that he'd fight against Trumpist election deniers.

Finchem, a former state legislator who allied himself with ex-President Donald Trump and was present on the U.S. Capitol grounds during the Jan. 6 insurrection, is a Michigan retiree who lives in the suburbs north of Tucson. Finchem was prominent among those who spread convoluted and ungrounded conspiracist claims that the 2020 election was "stolen" from Trump.

Fontes was leading Friday night by 118,151 votes, after a large update in the count from Maricopa County.

The Democrat had 1,129,144 votes, to 1,011,019 for Finchem.

There were about 370,000 ballots remaining to be counted across the state, almost all in Maricopa and Pima counties.

Prior to that update, Fontes had led by about 113,000 votes.

Finchem, along with U.S. Senate candidate Blake Masters, had trailed other statewide Republican candidates on the ballots. While Democrats were narrowly leading in many of the competitive top contests for state office, their Republican opponents were virtually tied or only handful of points behind them Friday. But Finchem was failing to pick up support from voters who filled out their ballots for other GOP candidates.

That same Friday update saw U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly widen his lead over Masters to nearly 124,000 votes — causing the Associate Press, NBC, Washington Post and other outlets to follow the lead of the Tucson Sentinel's call of that race nearly 24 hours earlier.

Follow the count

Even as news organizations "call" political races, elections officials continue to count the votes until the very last ballot. In Arizona, the election canvass — the formal announcement of the results by the secretary of state — does not take place until Dec. 5.

The most up-to-date vote totals are available at the Arizona Secretary of State's Office site:

Statewide results

Pima County results

Ballots remaining