For Immediate Release
Tuesday, August 2, 2022
Contact: Hannah Goss, hgoss@azdem.org
LET THE GAMES BEGIN: What You Need to Know on Election Day in the GOP Senate Primary
PHOENIX — Today, GOP primary voters will begrudgingly choose their Republican Senate nominee from a laundry list of “C-listers” after more than a year of in-fighting and tens of millions spent. As we wait for polls to close, only one thing is clear: whoever crawls out of the race is heading directly into an uphill battle in this November’s general election. In the meantime, we put together a rundown to recap what you may have missed over the course of this wild ride of a race.
THEY SURE DIDN’T SEND THEIR BEST: For months, pundits and party leaders alike have pointed out the “decidedly weak” nature of this field. Here’s the thing: Republicans only have themselves to blame. Between the number Trump did on both Brnovich and Ducey (who chose not to run after facing a barrage of attacks from Trump) and the outsized role of MAGA money that catapulted both Lamon and Masters from irrelevance to minuscule significance, these “lesser-known Republicans” were behind from the jump, and it’s only been downhill since.
TWO WORDS: “BLOOD BRAWL”: After over a year of this primary’s near-constant intra-party infighting, bad press, and embarrassing fundraising hauls, it’s all coming to an end. This race has been described as “nasty,” “bloody,” “bitter,” “combustible,” “chaotic,” and “costly,” leaving the eventual nominee “bruised and battered,” tasked with uniting a fractured Republican Party as he crawls into the general.
RACE TO THE RIGHT: Whether you want to call it a race to the bottom or a race to the right, these GOP candidates ended up in the same place. When they weren’t embracing Trump’s baseless lies about the 2020 election, these candidates touted equally unpopular and dangerous plans including a push to completely ban abortion, dismantle Social Security, and hike taxes on nearly 50% of Arizonans — leaving the nominee stuck in the fringes when they try (and fail) to become remotely electable for the general election.
ALL IN THE ADS: It’s not even the general election, and Arizonans have already seen $25 million worth of reasons not to vote for Mark Brnovich, Jim Lamon, and Blake Masters. With ads slamming the rivals for everything from incendiary blog posts and billionaire puppet masters to shady business records and unseemly greed, Republicans have already spent big to tear each other apart, leaving the AZ GOP “splintered” heading into the home stretch.
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