Predicting the unpredictable

While many of this year’s races were effectively decided on Tuesday night, the dust is still settling on Arizona’s elections.

Most of the major races have been called, though election officials are still processing ballots across the state.

Since the cat isn’t in the bag quite yet, we aren’t ready to officially name the winners of our election predictions game contest — about which we’ve received several eager inquiries.

But if the results hold as the remaining ballots are counted, not a single respondent got all 13 questions right.

And a whopping total of 296 readers participated in the contest.

But there’s enough information about the results of the election available to provide an update on what the correct answers will likely be when we do eventually call the contest.

Here’s a rundown of those 13 questions, with the percentage breakdown of participants’ responses included:

More than 4 percentage points will be correct.

The question was whether Hobbs would win the race in a blowout — a term that doesn’t even begin to encapsulate her landslide victory.

As it stands, Hobbs is leading by almost 13 percentage points.

There was plenty of doubt about whether polls released by consulting firm HighGround in the lead-up to the election, which showed Hobbs winning by double digits, were accurate.

Kirk Adams, the chief of staff to former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, went so far as to say he would eat his shoe if the polls were accurate.

Bon appétit, pal.

Less than 2% will be correct.

Hourihan, who said she was called upon by God to run, won an upset victory in the third party’s primary election, knocking off entrepreneur Hugh Lytle.

But if God wanted her to run, it wasn’t so that she would win.

She currently sits at less than 1% of the vote, well under the 2% over/under figure we used for the contest.

Democrats will most certainly control the House in January.

While the size of their majority isn’t final yet, Dems are preparing to be in power and have trifecta control of the Capitol.

Check out our story from Wednesday for more on what that means.

Kolodin built his campaign on insinuations that Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes had incompetently managed some aspects of Arizona’s election system.

We asked Fontes spokesperson Calli Jones whether Kolodin ever called Fontes to concede.

We haven’t found any evidence that Kolodin conceded on election night, though he did tweet a rambling, textbook-Kolodin statement the day after in which he admitted defeat and said he was getting back to work as an attorney.

As of yesterday’s results, Petersen had racked up the most votes of the Republican candidates for the top three statewide offices. But he still lost his attorney general bid to incumbent Kris Mayes, who surpassed 1.3 million votes and is currently leading by more than 10 percentage points.

The most up-to-date counts from Thursday night show each of the three GOP candidates slightly upwards of a million votes. Petersen has the highest tally, with Kolodin following closely behind and Biggs — with the fewest votes of the Turning Point triumvirate— trailing as the group’s caboose.

Despite pre-Election Day polling suggesting Yee — the Republican and outgoing State Treasurer — would fare better than other GOP statewide candidates, Leyba Ruiz declared victory yesterday with a six-point lead in the race for Superintendent of Public Instruction.

The Democrat is poised to become Arizona’s first Latina to lead the state’s public schools system. And parents using Arizona’s universal private school vouchers are already freaking out about the changes she could make to Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program.

12News’ Craig Harris shared some tips circulating among ESA parents’ online groups, including making purchases over $1,000 before Ruiz takes office and that “nut allergies qualify for 504s.” A 504 plan provides accommodations for students with disabilities; It was one way kids could qualify for ESAs before the program became universal.

The Associated Press called CD1 for Shah yesterday, sending Feely — the former NFL kicker — back to the sidelines after his congressional bid fell short in the wealthy Scottsdale-area district.

Feely conceded in an online statement, noting that he “gave up (his) broadcasting career to pursue this endeavor,” but felt “the cost was worth it because the cause was just.”

Shah also released a statement thanking his supporters and acknowledging his opponent “for a hard-fought race.”

Like Shah, Mendoza got the green light to celebrate after the Associated Press called CD6 for the Democrat and retired U.S. Marine yesterday.

Mendoza’s win denies Ciscomani a third term in Congress and ends four years of Republican control of the Southern Arizona congressional seat.

Democrats Clara Pratte and Jonathon Hill are poised to win both seats up for grabs as they’re running well ahead of Republicans Kevin Thompson and Ralph Heap.

Their victories will shake up the power dynamic of the Corporation Commission and break the GOP’s complete control of the body that regulates energy utilities, among its other responsibilities.

While the Dems will be in the minority, Republican Lea Marquez Peterson has been increasingly critical of the status quo and could emerge as an occasional swing vote.

It appears voter turnout was lower than the last midterm election four years ago.

The Secretary of State’s Office is currently estimating that nearly 2.6 million ballots were cast. Since the office’s latest data shows almost 4.4 million registered voters across the state, that means turnout was about 58.9% — well below the 62.6% participation rate of 2022.

The vast majority of you were counting on Heap to stir up some election drama.

But this Election Day, Heap offered a rare reprieve from his ongoing beef with the county supervisors.

Instead of stirring the pot, Heap posted a lengthy statement praising his staff for pulling off a smooth early voting operation. He wrestled control of early voting back from the Board of Supervisors several months ago at the tail end of a drawn-out legal battle.

Everyone who entered got this one right.

While the words “blue wave” were nowhere to be found on the front page of the Republic’s Wednesday print edition, we did find this headline on the paper’s website.

When you click on the story, however, “blue wave” isn’t in the headline.

Given the ambiguity, we’re going to count both answers as correct.

While Trump suffered a blue tsunami after two years of disappointing voters, he let most of you down once more by leaving Arizona out of his election night Truth Social posts.

Trump sent out another round of endorsements urging Arizonans to vote for the state’s Republican candidates on Tuesday morning, but he had nothing to say about Arizona specifically once the results started rolling in.

Instead, Trump offered an assortment of Truth Social takes throughout the night, including insisting Republicans would have won “IN A LANDSLIDE” if he’d been on the ballot, bashing Fox News’ coverage and posting a picture of a red hat embroidered with “VETO.”

It seems the big guy just ain’t got that old fighting spirit no more. Perhaps he’s a little too preoccupied with the corinthian columns in his new ballroom.

What we witnessed this week is the precipitous, abject end of the Trump decade.

On Monday, it will be exactly 10 years since Trump shocked the world and won the 2016 election. And for the first time, he’ll start his week as a feeble, cornered, deeply unpopular lame duck president whose power wanes by the day.