For Immediate Release
Monday July 25, 2022
Contact: Hannah Goss, hgoss@azdem.org
Senate Showdown: The Circus Came to Town
PHOENIX — Welcome to the penultimate 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” and just eight days until the primary, these amateur candidates are duking it out until the final minute of Arizona’s August 2nd primary. Until that point, 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 last week:
FULL FIELD FUNDRAISING FLOP: Nowhere else is the “Senate GOP fundraising flop” more notable than right here in Arizona, where the “decidedly weak” candidates revealed their truly embarrassing fundraising numbers. By all accounts, their measly hauls are leaving party leaders nervous about November’s general election.
THE BOY WHO CALLED “FRAUD”: New reporting last week revealed Blake Masters is already laying the groundwork to blame any 2022 loss on election fraud….we wonder where he got that idea from. The Trump-endorsed Thielian acolyte has long parroted the former president’s baseless lies, but now he’s sticking with the bit and taking it to a whole new level in the hopes of squeaking out a primary victory.
ONLY LOSERS HERE: Last weekend, the Arizona Republic’s Editorial Board published a brutal rundown of the GOP Senate primary and came to a simple conclusion: There are no good options. What’s more, given that a “sizable portion of GOP voters find none of the candidates worthy of backing,” Arizona voters clearly agree too.
ALL THE ATTACK ADS: All the time. In the span of a week, Masters’ super PAC dropped an ad hitting “liberal Jim Lamon” for losing the endorsement race to Masters, Jim Lamon launched a new ad slamming Blake Masters for being an “open borders California liberal,” and Crypto Freedom, a Club for Growth aligned super PAC, boosted Blake with a spot ripping apart Lamon’s business record. Tune in next week for more!
THE PUPPET SHOW, ON TOUR: Desperate to crawl through this “bitter battle for the nomination” on top, Jim Lamon has blown through his self-funded war chest to run ads across the state labeling Masters “the puppet of California Big Tech.” This week, new reporting highlighted just how heavily Lamon is leaning into this anti-Masters message, repeating it at campaign events all across Arizona.
MEGA MAGA MOMENT: Last Friday in Prescott Valley, Donald Trump rallied his base in support of his boy Blake. The former president has long loomed large in this “bitter battle for the nomination,” but as ads blanket Arizona’s airwaves both slamming Trump’s endorsement of Masters and celebrating it, only time will tell which MAGA Republican will prevail.
###