democrat for this for the third cycle in a row? the answer is yes, arizona is a legitimately purple state now. donald trump is a time when inflation was high, and immigration was at the forefront. a record number of migrants, republicans tully believe that they had a national race here. they had everything they needed to pull off a win again the seat. that is not the reality here. if you shift to look at the governor s race here right now, i ve just got to be frank, this as turned everybody s head here, but also with the kari lake campaign, to give you an idea what this batch is comprised of just 13.5% of this ballot drop where the mail-in early votes from monday, which heavily towards katie hobbs in the democrats. the expectation is that they were going to go in the
hoped and thought that they would. that being said, we are getting another ballot drop here tonight. kari lake s team is hopeful that they are going to skew slightly back in her favor. when you are looking at about 400,000 ballots have to be counted, if you are able to win a 52 or 53%, 48 or 47%, you can close that gap. this is a moment where you have democrat winning statewide for the third election cycle in a row here. thank you. we will continue to check in with you over the course of the day. we see that vaughn hillyard is in phoenix, arizona. joining me now is adrian fontes. the secretary of state-elect in arizona. he is a former top elections official for maricopa county. he defeated the trump backed election denier, mark finchem. he attended the january six insurrection. mr. fontes, welcome back to the show. congratulations on your victory. we were together two weeks ago. we are talking about this. i want to ask you about overnight. you repeatedly tweeted, respect the process.
joining me now jessica bayne is a phoenix reporter for axios. good morning jessica, thank you for joining us we really appreciate you for being there in the wee hours of the night in arizona. but that s the way it is in arizona politics. that s why it was lost time. we have two important abutments one is mark kelly being reelected as a senator, a democrat. and to, is adrian fontes being elected as a secretary of state. what does this mean for the out remaining outstanding races in arizona? well yeah, absolutely, and thanks for having me. i think a lot of us who have been watching this unfold we re a little surprised last night when the ballot drop went in the democrats favor. that is how we got to the point where the races for senate, and secretary of state were able to be cold. the balance more than half of the ballots that were tabulated and posted last night were what we call
even as a new batch of votes from nevada shrinks the gap between incumbent catherine cortez masto and republican adam laxalt to just one tenth of a percentage point. this race is certainly too close to call. with just under 60,000 votes left to be tallied, we are expecting another big ballot drop later today. meanwhile the arizona s race for governor, democrat katie hobbs is expanding her lead over republican kari lake. who is trailing by just over 30,000 votes. it s still too early to call. let s go to the breaking news that we re seeing. president biden is in cambodia, the first stop on his weeklong trip to asia. this morning the president met with world leaders and southeast asia in an effort to strengthen their united front against our strength of china. nbc s carrie is joining us from cambodia. what can you tell us about today s discussions? it s good to see you alex. the president began his
ballot here. it was at the time while inflation was high, and immigration was at the forefront, a record number of migrants crossing the sheer. republicans truly believed that they had, a national race here, they had everything they needed to pull off a win and again this republican seat. but that s not the reality here. and then, if you shift and look at the governor s race here right now, i just got to be frank. this turned pretty much everybody s heads here, but also, with the kari lake campaign, the katie hobbs campaign here. to give you an idea of what this batch was comprised of, just 13. 5% of this ballot drop where the mail early votes from monday that skewed heavily towards katie hobbs, mark kelly, and the democrats. the rest of them, the expectation was that they were going to go in the direction of that republican ticket. what you are looking at is that that was not the reality that played out. now, we saw a couple of hundred thousand ballots here, but about 40, 40,000 of th