Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain and his wife, Cindy, cast their votes around 8 a.m.at Mountain View Christian Church near 28th Street and Campbell in Phoenix, to the cheers of McCain staffers and the heckling of one lone Kelli Ward supporter.
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Ward had been mainly ignored by McCain, but she got national attention by saying in recent interviews that McCain would be unable to complete another six-year term because of his age.
The victor will face Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick, a three-term U.S. House member from eastern Arizona, in the November general election.
Polls opened Tuesday morning for Arizona’s primary where Republican Sen.
McCain also has been dogged with questions about Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has made comments that drew the senator’s ire, and even questioned McCain’s status as a war hero because he was a prisoner of war. And it died again after McCain repeatedly sold out his supposed Maverick credentials during his cynical 2008 presidential campaign against Barack Obama, and then it really died during his subsequent desperate campaign to hold his Senate seat in 2010.
Also on the Republican ballot is radio talk show host Clair Van Steenwyk, along with Alex Meluskey, who suspended his campaign early this month.
Blitzer challenged Ward on remarks she made to MSNBC last week, which she said that McCain was “too old and weak”. In response to criticism of the ads’ similarities, a campaign spokesperson for Ward said, “Mitt Romney got it right, If the shoe fits, wear it”.
In this Tuesday, Aug. 2, 2016 photo, former Arizona Republican state Sen.
Ward, his opponent, is running a much more Trump-ian campaign, attending the GOP nominee’s rallies and taking hard-line stances on immigration and deportation.
Rubio, who decided a year ago not to seek re-election to the Senate in order to pursue the Republican presidential nomination, jumped into the race in June after his failed White House bid.
Yet McCain grits his teeth and professes support for Trump, but mostly by talking about how Hillary Clinton would shift the Supreme Court to liberals – or he uses prison jokes to move on to other topics.
“Recent polls showed that John McCain was the most despised member of the U.S. Senate in America”, says Gheen. Kelli Ward, right, who is running against current incumbent Arizona Sen.
McCain is one of two longtime politicians in their 80s who easily won primaries Tuesday in Arizona.
The 1st District features a slug-fest between five Republicans in the region that runs from Flagstaff to the northern Tucson suburbs now held by Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick, who is running for U.S. Senate. John McCain for the U.S. Senate. FILE – In this December 18, 2013, file photo, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio speaks at a news conference at the Sheriff’s headquarters in Phoenix, Ariz.
The 5th District race is essentially a general election contest, since the district that takes in the southeast Phoenix-area suburbs of Gilbert, Queen Creek and parts of Chandler and Mesa is heavily Republican. Embattled Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is seeking a sevent.
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The other statewide race features a five-way race among Republicans seeking three seats on the state’s utility regulation panel, the Arizona Corporation Commission.
