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

PHOENIX, AZ — Three days after Election Day, the nation's eyes are on Arizona as officials continue to count ballots that decide whether Democrat Mark Kelly or Republican Blake Masters will be the state's next U.S. senator.

Not only is there much on the line for Kelly and Masters, but the results of the Arizona Senate race now play a key role in determining which political party controls the Senate for the next two years.

Patch will update this story with live vote totals as they come in. Refresh for the latest numbers available via The Associated Press. As of 2 p.m. Friday, the vote totals were:

• Kelly (D): 1,060,031 (51.7 percent)
• Masters (R): 944,958 (46.1 percent)
• Marc Victor (L): 43,573 (2.1 percent)
• Percentage of precincts reporting: 78 percent

Why the delay in results? A major part is because of all the ballots dropped off on Election Day in Arizona's biggest county.

Officials in Maricopa County have approximately 400,000 ballots left to count Thursday, Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chair Bill Gates told "CNN This Morning" on Thursday. Of those, about 290,000 were dropped off on Election Day at voting places.

There are also about 17,000 outstanding ballots — about 7 percent of those cast in person on Election Day — that were set aside due to a Tuesday printing problem at about a quarter of the county's vote tabulation centers.

A judge denied a request from Republicans to keep the polls open, saying he didn’t see evidence that people were not allowed to vote, and officials said those votes would be tallied throughout the week.

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 Associated Press contributed to this report.