For Immediate Release
Tuesday, April 5, 2022
Contact: Hannah Goss, hgoss@azdem.org
DESERT DUST UP: First Full-Field #AZSen Forum Sparks Infighting
Masters: “I’ve seen what Brnovich has done on election integrity…it makes me sick.”
PHOENIX — Over the weekend, the “decidedly weak” field of GOP Senate primary candidates came together for the first full-field forum and tried to explain to Arizonans why they’re the least bad option to represent our state in the U.S. Senate.
Unsurprisingly, the event was full of infighting and shameless pandering to Donald Trump as the candidates duked it out over everything from fudged fundraising numbers to Fox News appearances to mere proximity to the “kingmaker’s” inner circle.
See below for a rundown of the night’s biggest takeaways:
- Blake Masters — who was clearly surprised to see Mark Brnovich actually show up — joked that he had never seen Brnovich on the campaign trail and called him out for sneaking “in and out.”
- Jim Lamon hit Masters for his Peter Thiel dependency, calling his $10 million super PAC backing a “corruptive force.” Masters hit back, calling Lamon “deceptive” for mischaracterizing his “self-funding” as fundraising.
- The entire field continued their tirade against Brnovich and his seemingly stalled investigation into the 2020 election. Masters said Brnovich’s work on “election integrity” makes him “sick” and Lamon touted his bankrolling of Arizona’s scam “audit.”
- Brnovich, who seemed to be shaken up over his bad press last week, said “the media tends to not like me,” defended his slow investigation into the 2020 election, and classified his opponents as all talk on Trump’s election conspiracies.
- Jim Lamon bragged about all of the endorsements he bought, mocking his opponents for having only “three to four, combined.”
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