Kyrsten Sinema widens lead again over Martha McSally in pivotal day for Arizona's U.S. Senate race

Yvonne Wingett Sanchez Ronald J. Hansen
The Republic | azcentral.com
U.S. Senate Candidates Martha McSally and Kyrsten Sinema

Democrat Kyrsten Sinema widened her lead again over Republican Martha McSally on Sunday, a pivotal day in the U.S. Senate race as the number of uncounted ballots dwindled. 

Sinema expanded her lead to 32,292 votes — a 1.5 percentage-point lead — as of 6:20 p.m. Sunday, according to updated counts posted by the Arizona Secretary of State. Her campaign manager predicted her victory was inevitable. 

The lengthy vote-count process, which has continued long after the polls closed Nov. 6, is mostly due to the need to verify signatures for voters who vote by mail. 

The Arizona Republic estimates about 215,000 ballots remain to be counted statewide.

To remain competitive, McSally needs to outperform all of her previous showings in Maricopa County, the state's most populous area and one that Sinema has dominated.

Sinema's campaign manager wrote in a statement that McSally would need a miracle to pull out a win. 

“With the latest ballot count, Kyrsten’s lead is insurmountable," Andrew Piatt's statement said. "McSally’s campaign said today’s results would be her ‘firewall’ but as we expected, no firewall emerged ... Kyrsten has now expanded her overall lead to 32,640 or 1.52 percent, meaning McSally would have to win the remainder of Maricopa County ballots by 22 percent to take the lead in this race. This is not plausible. Kyrsten will be declared the next U.S. Senator from Arizona.”

MORE:Here's how many votes are left to count in the Martha McSally-Kyrsten Sinema Senate race

McSally's campaign did not immediately weigh in on the latest update. Shortly before the results were posted, McSally asked followers of her Facebook page to report any problems they may have had when voting.  

"URGENT: Numerous reports of improper procedures at polling locations. Help us gather the facts," the Facebook post said. It directed followers to a phone number and a National Republican Senatorial Committee website to report "ANY voting irregularities or problems you witnessed."

Shortly before 7 p.m., the post had been removed from her page.

As of Sunday evening, no group had brought forward allegations of specific criminal activity, although one earlier — and now resolved — Republican lawsuit addressed an equity issue over how early-ballot signatures are verified. 

Sinema's count stood at 1,071,280, or 49.6 percent of the total votes cast. McSally stood at 1,038,988, or 48.1 percent of the vote. Green Party candidate Angela Green captured 50,757 votes, representing 2.3 percent. 

On Sunday, Sinema picked up 2,224 net votes in Maricopa County and another 584 votes from Apache and Coconino counties. McSally picked up a net 348 votes in Pinal County.

Based on The Republic's estimate of the votes remaining, McSally would need to win by about 15 percentage points to tie the race. The uncounted ballots are in Maricopa, Coconino, Pima and Pinal counties.

Sinema is currently winning in Maricopa, Pima and Coconino. McSally is winning in Pinal County. About 7 percent of the remaining uncounted ballots are in Pinal County.

Senator sidesteps GOP allegations of improprieties

As Sinema's lead has grown, GOP officials nationally have suggested that Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, was "cooking the books" for Sinema. That accusation comes as the GOP has suggested outright fraud in Florida in close-elections there.  

Earlier Sunday, a top national Republican sidestepped his group's assertion that Fontes, the top Maricopa County election official, is “cooking the books” for Sinema in the Senate race. 

Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colorado, the National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman, made the comments on CNN’s “State of the Union,” and NBC's "Meet the Press" ahead of Sunday's tabulation.

Gardner offered no evidence for the NRSC's book-cooking assertion on the political shows.

"I think what we’ve seen in Arizona is the attempt to make sure like in Florida that we’re treating everybody equally under the law," Gardner said. "There had been concern that in Maricopa, a process was being used to determine signatures or validations of ballots that differed from other parts … of the state.”

Gardner said legally-cast votes should be treated the same, regardless of differing practices across the counties.

“But where’s the evidence that anybody was cooking the books,” asked CNN host Jake Tapper.

“Well, we had evidence that people were treating ballots differently,” Gardner responded.

EXPLORE: How the McSally-Sinema race is playing out precinct by precinct

In a later appearance on "Meet the Press," Gardner seemed to try to distance himself from the NRSC's "cooking the books" to benefit Sinema assertion. He likened the dispute in Arizona to allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

“There’s a lot of (press) releases that go out that I don’t see. I’m not familiar with this one," he said. "It’s not the first time that somebody has been accused of cooking the books or rigging the outcome in an election. I think that’s what the last two years have been about by Democrats trying to go after President (Donald) Trump on that as well.

“What I think we have to do, and what we’ve proven in the agreements that we’ve come to in Arizona, is a way to treat voters equally across the state. Look, this is about making sure the votes are counted and that they’re counted fairly.”

Sen. Jeff Flake, a one-term Republican who did not seek re-election this year, rejected his party's recent rhetoric in a tweet Sunday. 

"There is no evidence of election officials 'cooking the books' in Arizona," Flake said. "Such careless language undermines confidence in our democratic institutions."

Apart from the NRSC's cheating allegations, Gardner also sounded an optimistic note for McSally.

“I think we do have a chance to win in Arizona. I do think there is a path. We’ve seen it in the numbers, but I do think it’s important that we protect the people of Arizona. We can’t sit by and allow votes to be counted in Maricopa (County) that would not be counted somewhere else.”

McSally's numbers improve Sunday

As she lost ground to Sinema over the course of several days, McSally remained confident she would reverse the trend with the tabulation of early ballots dropped off at polling locations on Election Day, the so-called "firewall" referenced in Piatt's statement. Those numbers could be reflected in Sunday's tally. 

McSally fared better in the Sunday batch of votes from Maricopa County but once again trailed Sinema’s total by 6.2 percentage points.

On Saturday, Sinema led McSally by 7 percentage points among the 72,000 votes from Maricopa County tallied that day. Sinema won the vote reported by Maricopa County Friday night by 15 percentage points.

Through the weekend, Sinema’s net gain from Maricopa County gave her an additional 18,675 votes over McSally.

 

 

GOP attacks Maricopa County elections chief 

As the count has continued, the Arizona Republican Party and its chair have sought to taint Sinema's lead with statements intended to cast doubt on Arizona's election system.

The state GOP party on Sunday tweeted to its 20,600 followers a year-old news story about Fontes' expletive-laden insult of a Goodyear voter who complained that his ballot was confusing.

About the same time Sunday's results posted online, the state party upped the story again, saying Fontes "is unfit to fairly count our votes."

Earlier in the day, the state party also tweeted out a link to a Fox News segment in which a local Republican attorney asserts that Democrats are more concerned about counting votes cast by those of their party affiliation than that of others. 

Last week, Republicans mounted a legal challenge centered on a procedural lack of consistency in the time frame county recorders allow voters to correct signature issues on mail-in ballots. Under a settlement struck Friday, all of Arizona's counties will allow voters to verify the signatures on their ballots through 5 p.m. on Nov. 14.

Appearing on 12 News' "Sunday Square Off," Fontes broadly addressed criticisms of him and dismissed the notion he had improperly handled ballots.

"They don't have a legal leg to stand on, and in my mind, that's not partisanship," Fontes said. "What that is is demoralizing voters and eroding the faith that we have in our democratic systems."

The same practices used by his office and county recorders across the state delivered victories to other Republicans, including Gov. Doug Ducey and Attorney General Mark Brnovich. 

CNN's Tapper also noted that neither Ducey nor McSally have specifically repeated the NRSC's "cooking the books" claims. 

Familiar scenario for the two candidates

McSally is familiar with closely contested elections, having won her first congressional race by 167 votes.

During Sinema's first congressional bid, it took days for her to learn whether or not she won over her Republican challenger. 

While Sinema has remained out of the public eye, McSally appeared Saturday night at an event hosted by a conservative group. To a standing ovation, she took the stage, and shared it with U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl, Gov. Doug Ducey and conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt.

Follow Wingett Sanchez on Twitter and Facebook and contact her at yvonne.wingett@arizonarepublic.com. Follow Hansen on Twitter and contact him at ronald.hansen@arizonarepublic.com.