In an interview with MSNBC’s Chuck Todd Thursday, Ward said that she hoped retirement would be her birthday gift to the long-time senator and 2008 GOP presidential nominee. Marco Rubio is seeking to secure the Republican nomination for a second term and Democrats are deciding who should face him. Kelli Ward, left, who is running against Sen. Kirkpatrick, 66, is running commercials heavily in the Phoenix media market trumpeting her support for term-limits, setting three two-year House terms and two six-year Senate terms as the maximum.
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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. Then, assuming he wins the nomination, he must move into a general election just two months away against a well-funded Democrat, U.S. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, whose campaign is wrapping McCain’s support for Trump around the veteran Republican’s neck in a bid to drive up Latino turnout. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
A Breitbart News Network/Gravis Marketing poll this week showed McCain with a 4-point lead entering Tuesday’s voting. But that doesn’t mean this primary has been easy. The political calculus is that he desperately needs Trump’s voters to win the primary but he needs anti-Trump independents to win the general election.
This trend would also be a welcome sign for Clinton, since her candidacy is widely seen as an extension of President Barack Obama’s progressive two terms, unlike Trump’s bulldoze-the-place campaign pitch. But then McCain quickly went on a rant about Hillary Clinton’s email scandal and her handling of the September 2012 attacks on two US compounds in Benghazi, Libya.
Kirkpatrick is already making the exact opposite argument from Ward.
Polling numbers vary greatly: a poll conducted weeks ago showed Ward leading but a more recent poll showed McCain ahead of Ward.
In Kirkpatrick’s corner is the changing makeup of Arizona.
In 2013, McCain was one of the “gang of eight”, a bipartisan band of senators promoting comprehensive immigration reform, which included a “path to citizenship”-a set of requirements for unauthorized immigrants to gain citizenship”.
Nationwide, four incumbents have already lost this year, according to CNN.
In the Florida Senate primary, a challenge from progressive firebrand Alan Grayson has fizzled somewhat following domestic abuse allegations, and fellow Democratic congressman Patrick Murphy looks most likely to end up competing against Rubio.
In Florida, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz is facing Tim Canova, a law professor backed by Mr. Sanders.
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Because McCain is considered a centrist Republican, he has never had all of the GOP behind him. But that weakness often turns into a strength as November approaches. Trump has dismissed McCain’s war record because he got shot down in Vietnam, and Trump told The Washington Post this month that he “always had a hard time with John” because McCain did not “do enough” on veterans issues. Politico published its own report on the subject under the title “McCain and the politics of mortality”. “McCain’s a bigger figure in Arizona than Trump or [Hillary] Clinton. I’m not too anxious about it right now”.
