Arizona U.S. Senate Race 2022 Results: Mark Kelly Vs. Blake Masters

Updated, 3:30 p.m. Wednesday

PHOENIX, AZ — Arizona voters on Tuesday decided whether Mark Kelly would hold on to a U.S. Senate seat won in a 2020 special election, a victory that gave Democrats both of Arizona's Senate seats for the first time in 70 years.

On the Republican ticket was venture capitalist Blake Masters, who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump and was a member of Trump's 2016 transition team. On his website, Masters vowed to "Make Arizona Great Again."

Kelly carried a 1.5-point lead over Masters on Election Day, according to FiveThirtyEight.com.

Patch will update this story with live vote totals as they come in. Refresh for the latest numbers available via The Associated Press:

• Kelly (D): 935,459 (51.2 percent)
• Masters (R): 852,197 (46.6 percent)
• Marc Victor (L): 39,297 (2.2 percent)
• Percentage of precincts reporting: 67 percent

Kelly led in the initial results Tuesday, which reflected mail ballots returned ahead of Election Day. Masters was expected to narrow that lead as ballots cast in person are tabulated. Mail ballots returned on Tuesday or shortly before were not yet reported and will be counted in the coming days.

With razor-thin margins between the parties, it often takes days to know the results of key races in Arizona, and it’s not uncommon for the candidate leading on election night to end up losing when all votes are counted.

The Maricopa County Elections Department on Wednesday estimated it had 400,000 ballots left to count, including 275,000 early ballots. Officials said results from 1.1 million ballots have been reported, and a new batch of results would likely be released Wednesday night.

In Maricopa County, tensions were high Tuesday as workers at 20 percent of the county's 223 polling locations faced technical problems with tabulators. Election officials initially called the problem a "hiccup'; however, some GOP politicians and pundits immediately questioned the integrity of the state's election.

The issue, later attributed to faulty printers, prompted a coalition of Republican groups to file an emergency motion to extend poll hours in Maricopa County and to correct poll-worker errors, according to a National Review report. A judge denied the request shortly before 7 p.m. Tuesday, according to the Arizona Mirror.

Bill Gates, chairman of the Maricopa County board of supervisors and a Republican, told reporters in downtown Phoenix that "everyone is still getting to vote," according to NBC News.

"No one has been disenfranchised," Gates said.

The Race For Arizona's Senate Seat

The Arizona race is one of a handful of contests that Republicans targeted in their bid to take control of the now 50-50 Senate. It's a test of the inroads that Kelly and other Democrats have made in a state once reliably dominated by Republicans and will offer clues about whether Democratic success here was a direct response to the Trump presidency or a more enduring trend.

Kelly won a November 2020 special election following the death of U.S. Sen. John McCain, defeating Republican Sen. Martha McSally by less than 10,000 votes. Before joining Congress, Kelly served as a U.S. Navy pilot and a NASA astronaut.

Arizona's other Senate seat is held by Democrat Kyrsten Sinema.

Kelly has distanced himself from President Joe Biden, particularly on the issue of border security, and often plays down his Democratic affiliation. Like McCain, Kelly has branded himself as an independent willing to buck his party.

Kelly told the Wall Street Journal he thinks daily about the fact that he holds McCain’s former seat.

"(His) legacy is one that we should all strive to live up to. Because Arizona deserves nothing less than a leader committed to always putting country first," Kelly told the newspaper.

Kelly is also married to former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords, who survived a gunshot wound to the head during a shooting at a Tucson event that killed six people and injured 13. After the shooting, Kelly and Giffords went on to co-found Americans for Responsible Solutions, a gun control advocacy group.

Masters grew up in Tucson, according to his website. After graduating from Stanford University and Stanford Law School, Blake co-founded a software startup company called Judicata. In 2015, he became president of the Thiel Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes science and innovation and whose fellowship program has paid 225 young people to drop out of college so that they can create new companies.

From 2018 to 2022, Blake was the chief operating officer at Thiel Capital, an investment firm that specializes in the technology sector, where he helped grow assets under management by billions of dollars.

When Masters joined Trump's transition team in 2016, he "saw firsthand how deep The Swamp really is and how establishment forces immediately tried to undermine President Trump’s MAGA agenda," his website reads.

In his endorsement, Trump called Masters a "great modern-day thinker," according to a CNN report.

"Blake knows that the 'Crime of the Century' took place, he will expose it and also, never let it happen again," Trump said in a statement, repeating false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election.

Masters has also said that if elected, he intends to push back against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Masters also suggested the party needs new leadership.

McConnell "will not own me, McConnell doesn't love me. And clearly, he had a chance to help. He didn't do it," Masters told the newspaper. "He doesn't want me in there, but he's about to be stuck with me."

Some Arizona Republicans have opted to align themselves with Kelly rather than support Masters.

Rick Romley, the former Republican Maricopa County Attorney, told The Wall Street Journal that while he was still a Republican, he did not vote for Masters.

"That’s because above all else, above all political parties, I value leadership, integrity and a person who plays the service above self," Romley said.

The Associate Press contributed to this report.