Kari Lake is not going to be the governor of Arizona – at least not unless she runs again in 2026 and wins.

Without comment the Arizona Supreme Court on Wednesday turned away her last-ditch effort in her bid to argue that she, and not Katie Hobbs, was elected governor in 2022. That leaves undisturbed prior rulings by trial judges and the Court of Appeals rejecting her claims that she should be allowed to present new evidence about the failure of tabulators used on the election.

With the new order, also now gone, forever, is Lake’s request that the justices order a new election in Maricopa County.

The new ruling means that Lake, who lost to Hobbs by 17,117 votes, has exhausted all of her appeals.

Politically, that leaves her with only her current bid to be a U.S. senator. But at last count Thursday evening Lake was trailing Democrat Ruben Gallego by nearly 44,000 votes out of more than 1.5 million ballot already counted.

Lake, however, has refused to concede. And there were more than 780,000 ballots yet to be tallied

The justices issued a similar order Wednesday against Abe Hamadeh, putting an end to his claim he is entitled to a new trial so he could argue he really didn’t lose the 2022 race for attorney general.

Hamadeh contends that Mohave County Superior Court Judge Lee Jantzen denied him the time and ability to find and present new evidence that shows not all votes for him were counted.

The appellate court judges, however, said there were multiple flaws in Hamadeh’s case, ranging from some of the claims having been filed too late to the failure to prove that even if the ballots he said were ignored were counted that it would help him overcome his 280 vote loss to Democrat Kris Mayes.

But the ruling on Hamadeh comes with a couple of caveats.

First is that this may not be the end of the legal road for him as he still has a parallel challenge to the outcome of the 2022 election.

His attorney, Ryan Heath, contends that illegal votes were counted in Maricopa County and wants all ballots cast in the county disregarded for both Hamadeh and Mayes. And since Mayes did better than Hamadeh in the county, Heath says throwing out those ballots and deciding the race on what was left from the other 14 counties would leave his client with more votes.

The Court of Appeals rejected that claim just a week ago. But that still leaves the option of a Supreme Court review.

Second is the fact that Hamadeh just won the race for the U.S. House of Representatives in CD 8.

He did not return messages asking whether, assuming he got his new trial and was declared attorney general, he would take that position over serving in Congress. But given that Hamadeh will be sworn in in January, any bid to be attorney general is likely moot.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday also issued an order in the case involving Republican Mark Finchem and his 2022 bid to be secretary of state.

Finchem, who lost that race to Democrat Adrian Fontes by more than 120,000 votes, gave up trying to overturn the election last year. But he asked the Court of Appeals to set aside the decision by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Melissa Julian, who ruled that his lawsuit was “groundless” and ordered he and his attorney to pay more than $47,000 in legal fees.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court not only kept that order in place but also upheld a decision by the Court of Appeals to say Finchem must pay another $38,500 on top of that in legal costs incurred by Fontes in the appeal.

Finchem, a former state representative from Oro Valley, just won his bid this week to become a state senator from Prescott.