Arizona megathread

[Progressive Pessimist]

Polling recently seems to defy the panic at every little event in being discussed in this thread. But I suppose if this race is the ultimate nail-biter of the year decided by a fraction of a percent in Lake's favor, maybe something as small as Hobbs avoiding public events with Lake could be the culprit.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Kari Lake was booted from Arizona Univision town hall audience before Hobbs took the stage

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-election/kari-lake-was-booted-arizona-town-hall-audience-hobbs-took-stage-rcna51347

sounds like a winning campaign to me!

Hobbs has refused to debate Lake, and it seems like she doesn't want to share the stage with her. Lake obviously sought to press the issue, but failed. This also explains why Hobbs didn't show up to the Prensa Arizona townhall that was discussed earlier in this thread.

I think Lake has a good chance of winning.

She does, as does Hobbs. I've gone as far to say AZ-GOV is Lean R, but it's more appropriate to adjudge it as a Tossup. Win or lose, Lake will run ahead of Masters by a decent margin. A split outcome between her and Kelly is very likely at this point.

Yeah that is the mostly likely outcome: a Lake - Kelly split. However Kelly really botched up the Debate against Masters and he underperformed his Polling in 2020 against washed-up McSally. Republicans are back in the Game in the Senate Race I think.

  Kelly would really have to screw up to lose this race.

Don't pay much attention to 2016 and others who are deluded enough to think the debate changed anything.

[Progressive Pessimist]

https://twitter.com/Adrian_Fontes/status/1579825051733327874

Not sure it matters, but good. I disagree with Kinzinger on >90% of issues, this is the right call though.

He has his priorities straight, I have to give him that. I don't know if he helps or not but what he does, at least, is help bring attention to the stakes with Arizona's elections this year as they pertain to election denial.

[Progressive Pessimist]

I'm very nervous about Hobbs losing too due to certain perceptions of her, as well as other statewide races in Arizona this year (not so much the Senate race though) but I can't help but be amused at how Twitter exchanges between Hobbs and Lake are being used as evidence of the race's dynamics. Ironically, for all the Lake supporters sharing that stuff they're usually among the first to also say "Twitter isn't real life" when a red avatar posts something. Are that many Arizona voters really paying attention to all this? Or, as political hobbyists, are we putting too much emphasis on this kind of stuff that may actually not be all that relevant? And I said this before about the Fetterman-Oz exchanges too, even as I was amused by a lot of it. I'm not so sure it was all as relevant as that campaign has gone on.

All I know is that Arizona voters seem to be very personality focused this year and both Hobbs and Lake have weaknesses in that department in different ways, which makes this race very frustrating to observe.

[Progressive Pessimist]

From a very outside perspective (someone who has not followed the AZ Gov election, other than the snippets I see in articles or on the various news channels)...

It seems- Hobbs is the candidate to qualified to responsibly run the Governor's office, whereas Lake is sort of a fringe, flame thrower.  But on the other hand- due to Lake's background/experience as a media personality... she is obviously much better at navigating the media/on camera aspect of the campaign... and as you would expect from Lake's background, she is also more telegenic  (Lake sort of has the Kennedy/Nixon natural media advantage over Hobbs in this regard).

So the election certainly seems far from over.  It seems Hobbs started off Ahead, and Lake has been able to use her natural media talents to make a come back and pull slightly ahead- which has also been possibly aided  by Hobbs playing it too safe, trying to hold her early lead.  

But now that Lake seems to have pulled slightly ahead- it seems very likely that Hobbs will approach the closing month a little less cautiously- and likely pull it back to at least even.

Also- I imagine Lake's small lead in the "Polls" is partially due to ppl generally thinking (rightly or wrongly) that Lake has run the better campaign recently... But some ppl (enough to control the outcome if things stay close) ... may decide to sort of hold their nose and vote for Hobbs on election day- because in the end they may decide that even if they perceive Lake to have run a better campaign, they feel more secure with Hobbs actually being in charge of running the state responsibly  (almost in an economic sense- Hobbs is less likely to do something detrimental to the state that could adversely affect its economy, etc).

Stated differently- when undecided or swing voters, actually get ready to cast their votes- a majority of them may look at it as a choice between: a potentially reckless show pony... or a boring book worm. (If I were part of the Hobbs Team- that's the choice I would focus on driving into the minds of swing voters over the remaining month).

For those in AZ- this may not be the reality of the race... its just how it feels (overall) from an outsider's perspective.

You're probably not far off. Arizona seems to be putting a lot of emphasis on personality over policy this year, from what it seems. And that's to both Kelly's and Lake's benefit...as frustrating as it is. But Arizona did vote for the less personality-filled candidate in 2020, so Hobbs still probably has a better chance than Masters at least.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Here is a text verbatim my mom sent me while she was watching the news and Hobbs was declared the victor:

"I hate this word and don't like to use it but I'm glad that Kari Lake c*** lost!"

I guess it's clear to you now where I get my potty mouth from.

Anyway, Hobbs' victory is tied with Fetterman's when it comes to the most satisfying victories of the cycle. And I guess that makes sense since both of these elections were probably the marquee races of the year (I suppose the Georgia Senate race is up there too though, and obviously it will be great to see Walker lose, as looks feasible).

[Progressive Pessimist]

So is Kari just gonna become another fringe Q-Anon "internet celebrity" at this point or something?

That, or a Newsmax anchor (not even Fox News). She burned just about every other bridge to have any other future after this. The same is kind of true of Dr. Oz. He gave up a lucrative television show and at least somewhat more apolitical reputation for a contentious, polarizing, vanity Senate bid and now I don't think he'll ever be able to reclaim that outside of the right wing media-verse.

[Progressive Pessimist]

https://twitter.com/brahmresnik/status/1610117022117154817

It's good to see that some grace and civility still exists in our politics.

Indeed. But that printing! I thought my hand-writing was bad!