By Howard Fischer
Mail | Twitter: @azcapmedia

PHOENIX - Kathy Hoffman on Thursday morning conceded the  race for Arizona's  superintendent of public instruction to Republican Tom Horne.

"After a hard-fought race, we came up short," the incumbent said on her Twitter account. "I want to thank my supporters, volunteers and staff who stood by me during this election. And I especially want to thank my family for all of their love and support."

A recount is likely in the race for attorney general.

There, Democrat Kris Mayes saw her lead over Republican Abe Hamadeh cut by 60 votes on Wednesday. That leaves her with a 711-vote edge in the contest, well within the margin of an automatic recount.

But the chances that the hotly contested governor's race, already called by media outlets for Democrat Katie Hobbs, could wind up in a recount appear to have evaporated.

Republican Kari Lake picked up a few more votes Wednesday than Hobbs. But she still trails by 17,200.

In essence, that means something close to two thirds of all those uncounted ballots would have to be a vote for Lake to bring her within one half of one percent of all the votes tallied and trigger a recount. And that's a margin she has never reached on any day's reports.

Lake, however, has refused to concede. She even put up a Twitter post on Wednesday with a series of clips from campaign events and rallies accompanied by audio from the Tom Petty hit "I Won't Back Down.''

The GOP contender has complained of "vote suppression'' based on problems with ballot printers and tabulators in Maricopa County on Election Day that she said resulted in long lines and some people leaving polling places without voting.

There was a lawsuit filed in connection with that incident which sought to keep the polls open beyond 7 p.m., a bid that was immediately rejected by a judge.

It also sought to require the counting of provisional ballots of people who went to a different location that day but found they could not vote because they had been recorded as checking in and voting at the first site.

But that lawsuit, filed on behalf of Lake as well as GOP Senate candidate Blake Masters, was ended after the attorneys voluntarily dismissed it.

No other legal action is pending.