For Immediate Release
Saturday, April 30, 2022
Contact: Hannah Goss, hgoss@azdem.org
Senate Showdown: A Week of Forums, Fights, and Fox News Endorsements
PHOENIX — Welcome to this week’s edition of the ‘Senate Showdown’ — a weekly roundup of the latest news in Arizona’s “crowded,” “costly,” and “chaotic” GOP Senate primary.
With “no clear frontrunner,” these amateur candidates will be busy duking it out well into the summer, ahead of Arizona’s August primary date. Until then, the Arizona Democratic Party’s ‘Showdown’ is here to help you keep track of this race’s breaking news, cringiest Tweets, and nastiest doses of infighting.
Here’s what you missed this week:
FIGHT NIGHT: Masters versus Brnovich (maybe). About a week ago, Blake Masters, desperate for an enthusiasm bump IRL (Twitter isn’t real life, Blake), issued a click-bait worthy head-to-head “election integrity” debate challenge to Mark Brnovich. We doubt Brno will show, but if he does, will he bring the nunchucks?
EW, BLAKE: Earlier this week, Jewish Insider unearthed an old essay from Blake Masters wherein Peter Thiel’s puppet quoted a Nazi leader and cited antisemitic conspiracy theorists. Unsurprisingly, when confronted with these facts, he failed to take responsibility and instead pivoted to attack the journalist, à la Kari Lake.
MONKEY SEE, MONKEY DO: Jim Lamon officially stole the one play Brnovich has in his playbook. Like the absentee AG, Lamon has started bailing on campaign events and hiding from voters. Just this week, the duo ditched not one but two full-field events and left us thinking…maybe public service just isn’t for them?
FOX NEWS DIVIDED: Yesterday, Sean Hannity officially joined the Brno Brigade and endorsed Mark Brnovich’s candidacy. This leaves Fox News divided, pitting Brnovich and Hannity against Tucker Carlson and Tucker Carlson wannabe, Blake Masters.
GREEN WITH ENVY: The one thing Peter Thiel’s $10 million super PAC can’t seem to buy Blake Masters: as much Fox News air time as Mark Brnovich uses his elected office to score. At an event this week, Masters went on a longwinded rant to complain that Brno “apparently doesn’t give a damn” about actually doing his job and instead spends “all day” doing fluff TV interviews. Here’s the thing, one of Blake’s most recent Fox News appearances was picked up by Russian State TV….so, there’s that.
LAUGH AND LEARN: Y’all, this primary is a doozy and these candidates are…a lot. To add some levity and to help you get to know this field a bit better, we put together a quiz to help you understand which GOP Senate candidate you are. Spoiler: There are only wrong answers.
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