AZ-PPP: McCain in big trouble in primary.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

I'm still standing by John McCain. All of his potential primary challengers are useless.

Maybe. But there is no one more useless in Washington than the whiny perpetually bitter John McCain. God I hope he loses, primary or otherwise. I'd be okay with Senator Richard Carmona or Senator Fred Duval (surprising he is the closest, though he did seem to run an able if silent campaign for Governor) if it meant no more McCain.

Carmona/Duval are not going to defeat McCain. Sorry, but not happening. Sinema or Kirkpatrick might though....

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

I'm still standing by John McCain. All of his potential primary challengers are useless.

Maybe. But there is no one more useless in Washington than the whiny perpetually bitter John McCain. God I hope he loses, primary or otherwise. I'd be okay with Senator Richard Carmona or Senator Fred Duval (surprising he is the closest, though he did seem to run an able if silent campaign for Governor) if it meant no more McCain.

Carmona/Duval are not going to defeat McCain. Sorry, but not happening. Sinema or Kirkpatrick might though....

Carmona and Duval were both closer though...

Duval totally bungled last year's governor's race, and seeing as Carmona couldn't win in an open seat in a democratic wave, it's difficult to see him beating McCain. I could see it happen with him before Duval though.

Sinema won by double digits in her basically even district last year, and Kirkpatrick won fairly comfortably when literally everyone predicted her defeat. Seems like pretty good electability records to me.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

I'm still standing by John McCain. All of his potential primary challengers are useless.

Maybe. But there is no one more useless in Washington than the whiny perpetually bitter John McCain. God I hope he loses, primary or otherwise. I'd be okay with Senator Richard Carmona or Senator Fred Duval (surprising he is the closest, though he did seem to run an able if silent campaign for Governor) if it meant no more McCain.

Carmona/Duval are not going to defeat McCain. Sorry, but not happening. Sinema or Kirkpatrick might though....

Carmona and Duval were both closer though...

Duval totally bungled last year's governor's race, and seeing as Carmona couldn't win in an open seat in a democratic wave, it's difficult to see him beating McCain. I could see it happen with him before Duval though.

Sinema won by double digits in her basically even district last year, and Kirkpatrick won fairly comfortably when literally everyone predicted her defeat. Seems like pretty good electability records to me.

Really? He seemed to do fine for 2014. Ducey was a far better candidate than dummy Jan Brewer and yet the margin was about the same, and against Brewer democrats won an experienced politico who had won statewide races before. I don't see how he messed it up unless you expected him to actually win that year. And Carmona faced a far stronger opponent in Jeff Flake (2012 being a Democratic Wave is a bit of a stretch, and Flake a pretty moderate Republican by today's standards). Unlike Kirkpatrick and Sinema, they actually have statewide experience, and could learn lessons from that loss (See: Charlie Baker improving his performance in 2010 and winning in 2014). I'm not saying that Kirkpatrick and Sinema couldn't win - they absolutely could. But if they don't run (which I think is more likely than not), Duval or Carmona would be strong contenders as well.

Ducey is not a moderate, Duval should have been able to get within single digits, and he got just 42% of the vote. The only reason the margin was 12% is because the libertarian guy took 4%, probably taking more votes away from Ducey than from Duval as libertarians typically do.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

I'm still standing by John McCain. All of his potential primary challengers are useless.

Maybe. But there is no one more useless in Washington than the whiny perpetually bitter John McCain. God I hope he loses, primary or otherwise. I'd be okay with Senator Richard Carmona or Senator Fred Duval (surprising he is the closest, though he did seem to run an able if silent campaign for Governor) if it meant no more McCain.

Carmona/Duval are not going to defeat McCain. Sorry, but not happening. Sinema or Kirkpatrick might though....

Carmona and Duval were both closer though...

Duval totally bungled last year's governor's race, and seeing as Carmona couldn't win in an open seat in a democratic wave, it's difficult to see him beating McCain. I could see it happen with him before Duval though.

Sinema won by double digits in her basically even district last year, and Kirkpatrick won fairly comfortably when literally everyone predicted her defeat. Seems like pretty good electability records to me.

2012 was not a "Democratic Wave" year and Carmona only lost by 3%.

It was a Democratic wave, though.

How

While it was not a democratic wave in the house, it was a democratic wave elsewhere.

Obama swept 8 of the 9 main swing states, including in Florida where nearly everyone predicted his defeat, and almost won North Carolina.

In the Senate, democrats defeated a popular former governor in WI, won in ND and MT where they were supposed to be dead meat, defeated one of the best NM republicans by more than 5 points, won PA by 9 with hardly any campaigning, won FL by 12 against what was supposed to be a strong candidate, and won CT by 12 with an extremely liberal nominee against someone who appeared strong early on. The only possibly winnable race that they lost was in AZ, and even there they only lost by 3.

Among governors' races, they held WA and MT despite great candidates on the other side, they almost won in deeply conservative Indiana, Shumlin got what is so far his only comfortable victory in VT, Hassan won NH by double digits despite polls showing a (somewhat) close race, Nixon was easily reelected in MO, and Tomblin held on fairly comfortably in WV. The only gubernatorial disappointment was in NC - everywhere else, democrats either met or beat expectations.

Sure, it's not as big as 2010 or 2014 were for the republicans, but still a wave.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

You forgot the disappointment in Indiana.

Since they did come pretty close there, I don't really consider it much of a disappointment given how conservative the state is. Gregg/Ritz will have an uphill climb in 2016 - even with the religious freedom incident, it remains a Likely R race.