With the number of votes left to count so significant, it promises further seesawing in the race's margins.
The question is who will get the most votes in the purple state. They preferred Republicans in 2020. They helped the Democrats win razor-thin statewide victories.
It could take a long time to find out the answer.
The election results are live.
When initial counts were posted Tuesday night, the secretary of state had a large lead over his opponent. Early Wednesday morning it was a few thousand over the GOP challenger, but later that evening it was a few thousand in front.
At least for now, the political forecasters who called the race a toss-up proved correct.
According to the Arizona Secretary of State's Office, over 1.9 million votes were cast by Arizonans. The majority of those are in the state of Arizona.
Each evening, major updates on newly counted votes are expected, and officials in the state's most populous counties have said their work could take days. There could be smaller updates throughout the day.
The Associated Press may not proclaim a winner for several days or more because of the tight race.
Lake could surge into the lead as the remaining ballots are counted if the voting patterns from 2020 hold.
Some political watchers are hesitant to assume that since 2020 upended voting patterns amid unprecedented circumstances, including fears about voting during the COVID-19 epidemic and Donald Trump's sowing of distrust in election systems.
Tony Cani, a Democratic consultant who worked on Biden's successful 2020 campaign, said that reading tea leaves based on the election may overlook a decade of history. This race could have its own surprises as well.
Are these late earlies going to be the same as 2020 or 2018? Cani wanted to know. I don't think we can make assumptions about the timing of the event.
Ballots dropped off on Election Day are referred to as late early ballots.
Most Arizonans receive their ballots by mail and can either return them via a mailbox or drop them off on election day. It takes longer for votes to be counted as officials must verify signatures and process the ballots themselves. That could change the leader in the coming days.
These ballots broke in favor of Trump, but they weren't enough to overcome Biden's lead. A different pattern was offered by looking back at last year.
In the U.S. Senate race that year, Democrat Kyrsten Sinema was in a close race with Republican Martha McSally. Sinema, the Democrat, won the election because of the early ballots that were counted.
She ran for secretary of state that year as well.
The race was so close that the Associated Press mistakenly called it for Steve Gaynor. Early ballots received in the state's urban centers were added to the count.
It took 10 days after the election for Gaynor to concede and for Hobbs to be declared the winner.
The race for Arizona's next governor, one of the most closely followed in the country, exemplified the national dynamics of the election, with GOP hopeful Lake advocating for economic and border issues while his opponent fought to protect abortion rights.
Lake used her decades on camera to appeal to Arizonans, many of whom already knew her, aligning herself with false claims of widespread election fraud.
She relied on her national profile to propel her bid for the governor's office. The secretary of state is second in line to the governor.
Lake's unconventional and instinct-driven campaign thrived in the spotlight. She toured the state speaking to voters in what she often described as a job interview, portraying herself as a change agent and fighter against everything she encountered.
With a decade of election wins under her belt, she ran a more traditional campaign, spending a lot of money on advertising to get her name and ideas before voters. She was involved in discrimination cases while she was a state senate leader and refused to debate Lake.
She cast the race as a choice between "sanity and chaos" and a vote for her as necessary to preserve democracy.
The governor of Arizona, a Republican, will leave office in January and be replaced by a woman.
Thanks to the close contest and Arizona's growing prominence in the national spotlight, the governor's race saw unprecedented spending and raising.
Lake outspent her opponent in the cycle by a factor of two, as she raised more money and spent it at a higher rate. The latest financial reports show that $24.6 million of outside money influenced the race, compared to $19.4 million of Lake's money.
The reporter can be reached at stacey.barchener@arizonarepublic.com You can follow her on the social networking site.
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The Arizona governor race results were originally published on Arizona Republic.
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