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5 Reasons Why Sinema Won Arizona
Outsiders think of Arizona as one of the reddest states. From Barry Goldwater to anti-immigration hawks like Sheriff Joe Arpaio, our most famous politicians tend to be Republicans. But traditionally, Arizona is rather purple and regularly features tight statewide elections.
In the past 45 years, Democrats have held the governorship as often as the Republicans. But in the last decade, the GOP consolidated their hold on power due to the unprecedented organization of the Tea Party and the Left’s hyperbolic anti-Arizona rhetoric in the wake of the illegal immigration debates. (“Vote for us, you dumb racists!” wasn’t the winning message Democrats expected.) Last Tuesday, the pendulum finally swung back to the center.
Many non-Arizonans wonder how decorated fighter pilot Martha McSally could have lost to a progressive-turned-moderate like Kyrsten Sinema. Excuses like “Trump lost the suburbs” and “Democrats cheat” miss the point. Instead, here are five local reasons this race turned out as it did.
McSally’s Prevent Defense
McSally is no stranger to razor-thin votes. She lost the 2012 congressional race by less than 2,500 votes and won the 2014 rematch by just 167. A major reason for this is her campaigning style.
The Pima County Republican is very cautious. Very cautious. Instead of barnstorming the map and mixing it up with all comers, she carefully issues press releases and attends controlled events. She wouldn’t even agree to a debate with Sinema for months and then only participated in one.
Her style is reminiscent of the much-derided “prevent defense” in the NFL. A football team wants to protect a lead, so they stop trying to score and merely attempt to prevent the other team from scoring. It backfires so often, it’s often parodied as the “prevent-you-from-winning defense.” It definitely backfired for McSally.
Negative Ad Burnout
Most Arizonans would agree that the 2018 Senate race was the most negative statewide campaign they had ever seen. Traditionally, candidates buy a mix of positive and negative ads, a proven strategy that Sinema held to. But McSally and the outside groups supporting her were nearly all-negative, all-the-time. Focusing on the Republican’s remarkable achievements in the military and also in politics would have gone a long way to define a woman few in the state knew much about. Sure, there were a few ads like that, but not nearly enough to match Sinema’s seeming optimism.
McSally hails from Pima County, home to Tucson, while Sinema is from Maricopa County, home to Phoenix. More than half the state’s population lives in the latter, so they didn’t know much about the Tucson-based candidate. She needed to spend a lot more time defining herself since Sinema was already defined to a big chunk of Arizonans.
The McCain/Flake Hangover
Arizona conservatives have been frustrated with their Republican senators for many years. Jeff Flake and John McCain campaigned as rock-ribbed right-wingers every six years only to vote with Democrats in DC on crucial issues.
Since McSally had been very friendly with McCain, many conservative Republicans were turned off from the start. Late in the campaign, McSally embraced Trump, so moderate Republicans were turned off. To much of the GOP, a vote for McSally seemed like a requirement but was nothing to get excited about.
The Left Was Motivated — and Organized
The Right in Arizona had been well-organized for the past decade, but the Left finally caught up. What began as a grassroots effort to increase teacher pay in early 2018 was quickly professionalized by the state Democratic party and outside groups. Through social media and text messages, the movement activated hundreds of thousands of Arizonans and resulted in a 20 percent salary increase.
What do you do with all that contact info? Keep promoting Democratic causes of course. Tom Steyer’s NextGen America was notable in this case, flooding info to the young, while other players flooded everyone else.
Sinema Ran a Great Campaign
Whether its genuine or an act, Sinema has focused on cultivating her moderate bona fides for years. In the House and now in the Senate campaign, her mailers and ads are nothing but waving flags and smiling veterans. She barely mentions her party but stresses her “independence” and willingness to work with “literally anyone” on conservative issues.
She is also well liked on both sides, cultivating working relationship and friendships with political opponents for years.
All That Said…
As frustrating as it was to watch McSally’s weak campaign, I thought Arizona remained a bit redder than it actually was. At the start of the year, I predicted she and Sinema would win their respective primaries and McSally would prevail in a squeaker. But instead of the R winning by a point, the D did.
Gov. Doug Ducey defeated his Democratic challenger by double digits, but his appeal wasn’t matched in other statewide races. If the GOP wants to win in the Grand Canyon State, they can’t rest on their party registration advantage and old trends. Instead, great candidates need to run great campaigns and, at the very least, keep up with Democratic GOTV innovations.
Published in Elections
Good job Jon Gabriel by being included in Real Clear Politics! You’ve made us proud!
It had been 10 years since the Democrats had won a statewide office. This year they won four. ETTD.
I could live with populism if it were limited to “I really, really care about everyone.” Trump’s Birtherism, Charlottesville, and meanness of spirit are disqualifying.
I really love how George Wallace humbled himself to those he had persecuted, not unlike St. Paul.
Yes!
Yes! Trump keeping beat the drum on Birtherism after Obama produced his long form birth certificate was disqualifying.
Why would people want the government to steal for them? Why would they be sick of cultural marxism?
I guess they vote with their feelings. Maybe there is help?
Sheriff guy is 86 years old, so if he were selected to the McCain/Kyl Senate seat, at least McSally would still have a reasonable chance of still being selected to fill out the remainder of the McCain/Kyl/Arpaio Senate seat.
How can you say that? I thought she was now disqualified because she “embraced Trump”?
Can you perhaps try for consistency?
ETTD except all the (R) offices that were not lost of course, and those (R) seats that were picked up, but other than that ETTD.
https://twitter.com/JesseKellyDC/status/1062406541410816000
Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds!
Quote the whole thing and see if you like the flavor more… or less:
Thank you so much. Sir Winston Churchill changed parties, not once but twice in his career.
I think it is likely that several factors played the critical part in the loss. It doesn’t have to be one thing or the other as Jon pointed out.
As of today, Gov Ducey has 182,000 more votes than McSally. If only 20,000 of those had voted for McSally instead of Sinema she would have won.
It could be 20,000 who preferred Sinema’s positive ads over McSally’s negativity.
It could be 20,000 who thought Sinema more moderate than Ducey’s full throated progressive opponent (yes, I know about Sinema’s nutty past but, more recently, she had an actual track record of relatively moderate voting while in Congress).
It could be 20,000 who thought Sinema cared more about their healthcare (a big part of her advertising).
It could be 20,000 who didn’t like Trump.
It could be 20,000 who didn’t like McSally because she didn’t like Trump enough.
It could be 4,000 from each of the above categories.
The reality is McSally lost on all of those choices.
Great post Gumby.
The GOP was so stupid to not get tactical and strategic about the ACA. I mean this stuff scares the crap out of people, for good reason, and Obama has given away a ton of free goodies in this thing.
Wallace was never that committed to segregation from the start, in the earliest stage of his career he had been on the board of the Tuskegee Institute, but later decided he’d never be “out-n***rd” again when he lost a race to a fire breather.
Edit: Apparently this got attached to the wrong note, but you guys can figure it out.
Wallace’s running mate was Curtis LeMay. LOL
Thank you so much. Sir Winston Churchill changed parties, not once but twice in his career.
You did better than that – you changed parties twice in one day.
Yep, opposing it was good enough for the 2010 elections, but once the GOP controlled Congress and the WH they needed to step up (and not just repeal Obamacare). With 8 years to plan for that, I thought they would be prepared, but no. Reminds me of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. I assumed the Bush Administration had a coherent plan what to do there once the invasion was over, but no.
This is also dead on. I forget who it was, maybe it was the British ambassador, but he went back to Tony what’s his name and said the exact same thing before the invasion. I mean my god, what is Mises.org ever wrong about? Why is the health insurance system screwed up? Government policy in World War II, and then they never adjusted. It just fed back on itself, over and over. Then LBJ passed Medicaid. The actuarial’s were only off A HUNDRED TIMES. Then they started the CBO because Medicare was such a disaster. It never would’ve passed of course. Next they stuck a ringer in CBO to pass Obamacare, Peter Orzag. Now look where we are.
Good luck arguing with any of that.
Perhaps Churchill was like Reagan. Reagan said he didn’t leave the party; the party left him. ( I think it was Reagan who said that. )
Touche!
Yes, Reagan famously said that.
Agreed, which is why there’s no basis for firmly picking any one or couple of the above. As is being done here in a few instances. The one thing we do know is that a substantial number of people who voted for Ducey did not vote for McSally. That’s their choice and their responsibility.
I like this. I’m going to steal it.
The ACA repeal was the Iraq War of legislative failures. It links two of the greatest GOP failures of possibly anyone’s lifetime together.
Churchill was channeling his American mother and quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson – and was expert at post hoc self promoting rhetoric.
Emerson drew heavily on the German Romantics, whom I have come to regard as good for music and terrible for civilization as a whole. Emerson attempted to port their thinking to America, and while he was a talented essayist was similarly destructive despite, or perhaps because, of being highly inspirational to many.
Michael Doran’s lecture and essay on the theological roots of US foreign policy actually have broader implications; he locates much of US thinking on nationhood on a theological disagreement between fundamentalist and modernist Protestants. Emerson was probably towards the “left” end of the modernists.
He also gave an interesting interview for the Tikvah Fund’s podcast.
https://www.azquotes.com/author/8601-Curtis_LeMay
There are some doozies.
I would add another reason why Sinema won. Massive Democratic Party turnout.
According to the Arizona Secretary of State’s website, there are 3,716,161 registered voters in Arizona. Final figures are not yet available, but according to the Arizona Republic, there have been over 2,200,000 ballots counted, and there are another 271,000 ballots yet to count, for a total of at least 2,471,000 ballots. That is a midterm turnout of 66.5%, shattering the old record of 60.5% turnout in the 2006 election, the last time Democrats rose up to send a message to an unpopular Republican President.
I am 66 years old. I have never seen Democrats more angry, and motivated in my 46 years of voting. (The 26th Amendment for voting at age 18 was ratified in 1971. My first major vote was in 1972. For George McGovern. I was young. I never voted for a Democrat for President since then.)
Why are Democrats so damn energized? Donald J. Trump. In my opinion, Democrats’ hatred of Trump far surpasses their hatred of Nixon, Reagan or W. It is incandescent.