Jeff Flake brought a knife to a gun fight

Ouch. After PPP published new data on Monday showing that Arizona Republican Jeff Flake is now the most unpopular sitting senator they've tested following his vote against expanding background checks for gun buyers, Flake tried to swing back—and whiffed hard:

"If we believed PPP polls," Flake said, "I wouldn't be here at all."

Oh yes. I always love it when Republicans start beefing with PPP, because it never ends well—for them. Tom Jensen lays the wood:

@mattklewis We said Flake was going to win by 5 and he won by 3: http://t.co/...
— @ppppolls via web

Swing and a miss! But Flake wasn't done flailing:

Sen. Flake laughed off the PPP survey, saying: "The only accurate poll they'll do is the one the week before the election, so they can do well in terms of how they're rated."

"But prior to that," he said, "take it with a grain of salt."

Yeah, no:

@mattklewis We had Flake up by 11 last February which kind of kills the last week before the election argument: http://t.co/...
— @ppppolls via web

Flake screwed himself hard by opposing background checks, and now he has nowhere to run. Dodge the question and you look scared; push back, and you get humiliated. Flake's only way out, as he himself put it, is that the "beauty of a six-year term" will him to safely ignore the wishes of a wide majority of Arizona voters, in the hopes that they'll all forget what he did come 2018. Job number one for progressives is to make sure everyone remembers.