The Republican Primary
The entrance of former Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio has totally shifted the GOP Senate Primary Race to fill Jeff Flake’s seat, the incumbent senator who announced his intent to not run for reelection. Arpaio, most known for being pardoned by President Trump for his crimes of racist and egregious treatment of people of Mexican descent in the Phoenix area, is a hardliner on immigration, an important issue for Arizonian Republicans. He is loved by many (white racists), and is hated by many (Mexican-Americans). His entrance creates another divide between Steve Bannon and Trump and the alt-right, and brings more excitement to an already exciting Senate race: Arizona now has two extreme right-wing candidates.
Kelli Ward is a Bannon-backed, alt-right state legislator that announced her intent to run for Flake’s seat well before Flake’s announcement of retirement. She has rallied behind her a large group of right wingers in Arizona with the help of huge donations from the Mercer family and the Koch Brothers, and the full support from alt-right ringleader Steve Bannon. But with Bannon’s sudden departure from his powerful position at Breitbart and the loss of support from the president, Bannon wields much less power in the Trumpist, alt-right world. This could cause big donors like the Mercers to pull funding for the Bannon-backed Ward’s campaign. There was already speculation of whether big, Republican donors would pull money from Bannonite candidates before his departure from Breitbart due to Bannon’s critical words of Trump in the new bestseller “Fire and Fury”, but his total removal from power all but confirms there’s worry for Ward. But all this may not even matter because Bannon may shift his support from Ward to Arpaio — we’ve seen crazier from Bannon. Arpaio is someone who is more known and — in my opinion — much more right wing than Ward is, therefore appealing to Bannon and Bannonites alike. In addition, Trump is likely to endorse Arpaio over Ward due to Arpaio’s past vocal support for the president and by the fact that Trump has already gone out of his way to help Arpaio.
Just two weeks ago, before the release of “Fire and Fury”, a Ward victory seemed extremely likely. But now the two alt-right, anti-establishment candidates — Ward and Arpaio — seem to possibly be creating a divide within the divided Republican party. Thus paving the road for the Republican-establishment candidate frontrunner, US Rep. Martha McSally, to walk away with the nomination. Polls have shown this, too: the latest poll taken for the Republican Primary before Arpaio announced showed Ward with a 7% lead over McSally; the a very recent poll shows McSally in the lead with 31%; Arpaio 29%; Ward 25%; 15% undecided.
What does the mean for the final primary results? Depends if Arpaio picks up major support in the coming months, which seems likely due to his name recognition and popularity amongst white right wingers, which are plentiful in Arizona. A Trump endorsement would definitely boost Arpaio’s chances, so would Ward dropping out.
There are four scenarios that could play out:
- Ward stays in, maintains energy, successfully divides the alt-right vote, and McSally walks away with the nomination.
- Ward stays in despite being hit hard when she loses Trump’s support to Arpaio, comes out with <10% on primary day, giving Arpaio a nail-biting victory. This one seems most likely.
- Ward drops out, Arpaio wins in a landslide.
- For one reason or another, Arpaio drops out and the whole alt-right wing of the GOP bands together to elect Ward as the Republican nominee (I can’t see Ward actually beating Arpaio). This one seems least likely.
I don’t see a scenario where Ward drops out and McSally edges out a victory because the anti-McConnell/establishment rage is still very strong the Republican party, especially so in a state where whites come in contact with Mexican immigrants so often; they’re rage against nonwhite immigrants is much more intense than one’s is in Wisconsin. The Republican base in Arizona is prime meat for a Bannon/Trumpist candidate, and not a great place for a McConnell-backed candidate with moderate immigration views.
The General Election
What does this mean for the general? If McSally wins, it’s not so good for Democrats. McSally wouldn’t repulse Mexican-Americans to the extent Arpaio would. She also wouldn’t be rejected by moderate Republicans in affluent areas the same way Roy Moore was in Alabama. As a result, we’d see the typical sluggish turnout for Hispanic voters that we usually see in midterm elections, therefore resembling a typical statewide election in Arizona. But another point to consider is that Arizona electorate is getting less white by the day. Arizona has one of the fastest growing nonwhite populations in the country, as well as one of the youngest populations in the country. In Arizona, every day that goes by gets increasingly difficult for Republicans to win there. Then there’s the point that Democrats will be riding a nationwide blue wave in 2018, making it even harder for a Republican to maintain control in Arizona. All considering, this scenario would end up be very close; too close to call.
But if Arpaio wins, it’d create fertile ground for a Democratic victory. I think it’d be a sure bet Kyrsten Sinema (the Democratic frontrunner in Arizona) would beat Arpaio. We’d see a huge increase in Hispanic turnout resembling the black vote in the 2017 Alabama Special Election, and a decrease in turnout for affluent Republican moderates in the Phoenix metropolitan area. And if much-more-red Alabama can reject an outwardly corrupt racist, so can purple Arizona.
This leaves the most unlikely scenario: Ward wins. I think we’d see an election day similar to Arpaio’s, just not as extreme. What I mean is that Ward is less known and not as outwardly racist — don’t get me wrong, she’s still bad — as Arpaio. This would mean less Hispanic turnout than Arpaio, but more than with McSally. Overall, Ward would lose due to the ever-changing electorate of Arizona and wave of anti-Trumpism amongst young people, racial minorities, and upper-middle class moderates.
So to be clear, this is what I think will happen for each scenario in the general:
- McSally vs Sinema: toss-up
- Arpaio vs Sinema: Sinema landslide
- Ward vs Sinema: Sinema win