Martha McSally is widely considered a sane, mainstream Republican, especially in comparison with her two rivals for the Republican Senate nomination to replace Jeff Flake. Of course, compared to those two-- Kelli Ward and Joe Arpaio-- even Sarah Palin and Nero would be considered sane people... by some. But don't be fooled; Martha McSally is a Trump enabling rubber-stamp. Just look at her record, 97.8, on the Trump affinity tracker. FiveThirtyEight projects a score of 57.6 for someone representing AZ-02. Her 40.2 is the difference between McSally's actual and predicted Trump-support scores. She's right up there in the top dozen out of all 365 members of Congress. That's not exactly mainstream. In fact, that defines serious congressional Trump enablement.So she's running for the Senate now and the Republican Party establishment-- both in DC and in Phoenix-- is petrified she'll lose the primary to one of the two crazies, Ward or Arpaio, either of whom would probably lose the general to GOP-lite Kyrsten Sinema, Schumer's hand-picked candidate. Actually, the latest Emerson poll shows Sinema beating any of the three, but shows McSally doing less horribly than Ward or Arpaio.Yesterday, Alex Isenstadt, writing for Politico, reported that NRSC chairman Cory Gardner (R-CO) called Señor Trumpanzee and asked him to endorse McSally, even though the two crackpots are his natural allies and cronies and have more-- much more-- in common with him politically. Gardner and his staff (and, presumably, Miss McConnell are afraid that Arizona's right-wing voters (i.e., Republicans) will nominate one of the two unelectable candidates and cede the seat to Sinema in November. Now only Super-Trump can save the day (at least in the primary. In the general, if McSally is the nominee, he'll have to avoid Arizona like the plague). According to Isenstadt's sources Señor T "was non-committal and did not say yes or no to the request."
In an interview in May, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) made clear that McSally would run strongest against Sinema, though he said he was unsure if the party would need to intervene on her behalf in the primary.“It’s pretty obvious which of our candidates have a best chance of winning,” he said.If Arpaio or Ward wins the primary, it would also put GOP senators in the difficult position of choosing whether to endorse those candidates. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), for example, said Arizona is one of the few places she might campaign this fall for Republicans because she won’t campaign against colleagues.“I will go campaign in states where there are open seats, like Arizona,” she said in an interview last week. Asked about Ward and Arpaio, she replied: “Let me rephrase that. I would campaign for Martha McSally."While Republicans are eager for Trump to intervene, the president may be disinclined to do so. He has previously lavished praise on Ward, and he pardoned Arpaio of criminal contempt, who shares his hardline immigration views. Both candidates are closely aligning themselves with the president, though Arpaio is trailing badly and the White House is uncomfortable with Ward promoting a photo of her alongside the president as an implied endorsement, according to the Arizona Republic.McSally is the frontrunner in the primary, yet she faces obstacles. A pro-Ward super PAC, Kelli PAC, has been airing ads calling McSally “one of the most liberal Republicans in Congress.”Ward’s super PAC has been financed by Republican mega-donor Robert Mercer, himself a Trump ally who has given the group $800,000. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) beat Ward in the 2016 primary by 11 percentage points.At the same time, Democrats are attempting to meddle in the Republican primary and sink McSally. Red and Gold, a newly-formed Democratic group, has begun airing commercials assailing McSally for putting “Washington over Arizona.”
