2020 AZ Senate Megathread: Kelly's Race to Lose

[JMT]

I wonder if Ann Kirkpatrick will run in 2020?

I suppose it wouldn’t be all too surprising since she ran for Senate before, but I doubt she’ll run. She’s lost two high profile races (re-election in 2010, and Senate in 2016), and now is back in Congress in a seat she can probably hold for awhile. Given that re-election is a lot less risky, and she could stay in the House for awhile, I think she’ll stay put.

[JMT]

Who will be senior Senator from Arizona? McSally or Sinema?

It's been said above, but Sinema will be Senior Senator due to the number of terms she's had in the House (3), compared to McSally (2).

I could be wrong, but I don’t believe that is true IF McSally gets sworn in before January 3rd, which is possible because Kyl is stepping down effective December 31. If McSally gets sworn in before Sinema, McSally is the senior senator because she would become a senator first, and therefore be more senior.  Sinema would only become the Senior senator if both McSally and Sinema were sworn in on the same day (because Sinemas 3 house terms outrank McSally’s 2 terms) or if McSally was sworn in AFTER Sinema (which is very unlikely).

[JMT]

Mark Kelly is, possibly, the best candidate Democrats in Arizona could have hoped for. He is rather well known in the state and country already, will likely be able to fundraise easily and has a great life story. I don’t see Gallego beating him in the primary. My best bet, he beats McSally by ~5-7% and helps the Dem presidential candidate win the state.

Gallego might not even run.

He has a nice safe seat that he would have to give up and probably worse than 50% shot of winning the primary against Kelly.

While Gallego has certainly been making noise about running, I do think he will ultimately pass on the race for that reason. Gallego has a safe house seat, and would not be guaranteed to win either the primary or general election. I think now that Kelly is in, Gallego will not want to risk losing (I'm not saying that Gallego would definitely lose to Kelly, but there is a decent chance he would). Gallego is also very young, he can afford to wait to run statewide, or could stay in the House and gain seniority (I could see him rising high in House leadership).

Perhaps I'm biased, because I would support Kelly in the primary anyways. But, I do think Gallego will ultimately pass on running for Senate.

[JMT]

I don’t know why Democrats would be so excited for a guy who endorsed Pat Toomey.

I would venture to say that most people in Arizona do not know who Pat Toomey is, nor would they care about this in the grand scheme of things.

[JMT]

The only one that could have beaten Kelly was Ducey, but he wasnt gonna appoint himself

Remember that the winner of the 2020 AZ senate race will also be on the ballot for a full 6 year term in 2022. If Kelly wins in 2020 (and I expect that he will), I wouldn’t be surprised if Ducey runs against Kelly in 2022.