Republican Stephen Richer Takes Lead over Democrat Donor Adrian Fontes in Maricopa County Recorder Election

Republican Stephen Richer has taken the lead over incumbent Democrat Adrian Fontes in the election for Maricopa County Recorder, and it’s likely he’ll defeat Fontes in the race to become the primary elections official in one of the most contentious swing counties in the entire country.

Richer holds a slim 929,098 to 926,653 lead over Fontes, representing a difference of 2,445 votes. The remainder of ballots that are outstanding in Arizona’s election trend towards Republican-leaning election day ballots, making it more than likely Richer will secure the upset. There are a total of approximately 44,000 outstanding Maricopa County ballots.

Fontes is currently under intense political scrutiny for his job performance as Recorder. Neither Arizona or Maricopa County- which contains 60% of the state’s population- have fully reported vote totals for the critical swing state, and the results could conceivably break for either Joe Biden or Donald Trump.

Big League Politics has reported upon Fontes’ track record of questionable practices, which includes cursing out critics of his performance as recorder. Maricopa County voters have accused Fontes of coordinating the location of “emergency voting centers” with Democrat Senate candidate Kyrsten Sinema, and one voter described seeing “pre-marked” ballots for Sinema in a sworn affidavit released by the Arizona Republican Party in 2018. Fontes has largely failed in his campaign promise to expedite the process of voting in election day polling centers, with long wait times occurring in the 2018 midterm.

Richer has pledged to make elections in the Phoenix-area county “boring again,” accusing the Democrat elections boss of being an uncivil partisan.