Here’s some good news today out of Arizona courtesy of Center Street PAC:
A new poll from Center Street PAC, a non-partisan political action committee, shows Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) has 14% margin over venture capitalist Blake Masters in the race for Arizona’s U.S. Senate seat. Kelly leads 54% to 40% among Likely Voters, with only 7% undecided. The data follows the recent polling trend in Ohio and Pennsylvania U.S. Senate races, where Democratic candidates have significant leads over Republicans who were expected to be favorites.
“You’d think this would be an easy win for Masters. Arizona is deep red and not exactly hostile to populist extremists, but we have another state where it’s reversed,” said Center Street Co-Founder Matt O’Brien.
While Masters is well behind Kelly in Preference, he has an opportunity to pick up votes among a high percentage of undecided voters expected to break for him. Also, Masters’ Favorability numbers are not as bleak as Oz’s.
“We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: once voters get to know these MAGA candidates, they don’t like them,” said Center Street Co-Founder Jacob Perry. “Once more Arizona voters get to know Masters and see what an extremist he is, we think Arizona will go blue, in this race at least.”
Masters also benefits from an advantage in voter enthusiasm, with 62% who say they are excited to vote for Masters against 57% for Kelly.
“Republican voters still outpace Democrats in voter motivation, not only in Arizona, but in almost every state we’ve polled. The only time we’ve seen Democrats with the advantage was in Ohio last week,” said Dr. Jetta.
While 46% of Arizona voters view Kelly Somewhat Favorably or Very Favorably (20%/26%), only 30% hold that view for Masters. Of those, only 13% view Master Very Favorably. Meanwhile, 44% of voters have a Somewhat Unfavorable (14%) or Very Unfavorable (30%) view of Masters versus 38% Unfavorable (13%/25%) for Kelly.
Kelly’s favorability among Democrats is extremely high, with 77% viewing him favorably, and 50% of those view him Very Favorably. Independents also like Kelly, with 42% viewing him favorably versus 21% who have an unfavorable view. By contrast, only 18% of independents view Masters favorably, with 8% at Very Favorable. Among Republicans, 51% view Masters Somewhat or Very Favorable (28%/23%). Interestingly, while only 12% of Democrats have an unfavorable view of Kelly, 24% of Republicans say Masters is unfavorable.
“The Arizona, Ohio and Pennsylvania races are remarkably similar. In all races, three experienced Democrats have commanding leads against three MAGA neophytes with high Unfavorable scores,” said Center Street Chief Analytics Officer Dr. Kurt Jetta. “The only real difference between Masters and his counterparts in Ohio and Pennsylvania is that he has lower name recognition than Vance and Oz.”
While Oz and Vance’s respective Awareness scores are in the mid-to-high 80s with Pennsylvania and Ohio voters, respectively, only 78% of Arizona voters recognize Masters’ name.
“There are still plenty of persuadable voters in Arizona. With so many similarities among the Arizona, Ohio and Pennsylvania races, it will be interesting to see how Masters proceeds,” said O’Brien. “Will he stay on the sidelines and let his opponent define him, like Vance did in Ohio? Or will Masters engage? And as the voters get to know him, will they like what they see?”
There’s certainly plenty of opportunity to define Masters more. He’s hoping no one will notice this:
The founder of a far-right social media platform and U.S. Senate candidate Blake Masters exchanged barbs after Masters essentially dismissed him.
Gab founder Andrew Torba posted on Gab before the Aug. 2 primary that he was endorsing the Donald Trump-endorsed Masters, U.S. Reps. Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar, gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem, and state Senate candidate Wendy Rogers. All won their primary races.
Masters and Lake rejected the endorsement. “I’ve never heard of this guy and I reject his support,” Masters told the Arizona Mirror. “The reason I’ve never heard of him is because he’s a nobody, and nobody cares about him except the media.”
Torba said on his social media platform that "it's a flat-out lie" that Masters was unaware of who Torba was.
His Aug. 4 post on Gab, which since has been taken down, came in response to the article in the Mirror in which Masters denounced Torba's endorsement of his candidacy.
The Anti-Defamation League describes Gab as a "haven for antisemites, extremists and conspiracy theorists," including Torba himself. Torba denies this characterization. The social media platform was founded in 2016 and gained national attention in 2018 because the Tree of Life Synagogue shooter in Pittsburgh used the site.
Here’s what Masters is banking on:
Andy Surabian, a Republican strategist advising the pro-Masters Saving Arizona PAC, said the blueprint for Masters to defeat Kelly is “really simple.”
“Just tie him to Joe Biden, who’s very unpopular in Arizona, and the even more unpopular policies of Joe Biden,” Surabian said, adding that Masters will need to “dominate in the rural” areas and “keep it competitive in Maricopa” and not lose the county “by double digits.” He said it would help to “over-perform a little bit with Hispanics in a state like Arizona.”
Kelly is currently running a TV ad attacking corporate “price gouging” by oil companies who are “earning record profits” by exploiting a crisis and calling for a cut to the federal gas tax. His campaign rolled out a Spanish-language ad touting his support for Arizona's small businesses.
Asked about Masters’ portrayal of him as an extremist in lockstep with Biden, a Kelly campaign strategist said the Democrat has shown a willingness to “stand up to the president,” citing his opposition to Biden revoking the Trump-era Title 42 border rule and his letter pushing Biden to act against high gas prices. The strategist added that Kelly outperformed Biden in Arizona in 2020.
“Trump-Kelly voters are real,” the strategist said.
This week, Kelly was in Washington as the Senate voted on a bill to provide health care benefits to veterans exposed to burn pits and other toxins. He praised elements of the Democrats’ big agenda package, which grew out of a deal between Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., including a provision empowering Medicare to negotiate drug prices as well as funding for health insurance coverage and clean energy. Kelly has also touted his support for the recent law that will provide new investments in U.S. computer chip production and the $550 billion bipartisan infrastructure law.
Progressives in Arizona say Kelly isn’t as left-leaning as they want him to be. But they find him accessible and forthcoming.
“He’s not a senator that I would say aligns 100% with everything that progressives and Democrats are asking for Arizona. But he constantly is communicating with us,” said Luis Ávila, 40, a community organizer in Phoenix. “But he has town halls; he has meetings with us; he’s traveling across the state and meeting with constituencies. So at least we know where he stands.”
Turn out is going to be extremely important because Arizona’s GOP slate is filled with election deniers:
When the Associated Press finally called the Arizona Republican gubernatorial primary for Kari Lake on August 4, it became official: In four major multi-candidate GOP primaries held on August 2, candidates who firmly denied the legitimacy of the 2020 elections won. All four of them, unsurprisingly, were endorsed by Donald Trump: Lake, plus Senate candidate Blake Masters, secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem, and attorney-general candidate Abraham Hamadeh.
This is pretty stunning. In Nebraska, gubernatorial candidate Charles Herbster, a Trump endorsee who attended the January 6 “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington, lost. In Georgia, two election deniers challenging the incumbent Republican governor and secretary of state who together certified Biden’s win in the state got their butts handed to them. Election denier Doug Mastriano did win the Pennsylvania GOP gubernatorial primary, but he had an assist from Democrats, who regarded him as easy general-election prey.
Maybe it’s a western thing. Before Arizona, the high tide of electoral success for election deniers occurred in Nevada: the GOP nominees for U.S. Senate (Adam Laxalt) and secretary of state (Jim Marchant) have all questioned the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s win. But Nevada GOP gubernatorial candidate (and Trump endorsee) Joe Lombardo would only say he’s worried that universal voting by mail (adopted by Nevada in 2020) encouraged fraud.
You won’t hear that kind of RINO equivocation from the Big Four nominees in Arizona. Here’s Senate nominee Masters:
Gubernatorial nominee Lake made the stolen-election lie a litmus test differentiator against chief Republican rival Karrin Taylor Robson:
AG nominee Hamadeh, who is just six years out of law school and has to rely on Trump’s endorsement as his main credential, has “embraced Trump’s ‘Big Lie’ that the 2020 election was stolen and cited fully debunked lies about widespread voter fraud to argue that Biden did not win Arizona in the 2020 election,” according to Arizona-based Copper Courier.
But Finchem really takes the cake. He’s a longtime member of the Oathkeepers, the violent right-wing group that, along with the Proud Boys, helped organize the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol (Finchem was there but says he didn’t enter the Capitol). As a state legislator, he introduced legislation seeking to decertify the 2020 elections in three Arizona counties carried by Joe Biden. And he’s a charter member — along with Nevada’s Marchant and Pennsylvania’s Mastriano (who if elected governor would supervise his state’s elections) — of the America First Secretary of State Coalition, a group formed to help avenge Trump’s 2020 loss by aggressive voter-suppression efforts.
And Democrats are not only focused to hold onto Kelly’s Senate, they also want to flip the Governor’s race:
The Democratic Governors Association (DGA) says it's going all in to help Katie Hobbs become governor, though it's unclear how much the group will spend on her race — or whether it's willing to match its Republican counterpart.
The big picture: The DGA recently transferred $1.5 million to the Arizona Democratic Party, and the party began running a TV ad against Lake this week.
- The ad criticizes Lake for her opposition to abortion rights, accuses her of having an extreme position on guns and emphasizes her support for baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.
- The Arizona Democratic Party has already bought about $4.4 million worth of airtime, most of it in the final weeks leading up to the general election, though spokesperson Morgan Dick said not all of that money would be spent in the governor's race.
We cannot let our guard down and turnout is going to be very important.
Democracy and Health are on the ballot next year and we need to get ready to keep Arizona Blue. Click below to donate and get involved with Kelly, Hobbs and their fellow Arizona Democrats campaigns: