AZ-SEN 2022 Megathread: Mastering the Art of the Thiel

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Who cares if he's a stronger candidate. Do you thing the AZ GQP is actually going to nominate a solid candidate?

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Who cares if he's a stronger candidate. Do you thing the AZ GQP is actually going to nominate a solid candidate?

I think that's far more likely than Trump-hating Republicans accurately assessing their chances in an election. "GQP" is a blue echo chamber acronym, and for some reason I'm not surprised to see a "Republican" here using it .

I'm a real Republican. That means that I support a strong free market, lower taxes, etc.
It means I don't think that DJT won the election nor do I believe in QAnon. If believing in that sh**t is how someone is a Republican, I'll change my avatar.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Who cares if he's a stronger candidate. Do you thing the AZ GQP is actually going to nominate a solid candidate?

Republicans blow AZ-GOV (see the neo-Nazi the Republicans nominate). Kelly winning AZ-SEN will be partly the same reason, although he has a much bigger advantage anyway.

It’s only May 2021 and this meme is already getting old/tiresome. No one has actually articulated a single reason as to why the AZ GOP is more likely to "blow it" than, say, the NC GOP. All I’ve learned from the AZ threads/this board is that the AZ GOP seems to be really good at "blowing" things and that they’re guaranteed to nominate a "lunatic" (whatever that means) even after what feels like half a dozen non-Congressional Republicans have already announced their bid.

No, its that Kelly will be hard to beat and the only one of the AZ-GOP official crowd who moderates would vote for is Ducey, who isn't running. We could always go to the top-notch Congressional bench, of which two have already expressed interest. Here these top-tier highly popular with moderates and swing voters,

 Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Well if Kelly loses, it will not because of a lack of money:
https://twitter.com/mattholt33/status/1479454692203712512

Agreed. However, if the 2020 elections taught me anything, it's that fundraising means next to nothing.

Yes, but Masters is a terrible candidate in the sense that the Kelly campaign can obliterate him with negative ads a la Mitt Romney 2012

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Could someone other than Pieman tell me if Masters or Brnovich is the better candidate?

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

It's good he has the money, but money itself doesn't matter, it's really how one uses it to campaign (and only that can do so much). I expect once we have a claer picture of the R, they will be well funded too.

Until Kari Lake brings down the entire ticket.

I don't think Kari Lake is any less strong than Generic R.

I would disagree. She's a total crackpot and has went out of her way to endorse far-right conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and other things. She's way worse than a generic R. At this point, McSally would basically be a generic R and Lake is way more far-right than she is, and unabashedly so.

Being far-right or endorsing 2020 conspiracy theories (which basically all non-incumbent 2022 candidates have done across the US) does not make someone a bad candidate.
She seems well-spoken in interviews and she comes across like the sort of person who can smartly adapt once she wins the primary.

Yes. Yes it does.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

https://twitter.com/realteamMTG/status/1522346357150859266

$100 just sent to Kelly.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

After AL and GA, I'm really starting to wonder if the impact of Trump's endorsement on GOP primaries is grossly overrated at this point. I mean, Perdue lost by 50 points and lost every county in the state. And Brooks crashed and burned despite being armed with Trump's endorsement (though in all fairness, that was in part because of Brooks' horribly run campaign).

Seeing how Brooks & Purdue did no campaigning, they were essentially DOA especially Purdue with Kemp being an incumbent. However had Trump not rescinded his endorsement, Brooks probably would've ended up being the nominee, although a runoff would've been the most likely way.

a.) Perdue - All that is true, but despite both those things, a Trump-endorsed candidate still shouldn't be losing the GOP primary by 50 points.
b.) Brooks - I don't want to call you a hack, but this really feels like wishcasting. Trump pulled back his endorsement precisely because of how terribly Brooks was doing and how evident it was that Brooks was crashing and burning. Not the other way around. You're putting the cart before the horse, the effect before the cause. Brooks got the Trump endorsement, was initially doing well, then gradually began to fall till he was far from the front-runner. Trump took back his endorsement because he didn't want to associate with a losing candidate (should've done the same thing with Perdue, Donnie boy!), and Brooks has since cratered even more. Even with Trump's endorsement, Brooks was somehow able to lose front-runner status; Trump taking back his endorsement only further exacerbated that. He was hardly on the way to victory

It depends where, and if the primary is open or not.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Brnovich ran such a bad campaign it's hilarious. He might somehow still get second but I just don't see how he can win at this point. I will be voting for Blake Masters, he is a really smart guy and has potential to be a great senator. His messaging against Mark Kelly is already miles better than McSally's was, although tbf McSally was kind of doomed regardless.

What makes Masters stronger than McSally and don’t you think Masters will turn off moderate Republicans in Maricopa county?

Because McSally became a meme. If the first thing people know about you is 'lost two elections in two years' you don't have much room to redefine yourself.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

https://twitter.com/bgmasters/status/1553494334212698112
I haven't found any independent reports of such calls, so who knows...

Is this another self-incrimination like when he told people to 'not ask his classmates what he said in middle school'?

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

No, Arizona will not be Likely D. Anyone who thinks that will be coping hard on election night.
https://twitter.com/decisiondeskhq/status/1561865805897293825?s=21&t=ekzr3ZO...

I've learned the hard way that characterizing any competitive race as Likely two and a half months out is a bad idea. Even two weeks out can be risky.

That being said, I *could* see this as Likely D by election day, but I'll need a lot of strong evidence before I make that sort of call. Personally I don't expect to classify it as anything more than Lean D.

Also, is an 80% chance of victory really "likely"? I feel like the likely threshold needs to be raised to something more like 85%.

But I agree, DDHQ model seems to take polls way too literally which pushes a lot of competitive Senate seats hard left past fundamentals that are keeping the House very R.

I think one thing that makes this challenging to analyze is Mark Kelly very recently had a race where polling far out reguarly had him up 10 points, only to close to like 4 by ED and for him to only win by a little over 2%. I think what many saw as a closer than expected calls is scaring folks a bit about 2022. However, if you input all the existing data we have into any sane model, it'd output Kelly as a clear favorite (Usual Swing State, Incumbent who overperformed top of ticket, Kelly has money advantage, the polling average is Kelly + 10, ect) even though most of us as humans have a belief and I'd argue a justified belief that the race will be a lot closer than these data points would project.

Personally, I tend to like the 538 model better; in 2020 they still gave McSally a 20%+ chance throughout even as many other models had completely written her off. 538's current project of 70% Kelly seems a bit more reasonable than most other models at this point. JHK's forecast for Senate and House seem pretty good at dealing with lopsided polling averages.

My main worry for Kelly and frankly AZ Dems is usually Hispanic turnout is dreadful in midterms and it'd take quite a lot of investment to change that. Sinema had to do universally better than Kelly with whites to win by the exact same margin.

Isn't Kelly still winning in LV polls.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

https://twitter.com/azpolitico22/status/1561908758678085634?t=IrhlZutHt7PveQBgvMMViA&s=19

Unlike Progressive Moderate R nut map Kelly has a 80%/19 CHANCE of winning

Kelly 80
Master 19.1

If Master has only 19.1% who has the other 0.9%?

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

I feel like all I ever see is the GOP pulling spending from competitive races. Are they actually spending money anywhere? Where's it all going?

I think this means that their internals are terrible and that they think the absurd numbers Dems are pulling in (double digits in swing states) are close enough that they are going into damage control mode.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

https://twitter.com/KFILE/status/1564382916246913030

Is he, or most Republicans, aware of screenshots and how the internet works? Him, and others, are being very cavalier about how stupid they think voters are (granted his party's base of voters are).

The average GOP voter is like 85, so they are probably banking on high turnout carrying them over the finish line. Would have been a solid bet a couple months ago but not now.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Interestingly, Dobbs may have saved Masters in AZ. He has polled a bit better (still clearly behind) since moderating on abortion (and entitlements to a lesser degree).

He just denied 9/11 on 9/11.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Knowing Masters his comments on Social Security is not the thing with 'SS' as an acronym that will hurt him the most.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Back in April, I made the following assessment of Kelly’s odds:

If Kelly wins (and if he does it will be barely), it’s due to a perfect storm of:
- his own personal popularity/defined persona
- Maricopa turnout and growth (I’s have overtaken R’s here for the first time ever)
- well defined/disliked opponent post primary
- Trump being a drag on GOP officials here more so than most states — the fraudit/election stuff is still what you read/hear about all the time here
- voting by mail upping D midterm turnout  statewide vs non VBM states
- libertarian on the ballot siphons R votes and gets 1%+

We are two weeks away from voting starting, basically October, so it’s time to revisit this post. Honestly, if I were Kelly, I would feel decent right now.

His favorabilities have stayed fairly high despite attacks from the GOP, Trump remains a drag on the state GOP, and the libertarian is poised to siphon 1-2 percent of the vote.

But above all, Masters is super disliked. I enjoyed listening to Longwell’s latest focus group podcast with AZ voters. They hated Masters and found him creepy and weird, with out there positions. There even was a Kelly/Lake voter in the group…

So, I think most of the conditions needed for a Kelly victory are being met right now. If he does win, though, it will be close. I would be surprised if he surpassed his 2020 margin/percentage.

Don’t talk to me about the other statewide races or Hobbs, though… this is the one I feel OK about.

Hobbs certainly got a boost from the abortion ban. If she doesn't utilize that to her advantage and in contrast to Lake, she deserves to lose.

She did film a 'don't waste law enforcement resources on this' ad.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

https://twitter.com/JoshKraushaar/status/1575808313983475712
Ouch.

LOL

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

https://twitter.com/mattholt33/status/1576893080728670208

He's truly following the Hillary Clinton/Cal Cunningham school of winning elections.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Suggestions for a new thread title?

Master is not a master of politics.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Suggestions for a new thread title?

Jack of all trades, Masters of none

Jack of no trades, Masters of none

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Masters killed it tonight.

k bro

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

The Libertarian will probably make this like the 2020 VP debate in that anyone who cares will probably just remember his antics and little else beyond Kelly=kinda boring and Masters=kinda creepy.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

https://twitter.com/gridnews/status/1578394032199401472

lol

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Kelly is doing awful. Geesh. Masters is creaming him and I am not a person who thinks Masters is a good candidate at all (think he is one of the worst)...

This is good for Masters IF it gets press coverage and continues like this... BIG if

Yeah masters crushed Kelly. The immigration section was brutal for Kelly.

Again, only 49,000 people watched. There were no viral moments, so thus nobody cares.