Republican Kari Lake fell further behind Saturday in her bid to be Arizona governor.
And the chances of her becoming the state's next chief executive are dimming.
The latest tally from Maricopa County Saturday evening added 43,795 to the total of the GOP contender. By contrast, only 40,796 of the new votes were for Democrat Katie Hobbs.
Only thing is, that was not enough to make up for the fact that Hobbs has been picking up votes elsewhere. And the new statewide totals increase Hobbs' edge to 34,129, up by more than 3,000 from the same time Friday.
That gives Hobbs 50.8% of the more than 2.3 million ballots already counted against 49.2% for Lake.
Lake's prospects are mired in math.
There are about 267,000 ballots yet to be tallied statewide.
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About 53,000 of those are from Pima County. And votes there have trended toward Democratic candidates.
What that leaves is about 195,000 votes in Maricopa County.
The vast majority of those are from people who dropped off their early ballots at polling places on Election Day. Lake has continued to insist that these are from voters who should heavily favor Republicans.
But Lake gathered only 51.8% of the the more than 85,000 votes Maricopa counted Saturday. Those votes also came largely from those same-day drop-offs that Lake claimed would fall her way. And if that trend holds for the remaining 195,000, it won't be enough for Lake to overtake Hobbs.
There was no immediate comment from Lake Saturday night.
The slightly heavier edge for Republicans in the latest data dump from Maricopa County also was not enough to dent the lead of Democrat Mark Kelly in the Senate contest against Blake Masters. Kelly remains safely reelected, with a lead of more than 131,000 and 52.8% of the vote.
Adrian Fontes also has nothing to worry about in his successful bid to become the next secretary of state. He now is up by 126,000 votes over Mark Finchem, his GOP foe, with 52.8% of the total.
The news Saturday night for Finchem was doubly bad.
While the new vote tallies from Maricopa County did skew in favor of most Republicans, Finchem actually lost ground in the latest Maricopa report. The new votes boosted the edge for Fontes to a likely insurmountable gap of more than 126,000 votes and 52.8% of the total.
The story on Saturday evening was mixed for the two other Democrats locked in close races that remain too close to call.
Kris Mayes, running for attorney general, now has a lead over Abe Hamadeh of fewer than 22,000 votes, collecting 50.5% of the vote.
And incumbent state schools chief Kathy Hoffman now just has a 9,400-vote advantage over Republican Tom Horne, giving her 50.2% of the total votes cast.
With control of the U.S. Congress still hanging in the balance days after this week's midterm elections, many disappointed Republicans are putting the blame squarely on former president Donald Trump.
Howard Fischer is a veteran journalist who has been reporting since 1970 and covering state politics and the Legislature since 1982. Follow him on Twitter at @azcapmedia or email azcapmedia@gmail.com.
