While Sen. John McCain’s 52-39 win over underfunded GOP primary challenger Kelli Ward last month was very unimpressive, it may have been the toughest part of his re-election campaign. Team Blue has been hoping that Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick would give McCain a tough race here, but national Democrats aren’t providing her with the support she needs to win.
When the DSCC announced its initial fall TV reservations in April, it left Arizona off the list. And while the committee recently diverted millions of dollars to Missouri and North Carolina, it still doesn’t appear to have invested any money in Arizona. There’s also no indication that any other outside groups, such as Senate Majority PAC, are preparing to air ads here, either. On the GOP side, the NRSC has helped McCain pay for some of his TV ads, but they’ve kept their expenditures fairly low. Early voting, which is very popular in Arizona, begins Oct. 12, so the clock is ticking loudly.
And while there hasn’t been a surfeit of polling, the numbers we have seen are not good for Kirkpatrick. Even though CNN/ORC, Marist, and Insights West have all found Donald Trump with small leads in the Grand Canyon State, they’ve seen McCain defeating Kirkpatrick by double digits. The one recent bright spot was a PPP survey for a liberal group that had the race a 43-43 tie, but it also found that the undecided voters were disproportionately conservative. These voters may hate McCain, but they’re unlikely to vote for a Democrat in order to get rid of him.
Unfortunately, all of this—the polls and the outside spending, or lack thereof—indicate that this is not a top-tier contest. We’re not ready to write this race off entirely yet, though. Kirkpatrick is a good candidate who has won tough races before, and if Clinton manages to carry Arizona, that would give Kirkpatrick a lift. But with McCain looking strong, we’re moving this race from Lean Republican to Likely Republican. And sadly, this really is good news for John McCain.