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

[MT Treasurer]

I agree with you that national environment does matter quite a lot, which is why Kelly is not heavily favored, and I don't think anyone believes that, but Thiel has a reputation of supporting pretty extreme candidates, for instance he bankrolled Kobach and JD Vance has close ties to him, too. However, candidate quality, while overrated can matter somewhat, I don't think anyone denies that Sue Lowden would have won NV SEN in 2010, Jane Norton would have won CO in 2010, etc. Kelly absolutely is beatable, and I'd say it's a tossup right now, but the Republicans really have no one to blame but themselves, if they lose this race. Also outside of Wisconsin (RoJo is way stronger than people give him credit for, and he had a history of making nutty statements well before 2020, yet he still has a unique brand, that allows him to win), North Carolina, and New Hampshire, it does seem like the GOP is struggling with candidate recruitment, and that alone can hurt a party's chances. I agree that Republicans are quite likely to take back both Houses of Congress next year and think they win at least one of NV/AZ/NH, unless Biden is abnormally popular or they messed up candidate recruitment big time. However, I do think in Arizona especially where the Republicans need to win the types of voters that have been moving away from them in recent years, especially compared to other states, candidate quality will matter more than most states. I don't exactly think any Republican is going to win the swingy Trump/Sinema/Biden voters, but the right Republican could, in fact we saw this with AZ's ticket splitting in 2018. TL;DR by no means is Kelly a lock if the GOP nominates a candidate who is extreme, but it definitely complicates their chances, if that happens.

Er, Sue Lowden wouldn’t have beaten Harry Reid in 2010, and her Senate campaign that year was pretty bad. She also has a history of underperforming substantially even in favorable years, like in 2014, when she got blown out of the water by a State Senator in a LG primary which was expected to be very close.

Jane Norton is more debatable, but even then, Bennet was no pushover (nor nearly as incompetent as Udall) and the state's D lean/trend combined with the late movement/momentum toward Democrats nationally was always going to make this a difficult race for the GOP. If you want more obvious cases of races which were lost because of flawed R campaigns/strategies, you could always mention WV 2018, ND 2012, IN 2012, etc.

[JMT]

https://twitter.com/rpyers/status/1397928243794042880?s=21

[Meatball Ron]

https://twitter.com/rpyers/status/1397928243794042880?s=21

Not seeing much info on him online - is he a "Big Lie" promoter / full-on GQPer? If not, based on bio alone, he seems like he'd be a stronger candidate than any of the state row officers or Congressmen.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Mark Kelly has this he will win by 5 pts

[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?

[ElectionsGuy]

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 .

[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.

[ElectionsGuy]

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.

No, you can still be a real Republican. I'm just suggesting you shouldn't be seriously using something that Joy Ann Reid and rabidly partisan Democrats use to characterize the GOP, the majority of which (R's) don't even know what QAnon is. It reflects that you are heavily influenced by Dem-aligned media thinking, instead of what most Republicans think.

[MT Treasurer]

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.

[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.

[MargieCat]

Ducey and Brnovich would have been the GOP's best recruits. But Trump torpedoed both of them.

It will probably be someone like Biggs or Ward.

Trump also could have set his differences with Flake aside and endorsed him for reelection back in 2018. He would have won if Trump didn't destroy him.

[Spectator]

Ducey and Brnovich would have been the GOP's best recruits. But Trump torpedoed both of them.

It will probably be someone like Biggs or Ward.

Trump also could have set his differences with Flake aside and endorsed him for reelection back in 2018. He would have won if Trump didn't destroy him.

Doubtful. Kyrsten Sinema had wider leads against Jeff Flake than she did against McSally before he dropped out. He was on track to get demolished by Kelli Ward first in the primary, and either one of him or Ward would have lost by a larger margin than McSally did.

[MT Treasurer]

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.

1) "Kelly will be hard to beat" is, at best, a self-fulfilling prophecy — he was supposed to be nearly unbeatable in 2020 and ended up underperforming his polling quite substantially in a state where Democrats have been underpolled in the recent past. Here’s a candidate who could ride the national environment, the state's D trend, the national party's ground operation, and anti-Trump energy to victory against a very underwhelming challenger in a year in which he didn’t have a record to defend, not a candidate who has a proven record of swimming against the tide. If you note Kelly's 'strength' in polling, you should also point out that he was polling just as well against Yee and Brnovich as he was against Ward and Biggs in the most recent survey...

2) "[M]oderates" aren’t a uniform voting bloc, and assuming that branding/messaging (even if it’s largely negative messaging directed at your opponent) will matter less than a candidate's 'true' ideology is very, very unwise.

3) Again, several non-Congressional Republicans have already announced their candidacy/expressed their interest, far more so than in any other battleground race. It’s not even guaranteed that it will be one of the Congressmen (and I wouldn’t even say it’s likely at this point). More importantly, however, it’s May 2021, so plenty of time for other challengers to announce. It’s a wide-open Senate primary with no clear front-runner.

4) All assessments of candidate quality and its impact on any election are inherently subjective. Unless you’re talking about a disaster on the level of Roy Moore, Todd Akin, etc., assuming that a candidate's "quality" will be the difference between "competitive" and "safe" in a Biden +0.3 state in a midterm under a D trifecta in this day and age is ludicrous.  

5) None of this addresses my point about the AZ GOP not necessarily being more likely to throw away a winnable race than the NC GOP. "Pat McCrory and Lara Trump are electoral disasters who’d underperform badly among moderates against strong candidate Jeff Jackson" is a take you never see on here but which would be grounded in the same reasoning as the AZ conventional wisdom. Why does candidate quality matter this much in AZ but not NC?

You’re right that the GOP should be concerned about candidate recruitment/tracking here, but that’s because it’s the party's job to be concerned about candidate monitoring in any state, not just AZ. The bottom line is that the fundamentals still point to this being the most vulnerable seat for Democrats, and it’s rarely wise to downplay those in favor of your personal, arbitrary emphases on candidate quality. We’ve been through this before (NH-SEN 2016 vs. WI-SEN 2016 with strong incumbent/rising star Kelly Ayotte far more likely to win than self-destructing Trumpist radical Ron Johnson, NV-SEN 2018 with uninspiring/flawed candidate Rosen throwing the guy who has never lost an election a lifeline in what is totally not a near-guaranteed D pick-up, IA-SEN 2020 with Ernst's repeated 'gaffes' and 'off-putting fake persona'), and I’m perfectly happy to say the same when "candidate quality" is supposed to heavily benefit Republicans (which is why Sununu wouldn’t make NH-SEN a far more likely flip than AZ-SEN or NV-SEN, for instance).

[Minnesota Mike]

https://www.brnoforaz.com/

Brnovich in.

[SnowLabrador]

https://www.brnoforaz.com/

Brnovich in.

Time to change the thread title to something like "The Mark to Beat."

[Calthrina950]

https://www.brnoforaz.com/

Brnovich in.

Time to change the thread title to something like "The Mark to Beat."

True. Both men are named Mark. Last year, in Montana, both candidates were named Steve. I'd be curious to know other political races in recent times where both candidates had the same first name.

[SnowLabrador]

https://www.brnoforaz.com/

Brnovich in.

Time to change the thread title to something like "The Mark to Beat."

True. Both men are named Mark. Last year, in Montana, both candidates were named Steve. I'd be curious to know other political races in recent times where both candidates had the same first name.

In all seriousness, since the state legislature is moving to transfer election oversight to the AG office, it looks like Brnovich will be able to rig it in his favor a la Brian Kemp. I fully expect Kelly to lose.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

I expected him to enter and am far from certain he’ll win the primary, but his confirmation is enough for me to move this race to tilt R.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

https://www.brnoforaz.com/

Brnovich in.

Time to change the thread title to something like "The Mark to Beat."

True. Both men are named Mark. Last year, in Montana, both candidates were named Steve. I'd be curious to know other political races in recent times where both candidates had the same first name.

In all seriousness, since the state legislature is moving to transfer election oversight to the AG office, it looks like Brnovich will be able to rig it in his favor a la Brian Kemp. I fully expect Kelly to lose.

You really think Kelly is losing, he is leading by the same amount against all Rs in the last poll in a Neutral Environment, D's win AZ, NH, PA, GA,WI, NV and PA

The Gov race is probably Lean R but Senate race Leans D

[Progressive Pessimist]

I expected him to enter and am far from certain he’ll win the primary, but his confirmation is enough for me to move this race to tilt R.

Might Trump's already demonstrated dislike for Brnovich possibly hamper him in the primary and even the general election though? I'm still keeping this as a tossup for now.

[MargieCat]

I expected him to enter and am far from certain he’ll win the primary, but his confirmation is enough for me to move this race to tilt R.

Might Trump's already demonstrated dislike for Brnovich possibly hamper him in the primary and even the general election though? I'm still keeping this as a tossup for now.

I think it will hurt him if Trump keeps on attacking him.

I assume Kelli Ward will follow suit and attack Brnovich.

The best possible candidate for a flip was Doug Ducey. Trump stuck a pin in that...

Brnovich is a good candidate and has a shot if Trump would keep his fat face out of it.

I expect Biggs or Ward to enter this race.

[freepcrusher]

I saw Brnovich on Tucker twice over the past few months. He certainly seems to have an aggressive personality although I'm not sure how that would translate to his politics. My guess is that he's somewhere between McCain and Kyl views wise. Regardless, Kelly is going to have to work hard. He (brnovich) is probably not as strong a candidate as Ducey would be - but the fact he was reelected in 2018 counts for something.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

I expected him to enter and am far from certain he’ll win the primary, but his confirmation is enough for me to move this race to tilt R.

A generic Republican who's maybe 50/50 to win s primary gets in and suddenly it's tilt R?
That's some top shelf doomerism

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

I expected him to enter and am far from certain he’ll win the primary, but his confirmation is enough for me to move this race to tilt R.

A generic Republican who's maybe 50/50 to win s primary gets in and suddenly it's tilt R?
That's some top shelf doomerism

I had it going Republican anyway. It was just a small nudge out of the tossup category, because Biggs was no longer the frontrunner.

[CookieDamage]

Do yall have any reasoning or evidence to make this race tilt R? Kelly underperforming is not a good reason since Dems underperformed pretty much everywhere at every level.

It's tossup/tilt D till I see more.