Democracy in America | Aunt McSally

The Republicans risk imploding in Arizona

Donald Trump could cost his party a crucial Senate seat

By M.S.R. | WASHINGTON, DC

MARTHA MCSALLY appears to be the dream Republican candidate for one of the most crucial races of the mid-terms. The second-term congresswoman, who is contesting the Arizona Senate seat being vacated by Jeff Flake, is the first American woman to fly in combat. That is a big selling point in a state dotted with aerospace and defence companies.

But, with a primary looming on August 28th, President Donald Trump has not endorsed Ms McSally. He has praised her—and also her two rivals. One is Kelli Ward, a former state senator with a fondness for conspiracy theories. She is currently campaigning alongside Mike Cernovich, a far-right activist who spent several months hawking a theory that Democratic officials including Hillary Clinton were involved in child abuse (leading a confused man to shoot up a pizza restaurant in Washington, DC). The other is Joe Arpaio, the former sheriff of Maricopa Country and recipient of one of Mr Trump’s most shameful presidential pardons. He had been convicted of criminal contempt in a racial profiling case.

The absence of a presidential endorsement is worrying for the Republican Party because Mr Flake’s Senate seat is one of perhaps four on which control of the Senate may be decided. The Cook Political Report considers it a “toss-up”. While voters in Arizona haven’t sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1988, Hillary Clinton lost the state by only 3.5 points in 2016. And demographic changes suggest the state’s slow move to the left will continue: Hispanics constitute nearly a third of the population.

The probable Democratic candidate, Kyrsten Sinema, a state congresswoman, looks strong. A former leftie—she was once a member of the Green Party—she has moved to the centre in recent years. She is leading in polls against all three Republicans. Ms McSally, a moderate Republican, who has never said whether she voted for Mr Trump in 2016, looks like the Republicans’ best hope of beating her.

She will probably win the Republican primary on August 28th. But Republican operatives worry that the lack of a presidential endorsement and the intra-party mudslinging this has caused will leave Ms McSally too little time to take on Ms Sinema effectively.

Because many voters in Arizona vote by mail and ballots are sent out on October 10th, there will only be six weeks between the primary and the election. While Ms McSally should have been busy appealing to potential Sinema-backing centrists, she has instead been countering attacks from Ms Ward, who has cast her as anti-Trump and soft on immigration. A super PAC backing Ms Ward (financed by Robert Mercer, a big Republican donor) has broadcast ads calling Ms McSally “one of the most liberal Republicans in Congress.” (Mr Arpaio, who lags far behind both women meanwhile swears that a “silent majority” is about to complete his political resuscitation.)

By contrast, Ms Sinema has been campaigning for the general election for months. She has been focusing on the independent and moderate voters who may well determine the contest: a third of voters in the state don’t identify with either party. The humane immigration regime she espouses has looked well-judged against the Trump administration’s policy of separating migrant parents from their children.

Immigration will remain a hot topic in the contest: Arizona has a 373-mile border with Mexico. Under pressure to appear more hardline, Ms McSally withdrew her support for the Republicans’ failed “compromise” immigration bill, which might have put some recipients of the Deferred Action of Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programme on a path to citizenship. Facing Ms Sinema, she might need to work her way back to a more moderate position—while casting Ms Sinema’s views as dangerously liberal. She has little time to effect that contortion.

She is meanwhile painting Ms Sinema as weak on national security. This week Ms McSally released a TV ad (pictured above) in which she played up her military service after 9/11. It shows a youthful Ms Sinema wearing pink clothing while protesting against the Iraq war. “While we were in harm’s way in uniform, Kyrsten Sinema was protesting us in a pink tutu and denigrating our service,” intones Ms McSally.

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