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Sinema Defeats McSally in Narrow Arizona Senate Race
Rep. Martha McSally (R) has conceded the US Senate race in Arizona to Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D). Shortly before the concession, the Associated Press projected that Sinema would emerge victorious.
McSally had lead the vote count throughout Election Day, but lost that lead as mail-in ballots were counted in the days after. The updated vote counts were posted at 5 PM local time, showing that Sinema had further expanded her lead to a nearly insurmountable 1.72 percent.
Congrats to @kyrstensinema. I wish her success. I’m grateful to all those who supported me in this journey. I’m inspired by Arizonans’ spirit and our state’s best days are ahead of us. pic.twitter.com/tw0uKgi3oO
— McSally For Senate (@MarthaMcSally) November 13, 2018
Published in General
This is Truly Sad. Congresswoman McSally would have made a great Senator. The first woman fighter pilot alone tells us how much she Loves her country.
Thanks to Jon for posting her concession speech. Watching it shows me what a fine lady she is. I was really impressed by her singing the National Anthem the other day, before the game. I will pray for her, and hope she tries again next time. Arizona voters, in my judgement, have made a huge mistake.
Somehow that seems to keep happening.
I hope that Jon Kyl Senator will step down from the McCain seat and that Martha McSally will be appointed by Governor Ducey.
This is a great idea. I think very highly of Jon Kyl. He is a model Senator. But Gary has a wonderful thought here.
The reason for our loss is clear. Donald Trump energized a massive Democratic turnout.
Arizona has 3,716,161 voters. The counting is not over, but so far there have been 2,208,567 votes including those 52,122 souls who voted for the Green Party candidate.
The old record for a midterm General Election was in 2010, with 1,760,840 votes. (McCain won that year by 24 points, 59-35%.)
Great job Donald Trump is creating a massive turnout! (Unfortunately, you turned out the Democrats.)
Jon Kyl went back to the Senate to vote for Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation. He did his job. Now he can help give Martha McSally a head-start in the 2020 election! (Joe Arpaio has already announced his intention to run for the Senate in 2020.)
What is going on in Arizona, Montana, New Jersey, Florida, and California? Is there something in the water? Did an invisible ‘stupid’ bomb go off over those states, that the voters should elect such examples to represent them in Washington? What does that say about the quality of the voters in those states? And, let us not forget New York! Ocasio-Cortez? Really?
Sinema insulted Arizona more than once, and they still chose her? Oh, but this is the state that elected McCain more than once—how could I forget?
On Florida, would there be agreement that Rick Scott could have averted this disaster in his state, and fired Snipes and Bucher upon becoming governor? Now he can’t, because the left would scream bloody murder because he’s on the ballot.
I gotta stop, my head hurts…….
Other states had record turnouts on both sides and the Republicans still won those senate races. Some have made the argument that McCain’s betrayal on the Obamacare repeal suppressed the Republican turnout in Arizona.
Since it appears cross-thread repetition (and repetition) is the order of the day on this topic, allow me to do the same from another thread.
I’m treading lightly here because I know little about Arizona politics. But I can read turnout numbers and, as noted elsewhere, the turnout numbers for the senatorial race and for the gubernatorial race were virtually identical. So it seems clear that this isn’t about “energized.” It’s rather apparently about a very significant number of people who did vote for Ducey who did not vote for McSally, a small percentage of whom could have turned the result. Occam’s razor would suggest that the election is on them–the individual decision makers–who somehow persuaded themselves that a split ticket was a good idea. Blaming Trump appears to me to be a facile way to avoid placing personal responsibility where it belongs–on Arizona voters. That’s not a conservative value.
Donald Trump has sparked the highest Democratic turnout in my memory, and I am 66 years old. Thank Donald Trump. (ETTD.)
Methlab of Democracy wins!
To Gary’s hope from above, is that really the best move politically? If you place her in McCain’s former seat will she actually be able to win reelection in 2020?
Can I ask what went wrong for her campaign wise? I didn’t follow her election, but I didn’t hear about her making any big mistakes, whereas Sinema coined the phrase Methlab of Democracy? Would this have been an even bigger blowout without those jewels from her past?
So New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada all moving away from the R column. Beto comes close in Texas. Will Republicans be driven out of the Southwest?
This is just astonishing! I cannot imagine why Arizona is willing to pass over an obvious adult for the candidate who was elected. Wow. Maybe voters there are experiencing Stockholm Syndrome after all those years of McCain.
Not to sound defeatist but how can 2020 not be a massive wipeout? Trump barely won in 2016 and the dems will be coming for his scalp in the next election. This result in Arizona is the canary in the coal mine. How many winnable elections were lost because of the tarnish of trump?
I have a problem with appointing someone to the same office (albeit a different seat) that they just lost election to.
It’s just bad optics.
Arizona Republican Governor Doug Ducey won by a landslide. But Doug Ducey deals only with state issues.
It appears that Arizona voters wanted to send a Democrat to the Senate as a check on Trump.
So far, the Democrats are cruising towards winning almost 40 races in the House, and holding their losses to only 2 Senate seats, when we should have been going for a filibuster-proof Senate.
Is Trump worth the loss of almost 40 Representatives, 8 Senators and 7 Governor’s? I think not. Hopefully we will have learned our lesson and will nominate a less toxic person for President in 2020.
To heck with the optics. Do the right thing! And Martha deserves to be in the Senate. It’s not like she lost in a wipeout!!
Then President Trump is also responsible for the Republican governor being elected by over 300,000 votes.
If a Republican can’t defeat essentially a joke candidate like Kyrsten Sinema, especially in a statewide election, then that candidate just isn’t very good.
Looks like Gary wasn’t careful about what he wished for.
I don’t see this as responsive to my post, but those Arizona voters who wanted a “check” on Trump have no excuse for electing a Democrat. You incorrectly keep beating the “energized” drum, but the Ducey results seem to prove that misguided Republican voters who bought into McSally=Trump BS are the culprits. And those that think that Senators don’t have a major hand in state matters need a civics lesson.
Trump deserves his office, big time. He is the only remotely-conservative person who fights back against the Democrat garbage that is flung in his direction all day, every day. Trump is worth every vote, and every attendee at his sold-out rallies. He is not going to be defeated in 2020. NO other Republican, not even one other, can win the way Donald J. Trump can win in 2020. If any other Republican would be nominated instead of Donald J. Trump, we will have lost our country, and we will bear the consequences for generations. No other Republican has the guts to respond in kind to the hostile Media who are the real opponents of sane, conservative government.
“Never-Trumpers”, be very careful what you wish for.
She is by far our strongest candidate. The irony is that if she is appointed before the next Congress, she will become Arizona’s Senior Senator by a few days!
Trump did a fantastic job of energizing Hispanic voters. It seemed that every month there was a tear-jerking story about someone who had lived here for decades while their American citizen children are sobbing. Hispanic anger at Trump is incandescent, and they got out to vote.
George W. Bush almost carried Hispanics in his last gubernatorial election in Texas in 1998. W also carried New Mexico in 2004. By contrast, the Republican Party has been destroyed in California after Republican Pete Wilson promoted Proposition 187.
McCain and Romney carried Arizona by 9% in 2008 and 2012, after W won by 11% in 2004. Trump won Arizona by only 3% in 2016. If Trump is nominated in 2020, he will lose Arizona’s 11 Electoral College votes by 3+%. (Trump won in 2016 by only 34 Electoral College votes.)
I wished for Martha McSally to win along with Republican Senate candidates.
Having a Democrat Governor would not, per se, be a check on Trump. But having a Democrat Senator would be a check.
Well, except for that time on election day when you didn’t
The only time Arizona voted Democrat for president recently was when they passed over adult World War II veteran Bob Dole to give manchild Bill Clinton 46.5% of the vote, although a lot of other states voted for Clinton as well.
Excluding that time, the last time Arizona voted Democrat was when they voted for Harry Truman back when Arizona had a population of less than 500,000 and was the 6th-least populous state, ahead of only New Hampshire, Vermont, Delaware, Wyoming, and Nevada.
Would you like to bet $10 that Trump will not be President as of January 21, 2021, the day after inauguration? You would win if Trump is re-elected. I would win if he steps down early, decides to not run, or is defeated.
I won three $10 bets with my fellow Ricochetti that the Dems would take the House year.
Our bet gets settled when the congress is gaveled into session. Don’t count your chickens.
No. Epic Democratic turnout was the culprit. Also, McSally was harmed by her embrace of Trump.
The day after Election Day for 18 hours.
We could be in deep trouble in Arizona. Marijuana for recreational isn’t legal, but somehow we’ve become Coloradans.