Why AP called the Arizona Senate race for Ruben Gallego
The Associated Press declared Democrat Ruben Gallego the winner of Arizona’s U.S. Senate seat after vote updates on Monday and over the weekend increased his statewide lead and closed off any remaining paths to victory for Republican Kari Lake
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Associated Press declared Democrat Ruben Gallego the winner of Arizona's U.S. Senate seat after vote updates on Monday and over the weekend increased his statewide lead and closed off any remaining paths to victory for Republican Kari Lake.
At the time the AP called the race at 11:49 p.m. ET, Gallego led Lake with 50% of the vote to 48%, a margin of nearly 73,000 votes with about 95% of the total vote counted. In order to overtake Gallego, Lake would need to win about seven out of every 10 of the estimated 181,000 ballots that remain to be counted.
That was too high a hurdle for the Republican nominee to clear, considering most of the untabulated ballots come from Maricopa and Pima counties, where she's only been getting about 46% and 38% of the vote, respectively. In a large vote update on Monday night, Lake received only 42% of the vote in Maricopa, far short of what she needed to get to stay on track to overtake Gallego.
The AP only declares a winner once it can determine that a trailing candidate can’t close the gap and overtake the vote leader.
