Arizona Is Sliding Away From Martha McSally

RATING: Leans Democrat

Ever since the days of Barry Goldwater, in the 1950s and 60s, Arizona has been almost exclusively ruled by Republicans. With the exception of Democrat Dennis W. DeConcini, who served in the Senate from 1977-1995, no other Democrat was elected between 1952 to 2018. On the Presidential level the results have been just as inhospitable for Democrats as their candidates have won just one contest (Bill Clinton in 1996) since 1952. Lions of Republicanism such as John McCain and Goldwater controlled the political landscape for years in the Grand Canyon State and their presence is still felt today. Despite the Party’s dominance, however, incumbent Republican Senator Martha McSally is facing massive headwinds in her reelection campaign against Democrat Mark Kelly. 

McSally’s troubles are partly due to the circumstances of which she became a Senator. McSally was the Republican nominee for Senator in 2018, but was defeated by Democrat Kyrsten Sinema. After her 2018 defeat, through a number of unique circumstances, McSally was appointed Senator by Republican Governor Doug Ducey to replace John McCain who had died with over four years remaining on his term. McSally’s appointment in January 2019, however, was only to serve two of the remaining four years of John McCain’s unexpired term. An official election would then take place in November 2020 to fill the remaining two years of McCain’s term. 

What this all means is that the victor of the 2020 race will have to run for reelection again, just two years later in 2022, to receive a full six-year term as Senator. All of this puts McSally in the unenviable position of having to potentially field three separate Senatorial campaigns in just a four year span if she wins reelection in 2020. 

McSally will also have to deal with the baggage that she picked up during her 2018 Senatorial campaign. In particular, a brutal primary campaign against Joe Arpaio and Kelli Ward forced McSally to take hard right positions on issues such as immigration and taxes. These positions haunted McSally as she greatly underperformed among self-described Independent voters compared to Republican Governor Doug Ducey. McSally lost Independents by a 50-47% margin and her standing with these voters appears to have only gotten worse in the run up to 2020. 

A recent OH Predictive Insights poll showed McSally losing the Independent vote to Mark Kelly by a stunning 59-28% margin. Independents made up 31% of Arizona’s total vote in the 2018 Midterms and if the current deficit holds true, then McSally will not only lose her reelection bid but also get blown out by double digits in the process. While it is only one poll it is imperative that McSally make as many overtures as possible to Moderate and Independent voters. If she does not do so then Kelly will simply crush her on election day. 

Unfortunately for McSally, she will have to repair her image while also facing a massive fundraising deficit. As of the last reporting period, Kelly had outraised McSally by about $13 million and had nearly twice as much cash on hand as his Republican counterpart. The Covid-19 outbreak is also unlikely to have helped McSally with her fundraising and she will have to rely heavily on outside Republican groups to make up the ground. McSally will have a plethora of support from the Trump campaign but even this support is not likely going to be enough to outraise Kelly. 

Martha McSally is in trouble. While there is still time to overcome her deficiencies, it will be extremely difficult for McSally to overcome her deficits among independents and fundraising. She will need for the Trump and his team to campaign furiously for her and for Kelly to commit a number of missteps on the campaign trail. With Covid-19 having frozen campaigns in place McSally will not be able to count on real missteps from Kelly. Instead, McSally will have to increasingly embrace Donald Trump in order to prevent her Senate seat from turning blue.