ARIZONA CANDIDATES,
both women, slow to take sides on Kavanaugh.
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — In a small office full of Democratic women steamed over Brett Kavanaugh, Senate candidate Kyrsten Sinema carefully avoided telling reporters whether she thought sexual assault allegations against President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee were true.
“The Senate can wait for the thorough investigation and then make a decision based on the conclusion of that investigation,” Sinema said.
A few days later, Sinema’s Republican opponent, Rep. Martha McSally, who has talked about being sexually abused in high school, chided Trump for mocking psychologist Christine Blasey Ford, Kavanaugh’s initial accuser, during a campaign rally. Minutes later, McSally added that she hoped the president can go to Arizona to campaign for her.
“We are in a consequential race for the balance of the Senate,” McSally said.
Arizona’s Senate race pits Sinema, a congressman running as a centrist in a Republican-leaning state, against McSally, a onetime Trump critic turned fan.
When allegations against Kavanaugh first emerged last month, McSally was uncharacteristically quiet, only calling for investigations and respect for all sides. It took McSally until Tuesday — 17 days after Ford first publicly made her allegations — to say she backed Kavanaugh, provided the FBI finds no new evidence against him. Sinema, an attorney, has also been controlled, notably declining to call for his rejection. That changed Thursday night, when she issued a statement criticizing Kavana- ugh’s temperament and contending he was “not truthful” in part of his testimony last week.
“There hasn’t been a lot of leadership,” said Chuck Coughlin, a Republican political consultant. But, he added, that’s because Arizona embodies the national divide over the nomination.
“The state’s reflective of the demographics of the country — relatively independent, and people are trying to navigate between the two poles of two dysfunctional political parties,” Coughlin said.
Kavanaugh’s nomination has put moderates in the Senate from both parties in a difficult position, as whatever decision they make will upset a vocal faction of their electorate. On Thursday, Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, a North Dakota Democrat, said she’d vote against the nominee. Attention turned to her fellow Democrat, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who on Friday said he would vote to confirm Kavanaugh.
In Arizona, the state’s conservative lean is evident in how the state got entangled in the Kavanaugh case in the first place. The nominee’s so-called sherpa who guided him around Capitol Hill initially was Jon Kyl, a former senator and a former mentor to McSally. Kyl was then appointed to fill John McCain’s seat after McCain died in late August. When Ford’s allegations surfaced, Senate Republicans tapped the head of sex crimes prosecutions in the Maricopa County prosecutor’s office, Rachel Mitchell, to question her at last week’s hearing.
On Wednesday evening, McSally said in a radio interview that there isn’t enough evidence to show Kavanaugh actually attacked Ford.
“I would hope, as someone who has dealt with this personally and dealt with it also in the military, that maybe we can have this conversation about, ‘Hey, let’s prevent the next assault and abuse from happening, but let’s make sure that people are not susceptible to false allegations that — just because someone said something doesn’t make it true,’” she said.
McSally was echoing numerous conservative Arizona women, who in interviews last week said they were enthusiastic for the confirmation.
“The Democrats have done a hatchet job,” said Joyce Smith, 67, of Gilbert. “You’re innocent until you’re proven guilty.”
On Thursday night, Sinema said in a statement she was “really frustrated” at the process and that she’d vote against Kavanaugh’s confirmation were she in the Senate. On Monday night, as reporters pressed her about the judge and his response to the allegations, the possible objection Sinema stressed was how Kavanaugh would rule on Internet privacy cases.
Brittany MacPherson, an organizer with a pro-reproductive rights group, was at a campaign office waiting for Sinema to speak the next night. She said she expects Democratic senators to unanimously oppose Kavanaugh.
Told Sinema hadn’t said she’d oppose Kavanaugh, MacPherson sighed. “It’s Arizona,” she said.