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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
This is very interesting, Gary. I tend to agree with you. After all, the guy was a racist, and did not adhere to the things Lincoln wanted to achieve with Reconstruction. The only reason I would hesitate is because of why he was impeached, I have not studied this, so I don’t have a definite opinion. But it’s a fascinating thought. It brings up a lot of “What ifs……” regarding history!
As some other folks who saw this tweet noted, data looks like it was more moderate Republicans who did not vote for McSally. Voters for Ward/Arpaio went more for McSally.
A comment and a question. Levin has always overestimated his importance/influence, IMHO.
Is it possible that the Ward/Arpaio contingent just didn’t bother to vote for the Senate seat?
There were 6,463 more votes in the Senate race than in the Governor’s which the R won easily.
I guess that answers my question.
No one from McSally’s staff even bothered to send a form reply to my emails, posted here on the Main Feed. Nor did Independent voter friends get responses to tweets asking for information, unlike Kelli Ward. If the Mesa PD has someone scanning social media for police intelligence (indicators of things happening or being planned), how exactly does a Senate candidate’s staff not know what is happening on relatively friendly fora?
Mike,
No, Sinema is disgusting and Gary wouldn’t mind if she was in the Senate for an eternity as long as he can drum the Trumpers out of the party. It makes no sense but hey Gary’s on a roll and I don’t want to upset him. He might wind up with a fifth polyp and I wouldn’t want that on my conscience (or anywhere else).
Regards,
Jim
I appreciate @exjon measured tone. Beyond the OP, It Ain’t Necessarily So: Midterm Results and Meaning.
Jim
Gary voted for McSally.
Regards
Gumby
Gumby,
I’ve had it with this post. Arizona is much too confusing and confused. Well, if you want to see the sunshine you have to weather the storm.
Goodnight.
Regards,
Jim
Democrats are also energized by the billions of dollars being poured in to the Resistance by wealthy “Progressives.” How much? Apparently enough to buy Bill Kristol. It apparently cost something in excess of $600,000 from eBay’s leftist co-founder Pierre Omidyar for Kristol’s organization to decide he might as well cash in. Was it good for you, Bill?
Of possible interest to Ricochet:
Julie Kelly goes on to ask:
Good question.
Yes, AND. Nixon was a big government, New Deal expanding, Republican, and the Left was just starting its march through the institutions. Reagan was hated passionately, but did not effectively oppose any domestic priority (trading butter for guns) while the left was mid-way through the institutions. “W” was a non-factor in opposing the left’s domestic and cultural root agendas, and so was a non-factor in threatening the “arc of history.”
It took an irreligious man with “New York values” to understand that he would only get elected, and stand a chance of reelection, if he took religious LIBERTY seriously, as in carefully vetted judges and forced the administration to take real steps to defend the written 1st Amendment and Article VI, against the fraudulent judge-made pseudo-constitution intended to gut the real, ratified by the states, Constitution (as an earlier “Court” fraudulently did to the 14th Amendment).
For this, for the serious threat to their Precious, permanent secular-supremacist leftist rule, they hates him, they hates him forever.
Why wouldn’t it? Most media are left-leaners who, with their conscripted former GOP, feed their Trump hate-fest in a perpetual loop so that it remains their singular focus. At the core, those who are adamant in their ‘hatred’ of Trump don’t like real change, pure and simple. Democrats and Republicans alike want their power back.
However, some of Jon Gabriel’s points are echoed by others who’ve analyzed exit polling, post-election voting data, etc. and reflect some of my own voter experience this cycle. If these midterms showed anything, it’s that the anti-Trump individuals are not yet the nationwide singular driving force they’d like to be to sweep the rest of the voters aside, thank goodness.
Non-Leftists (GOP still the largest nexus of this category at this point) need to improve candidates and messaging to prevail against Leftists in future elections.
Let us make their imagined threat real, and use the left’s hatred as our fuel. The left must be broken and ground to dust.
I see there’s a bunch of likes on this post. You may want to check out this discussion between two Austrians. I haven’t even finished it, and this is one of the best discussions I’ve ever heard. One of the guys actually worked on Capitol Hill. They go into the Fed in the financial system in plain English on how it affects everything, but it’s not long or anything. Very easy listening.
The Fed and the government are just pushing things around too much. They are in effect stealing from the middle class. The poor get it taken care of. And this is the fight the GOP has: populism and social wisdom look way too good in a system that is so screwed up. What are you going to do?
The other thing is, they talk about Ronald Reagan. I agree with that exact articulation. He was positive, and maybe his hands were tied, don’t over do it.
I always thought I cancelled out my… unenlightened?… neighbor’s vote, but maybe I actually cancelled out yours.
Well put. Gary seems to be the one with the “incandescent” hatred of Trump. So much so that it seems like if a candidate even says a word that sounds like “Trump” (rump? bump? dump?) Gary just must vote against them. He can’t help himself.
Flake was and is, to put it simply, a flake.
Jon probably is familiar with Marianne Jennings, she wrote this article for the Arizona Republic a while back:
Not likely. The Democrats often claimed that they could vote for someone like McCain for president, but when McCain actually RAN, he was portrayed as Satan just as other Republicans had been.
Also, it’s been pointed out that Brett Kavanaugh would have been appointed by Jeb too, and probably most others who didn’t win the 2016 GOP primary. So any idea of Democrat acquiescence to “anyone but Trump,” is imaginary.
It’s a matter of degree. The news media would have opposed them, but that’s just sticking to form. Democrats would have voted against them because that’s what makes Democrats Democrats. But hatred? No. Gary himself says he’s never seen such “incandescent hatred” for other GOPers. It might have been there for Cruz had he won the nomination. Trump was one of the few who wasn’t a “go-along-get-along” politician. He wanted to change things and that makes him different.
OP was quoted in the WSJ today.
Those 200,000 votes – and many more too – could easily have been from people who, as Rob Long sometimes puts it, feel like or want to believe they’re appearing in the movie of their own life. And Sinema sounds like Cinema.
In the past, I figured that the vote difference between Arizona Governor candidates Janet Napolitano and Matt Salmon could have been accounted for just by people who like ice cream (Neapolitan) better than fish.
Simple explanations are often the most accurate.
In “Notable & Quotable” on the opinion page. Congratulations @exjon.