McSally concedes Senate race to Kelly

Winner was declared more than a week ago

Sen. Martha McSally, whose race against Democratic challenger Mark Kelly was decided more than a week ago, has conceded, days after it became clear that it was mathematically impossible for her to catch up.

Her concession marked the end of a fierce, year-and-a-half-long race to fill the remainder of the term won by the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who died in 2018.

McSally, R-Ariz., called Kelly on Friday to congratulate him on a hardfought race, she said in a written statement released by her campaign.

“With nearly all the votes counted, I called Mark Kelly this morning to congratulate him on winning this race,” her statement said. “I also offered support in his transition to ensure Arizonans are best served during this time. I wish him all the best.”

McSally said in her statement that representing Arizona since January 2019, after she was appointed to the seat following McCain’s death, “has been an absolute honor.”

“Thanks to Governor Ducey for giving me this extraordinary opportunity to serve. I will always be inspired by

the strength, resilience, innovation, and compassion that I witnessed from Arizonans as I traveled throughout our great state. I will never forget what I learned from all of you.

“I will miss engaging with Arizonans to hear their challenges and how I could help when I deployed to D.C. I am so grateful for the opportunity to solve many problems through legislation, secure funding and pandemic relief for Arizona, deliver results to constituents getting the run around from bureaucracies, and fight for the hardworking people of our amazing state.”

Though she ultimately fell short of the votes she needed to win the seat in her own right, she said she was humbled to receive so many votes — the second most-votes ever cast by Arizonans for a statewide office, she wrote.

“I am thankful for the more than 1.6 million Arizonans who voted for me and everyone who dedicated their time, resources, and prayers to our campaign,” she said. “Like nearly everything in my life, it was a high-risk, high-purpose fight. Thank you to all my faithful wingmen and wingwomen. I am proud of our effort, as we truly left it all out on the field.”

By the time the call came, Kelly, who was long favored to win the race, had already declared victory and traveled to Washington, D.C., where he was assigned an office in the basement as is customary for new senators.

The Associated Press called the race for Kelly early on Nov. 4, hours after polls closed. Other TV networks followed.

McSally remained silent publicly as the results sunk in, even as she returned Monday to Capitol Hill for Senate business.

Meanwhile, Kelly has taken dozens of congratulatory calls from his future peers in the Senate, and has assembled a team to transition to the upper chamber as soon as the state’s election results are certified. This year, that could be as soon as Nov. 30, barring a legal challenge.

It’s unclear what McSally will do next. Her political career appears to be over.

“After fighting for our country for more than three decades — the last nine in the political arena — I trust God will lead me to my next mission to make a difference after I get a little rest,” McSally’s statement said.

In her memoir, “Dare to Fly: Simple Lessons in Never Giving Up,” McSally wrote about how her challenges in the Air Force prepared her for the treatment she would get on the campaign trail in Arizona.

McSally lost her 2012 bid for Arizona’s Tucson-based 2nd Congressional District by 2,454 votes. She won that seat in 2014 by just 167.

She won a second term in 2016, but lost her first Senate race in 2018.

After her loss to Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, she wrote, she was exhausted “and a little in shock,” she wrote in her book.

“Even though I had known the challenges of the race, I hadn’t spent one minute contemplating losing,” she wrote. “This isn’t delusional, it is simply a better way to approach a battle. It is not helpful to ride an emotional roller coaster, where you focus on polls and attack ads and constantly wonder what the outcome might be. It would be paralyzing to fly into combat thinking only about the possibility of being shot down or to start a marathon thinking only about not finishing. Much the same is true of the mental experience of a campaign.”

McSally’s defeat marks the second time in as many years she has lost a GOP seat in a changing Arizona.

After her first unsuccessful bid in 2018 for the state’s other Senate seat, McSally conceded in a phone call after six days to Sinema. McSally also posted a message on Twitter featuring her and her dog Boomer that congratulated Sinema “after a hard-fought battle.”

In that race, Sinema became the first woman the state had elected to the U.S. Senate. She was also the first Democrat elected to serve Arizonans in the Senate since 1988, when three-term Democrat Dennis DeConcini was last elected.

With Kelly joining Sinema, Arizona has a pair of Democratic senators in the upper chamber since 1953.

McSally was appointed to the Senate after losing her 2018 race.

But her advantage of incumbency didn’t help her win over Arizona voters.

Kelly’s strength in the race stems in part from Republican and independent voters’ dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump’s erratic presidency, which injected hopes of a pick-up for Democrats.

In Kelly, recruit.

Since mounting a campaign against McSally in February 2019, Kelly dwarfed McSally’s fundraising and dominated her in the polls. As the nation was plunged into uncertainty over the pandemic and the economic fallout, polling suggested his lead only widened.

Entering October, Kelly raised $82 million to McSally’s $50 million this cy

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The race pitted two retired combat pilots from Tucson against each other.

Both were well known before they became rivals in the Senate race: Kelly married former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., who represented the Tucson area in Congress before the 2011 mass shooting near Tucson, where she was shot in the head. She survived the shooting, but resigned from Congress. Kelly and Giffords went on to co-found a national gun-control organization aimed at ending gun violence.

McSally would go on to win two terms to Congress to represent the Tucson area before mounting her first Senate bid in 2018.

Kelly ran largely as a centrist candidate who would make decisions independent of the Democratic Party.

He questioned whether McSally’s alliance with Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., were in the best interests of her political career, or Arizonans.

At the heart of his campaign were four defining issues for voters: health care, insurance coverage of preexisting medical conditions, the president’s management of the COVID-19 crisis, and the economic fallout of the pandemic.

Kelly campaigned on his support of the 2010 Affordable Care Act and reminded voters about McSally’s past votes to undo the ACA.

He asserted that McSally was part of the partisan gridlock gripping Congress that prevented timely passage of another federal stimulus bill to help families, schools, local governments, tribal communities and small businesses.