Katie Hobbs grows lead over Kari Lake in Arizona's governor's race. Who will win the remaining votes?

Update: Katie Hobbs continues her lead over Kari Lake. New results are expected Friday night. Read the latest here.

Katie Hobbs, Arizona's Democratic nominee for governor, saw slight growth in her advantage over Republican challenger Thursday, though the number of votes left to count was so significant it promised further seesawing in the race's margins.

One big outstanding question is whom those remaining votes will favor, which is somewhat unpredictable in the purple state. In 2020, they favored Republicans. But in 2018 they propelled Democrats, including Hobbs, to razor-thin statewide victories.

It could take days — or longer — to know the answer.

Election coverage: Live news updates | Arizona election results

Hobbs, the secretary of state and a former lawmaker, saw a large lead of more than 180,000 votes when initial counts were posted Tuesday night. That dwindled to a few thousand over GOP challenger and former television news anchor Kari Lake early Wednesday morning, but widened slightly later that evening.

She widened the gap by Thursday evening, to just over 1 percentage point, as counties continued reporting early vote counts, including a big batch in Maricopa County. The race's margin at least for now proves right the political forecasters who called the race a toss-up.

Over 2 million votes cast by Arizonans already were counted, and more than 550,000 are left to tally, according to information collected by the Arizona Secretary of State's Office. The majority of those are in Maricopa County, where ballots counted so far have favored Hobbs by about 4 percentage points.

Major updates on newly counted votes are expected each evening, and officials in the state's most populous counties — with the most votes outstanding — have said their work could take days. Smaller updates could come throughout the day from more rural counties.

Given the tightness of the race, that also means media outlets like the Associated Press may not declare a winner for several days or more.

Will 2020, or 2018, repeat?

If voting patterns from 2020 hold, and there are signs they will given Lake's strong support among voters who cast ballots in person on Election Day, she could surge into the lead as remaining ballots that were dropped off Tuesday are counted.

But some political observers are hesitant to assume that, noting that 2020 upended voting patterns amid unprecedented circumstances, namely fears around voting during the COVID-19 pandemic and Donald Trump's sowing of distrust in election systems.

Reading tea leaves based entirely on the election two years ago may ignore a decade of history before it, said Tony Cani, a Democratic consultant who worked on Biden's successful 2020 campaign. Like 2020, this race could offer its own surprises, too.

“I think the question is, are these 'late earlies' going to be more like 2020 or more like 2018?” Cani asked. “There's all the assumptions people are making about the timing of this, and I just don’t think we can make those assumptions."

"Late early" ballots generally refer to ballots dropped off on Election Day or received by elections officials in the days immediately prior.

Most Arizonans receive ballots by mail, and can return them via a mailbox, dropbox or by dropping them off on Election Day. Any votes returned close to Election Day take longer to count as officials must verify signatures and process the ballots themselves. Those are what remain to count and that could shift the race's leader in coming days.

In 2020, these ballots broke in favor of Trump, though they ultimately weren't enough to overcome President Joe Biden's early lead. Looking back at 2018 offers a different pattern.

In the U.S. Senate race that year, Democrat Kyrsten Sinema initially trailed GOP rival Martha McSally in election night counts. The suspenseful days that followed saw the candidates exchanging leads until those early ballots that were counted and ultimately pushed Sinema, the Democrat, to victory.

Hobbs also was on the ballot that year, running for her current position as secretary of state.

Her race against Republican Steve Gaynor was so tight that the Associated Press initially — and erroneously — called it for Gaynor, who held a lead on election night. But like Sinema, Hobbs bounced back after the late received early ballots in the state's urban centers were added to the count.

It was 10 days after the election that Gaynor conceded and Hobbs declared victory, which came by a razor-thin margin of 20,000 votes, less than 1 percentage point.

All eyes on the Ariz. governor's race

The race for Arizona's next governor, one of the most closely followed in the country, embodied the national dynamics of the midterm, with GOP hopeful Lake championing economic and border issues while Hobbs ran on combating election lies and protecting abortion rights.

Lake, 53, used her decades on-camera to appeal to Arizonans, many of whom already knew her, and rose to prominence aligning herself with false claims of widespread election fraud.

Hobbs, 52, relied on her national profile defending the state’s 2020 election to propel her bid for the Governor’s Office. As Arizona’s secretary of state, Hobbs oversees elections and is second-in-line to the governor.

Lake's unconventional and instinct-driven campaign, in which she served as both candidate and campaign manager, thrived in the spotlight. She toured the state speaking to voters in what she often described as a job interview, portraying herself as a change agent and fighter against everything from border cartels to the media.

With a decade of election wins under her belt, Hobbs ran a more traditional campaign, spending big on advertising to get her name and ideas before voters. Her bid was at times notable for its fumbles, especially for its handling of controversies including discrimination cases Hobbs was involved in while she was a state senate leader and her refusal to debate Lake.

Hobbs instead focused on her experience and defense of election processes, often casting the race as a choice between "sanity and chaos" and a vote for her as necessary to preserve democracy.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, will leave office in January, turning over the helm of the state to Arizona's fifth female governor, whether its Lake or Hobbs ultimately declared the winner.

The gubernatorial race saw unprecedented spending and fundraising in part thanks to the close contest itself and Arizona's growing prominence in the national spotlight.

Hobbs outraised Lake ahead of the November election and outspent her in the cycle, too, at $12.1 million compared to $8.6 million. But with outside money seeking to influence the race factored in, $24.6 million boosted Hobbs' bid compared to $19.4 million backing Lake, according to the latest financial reports.

Reach reporter Stacey Barchenger at stacey.barchenger@arizonarepublic.com or 480-416-5669. Follow her on Twitter @sbarchenger.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona governor race results: Will Lake or Hobbs win remaining votes?