Former Astronaut Mark Kelly rocketed onto the political stage in 2020, on the strength of one of the strongest small-dollar fundraising campaigns in American history. It powered him to victory and granted Democrats control of both of the state's Senate seats. It was a sea change for the Grand Canyon state, that before 2008 had elected only one Democrat since 1962. However, Mark Kelly could be facing a more challenging Senate race in 2022.
Right now the interactive Arizona Senate Forecast that I run at RacetotheWH marks him as the early favorite, with a 63% chance of winning re-election. Last year, we accurately predicted Joe Biden and Mark Kelly's narrow victories in Arizona even six months out from the election.
One of the marks of a strong candidate is how they performed compared to other members of the party on the ballot in the same year. Kelly proved to be one of the Democrats best recruits, as he won Arizona by 2.4% the same year President Biden won it by 0.3%. It also means that Kelly can't afford to lose too much ground in 2022. That will be a challenge if Republicans maintain their lead in the generic ballot.
His odds of victory will be dependent in part on who the Republican party decides to nominate. The frontrunner at this stage is Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who has already proven he can win statewide, and who has tied Kelly in the polls. Our forecast finds that Kelly’s chances of winning would drop to 50.4% against Brnovich.
Brnovich isn’t a lock to get the nomination. He still only has the support of 23% of primary voters. He’s benefitting from a split field, with venture capitalist Blake Masters, General Mike McGuire, and businessman Jim Lamon each earning 6-10% in the polls. Time will tell if voters coalesce around an alternative. Mark Kelly has at least a 7% lead against Masters, McGuire, and Lamon, and we project he’d have a greater than 70% chance of winning against all three.
Every day, our national 2022 Senate forecast is updated with the latest polling and simulates the election 50,000 times a day. In the last election, it was one of the most accurate in the nation and got closer to the final margin in Senate races than Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight. Click here to see the latest predictions for every state.
Our Arizona Senate forecast shows how Kelly measures up against each potential republican opponent and goes much more into detail about the political battleground of the Grand Canyon state. We're also tracking the Arizona Governor race, and just launched a forecast for the 2022 House election.