McSally, GOP aim to stir up the base
Swing voters and turnout key in Senate race against Sinema
It was hours before Senate Republicans would deliver President Donald Trump a crowning victory: the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh as a Supreme Court justice.
Republicans who gathered inside the Arizona GOP headquarters in Phoenix for Senate candidate Martha McSally were grimly determined.
These hard-core conservative voters and activists were readying for battle ahead of the looming Nov. 6 midterm elections, where soaring enthusiasm for Democrats could deny them Arizona’s open Senate seat.
Taking the microphone, the state GOP executive director set the tone for this Oct. 6 get-out-the-vote rally, reminding them that Democratic Senate nominee Kyrsten Sinema once described herself as a “Prada socialist.”
Matthew Pagano asked the crowd of several dozen to shout, “Socialist! Socialist! Socialist!” every time they heard her name — an attempt to reinforce an extreme, far-left image of Sinema, who has been running as a centrist Democrat.
The crowd chanted back, some with fists pumping. The moment reflected the well of anger and frustration Republicans are stoking with the hopes of countering energized Democrats who already have turned out in a record number for Arizona’s Aug. 28 primary election.
The Democrats’ so-called blue wave could pose a major challenge for McSally, who could lose some GOP voters as well as independents dissatisfied with Trump.
Republican strategists know they must make sure their base gets to the polls and, to galvanize their vot-
ers, have turned up the volume of the political rhetoric and taken a more aggressive tone.
In making their closing arguments before the general election, Republicans are serving up red meat to their side by focusing on the left’s effort to keep the conservative Kavanaugh off the Supreme Court, threats to gun rights and even the prospect of nuclear terrorism.
At the 30-minute rally at Arizona Republican headquarters, speakers did not overemphasize the booming economy or Trump’s 2017 tax-cut package.
Instead, the Republicans warned of doom and gloom if Democrats take control of the Senate.
“When they’re satisfied on tax policy and regulatory policy, it’s harder to get them motivated,” said Kevin Madden, who was a spokesman for Mitt Romney’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns.
“But when you talk about some of these cultural issues, it reminds them of the very clear differences between these parties . ... It can oftentimes motivate a listless Republican into being a very active Republican.”
‘Let’s look at the stakes’
At the rally, McSally marveled at the political environment, which is so unpredictable that she has to court members of her own party to vote for her.
“We’ve got to dig in,” McSally told the crowd. “And especially, let’s get Republicans out to vote, and let’s get Republicans to vote for Republicans. I mean, this is the insanity of what’s going on right now.
“If we just get Republicans to vote for Republicans, then we are going to win up and down the ticket, OK? You’re a registered Republican for a reason,” she added. “Let’s wake up. Let’s look at the stakes.”
If too few Republicans turn out in this traditionally red state — or too many cross over to vote for Sinema — McSally and other Republicans warned that their party’s agenda would collapse and the nation would plunge into “chaos” and be stymied by “obstructionism.”
Beyond that get-outthe-vote rally, Republican candidates and their allies are invoking cultural issues and language intended to fire up conservatives who might normally stay home during the off-presidential year.
They are falling back to bare-knuckle campaign tactics that Democrats call scaremongering and could alienate more moderate voters.
The McSally-Sinema race is deemed a toss-up by political analysts, and a recent Suffolk University/
Arizona Republic poll, taken in the days before Kavanaugh’s confirmation, showed it as essentially a dead heat. Sinema had a slight advantage over McSally that was within the poll’s margin of error.
The race could come down to which candidate can win over traditional swing voters, such as independents and suburban women, some of whom may not vote at all if they are turned off by the negative campaigning.
That leaves McSally and other Republicans with the dual task of bringing home GOP voters dissatisfied with Trump and bolstering enthusiasm among those who are feeling good about the direction of the country.
A spokeswoman for McSally’s campaign did not respond to The Republic’s request to talk about whether the emotional appeals to voters could help or hurt enthusiasm for McSally.
Pro-gun, anti-socialist voters
Retired Air Force pilot Wendy Rogers, a Trump loyalist, is running to represent Arizona’s northeastern 1st Congressional District and is among those attacking Democrats in a no-holds-barred fashion.
Rogers is airing radio ads that cast Democrats as “crazy” and “unhinged,” saying they want to “regulate our freedoms until America becomes Venezuela.”
Gun-rights lobbying group the National Shooting Sports Foundation is warning voters in mailers that the “gun control lobby” wants to “Ban All Guns.”
Its mailer features photos from a March for Our Lives rally where protesters carried signs reading, “I wish Obama HAD taken your guns” and “Guns are stupid.”
The mailer says McSally supports the Second Amendment and “has always opposed restrictions on your freedoms.” It encourages voters to call McSally to thank her for supporting their gun rights.
Other campaign mailers hitting voters’ mailboxes try to associate Sinema with the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Some of those campaign ads are coming from the outside group Defend Arizona, a super PAC that has spent $7 million in support of McSally.
One emotionally charged mailer features the World Trade Center with black smoke billowing out of one and a hijacked jet careering toward the other.
“Kyrsten Sinema can’t be trusted to keep America safe,” the mailer says. It adds that Sinema “even protested America’s response after 9/11” and that she “protested the U.S. War on Terror.”
A 2006 message written by Sinema said she opposed war in all forms and she was “against the war from day 1 (Sept. 12, 2001).”
Sinema added, “I have always and will always continue to oppose war in all its forms.”
Two years after the Sept. 11 attacks, Sinema protested the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Sinema has generally responded to attacks over her anti-war protesting days as Republicans’ desperate efforts to dwell on 15-year-old activities rather than her record — and that of McSally’s.
Mushroom cloud over Phoenix
In recent days, Defend Arizona also sent out mailers echoing one of the most famous — or notorious — political attack ads in U.S. history, President Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1964 “Daisy” ad. Democrats ran the TV ad just once against Arizona’s Sen. Barry Goldwater, the 1964 GOP nominee, but its chilling message endured.
Defend Arizona’s mailer uses lenticular printing to create a 3D-like image of downtown Phoenix. The message is: “Kyrsten Sinema won’t keep Arizona safe.” Tilt the mailer down, and the image changes to a fiery mushroom cloud and shows the city annihilated by the detonation of a nuclear bomb.
Sinema ripped the ad after a campaign event Wednesday, saying it crossed the line, even for negative ads.
“They’ve really just turned a corner here to a place where I think it’s not fitting for Arizona voters, but I’m going to stay focused on the issues,” Sinema said. “And if she (McSally) doesn’t want to because her record hurts Arizonans, that’s her choice.”
Barrett Marson, spokesman for Defend Arizona, disputed in an interview with The Republic that the group was using scare tactics to drive voter turnout. He defended the basis of the ad, citing Sinema’s 2002 state legislative candidate questionnaire to The Republic about her support at the time for closing Luke Air Force Base.
Marson also cited Sinema’s support for the Iran nuclear deal, which sought to delay the country’s ability to build a nuclear bomb and lifted international economic sanctions on Iran.
“It has given the Iran regime millions of dollars to export its terrorism,” Marson said, adding that Arizona could suffer the consequences.
“She can’t be trusted on national defense,” Marson said. “Period.”
Arizona echoes national GOP tone
Whether it’s driven by fear, anger or wanting to reshape the future on everything from health-care coverage to climate change, Democratic turnout during this year’s primary election hit historic levels in Arizona.
But Arizona is still a solidly right-of-center state, and Republicans historically hold a doubledigit advantage in general elections.
The fight to elevate Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court will be a potent issue for the midterms, and one that Trump and Arizona Republicans are using to rile up the base.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said on “Face the Nation” the day after the confirmation vote that the Kavanaugh controversy will help the GOP close its enthusiasm gap.
In a rare opinion piece one month before the election, Trump used some of the same language seen by Republicans and their allies in Arizona.
He assailed Democrats
“When they’re satisfied on tax policy and regulatory policy, it’s harder to get them motivated. But when you talk about some of these cultural issues, it reminds them of the very clear differences between these parties . ... It can oftentimes motivate a listless Republican into being a very active Republican.” Kevin Madden Spokesman for Mitt Romney’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns, on GOP voters
for supporting “open-borders socialism.”
The piece, which contained numerous documented falsehoods, centered on the “Medicare for All” platform pushed by some Democrats.
“The truth is that the centrist Democratic Party is dead,” Trump wrote. “The new Democrats are radical socialists who want to model America’s economy after Venezuela. Every single citizen will be harmed by such a radical shift in American culture and life. Virtually everywhere it has been tried, socialism has brought suffering, misery and decay.”
Susan Dunham, a Republican from Apache Junction, said the Kavanaugh fight reminded her that the direction of the country is at stake this election.
To her, Democrats’ treatment of Kavanaugh, who was accused of sexual assault, was disgraceful.
“I have three sons; they’re all grown,” the retiree said. “Who’s to say that somebody can’t 35 years later say he touched me the wrong way, or it made me upset and it might make me cry.”
When Barack Obama was president and Democrats were in charge, she put up with them, she said.
“I didn’t approve of 90 percent of what he did and how he went about it,” Dunham said. “But we didn’t try to slit his throat.”
Trump, who has endorsed McSally, is scheduled to return to Arizona on Friday, hoping to rally any listless Republican voters who have yet to get the GOP message about the importance of turning out. The president’s campaign announced Saturday that he would bring his “Make America Great Again”-style rally to International Air Response in Mesa.
Trump won the state in 2016 by about 4 points, but his favorability rating was upside down, according to the Suffolk University/ Arizona Republic poll.
Slightly more Arizona voters disapproved of Trump than approved of him, and he was particularly viewed negatively by independent voters by a margin of 56-34. But Trump saw a bounce during the Kavanaugh confirmation fight, a CNN poll conducted by SSRS shows.
Sinema remaining upbeat
Sinema held an upbeat event last Sunday.
At a field office in north Phoenix, the three-term Phoenix congresswoman reminded voters about the election’s high stakes in a race that Democrats have not won in 30 years.
She urged volunteers to encourage people to vote early and talked broadly about the issues at stake. She confidently told the crowd: “I know we’re going to win this election. I know we are.”
A day later, Sinema’s campaign manager, Andrew Piatt, sized up his view of the Republican enthusiasm problem, even with millions of dollars being spent to bolster McSally’s candidacy.
“Watch for McSally and her allies to become increasingly rattled and desperate in their outlandish attacks,” the memo said. “We ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”