Contenders abound for Senate seat
McCain’s wife, Cindy, heads a list of possible appointees for the senator’s seat.
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey is required by law to fill vacancies in the state’s U.S. Senate delegation. But in the year since Sen. John McCain was diagnosed with a deadly form of brain cancer, Ducey has avoided discussing the topic.
The governor explained his silence by saying he wants to respect McCain and his family.
With the McCain family announcement Friday that the senator will no longer seek medical treatment, Arizonans are naturally asking whom Ducey might appoint to replace McCain.
The governor has only said he will not appoint himself.
But does Ducey want a temporary caretaker to hold the office only until the 2020 election? Or someone he hopes would seek re-election?
Has McCain indicated he has someone in mind to succeed him?
Ducey, who has often highlighted Arizona’s “women role models,” could appoint the first woman to represent the state in the U.S. Senate.
Ducey’s thinking on these questions is unknown, but here are names that have been floated as potential appointees:
Cindy McCain
Cindy McCain, 64, philanthropist, businesswoman, spouse, military mom and grandmother, would be an obvious choice to fill her husband’s seat. The senator’s wife of 37 years, she has been at his side at their home in northern Arizona as he’s battled brain cancer.
In the Senate, she could represent her husband’s legacy while pursuing her own priorities.
In recent years, Cindy McCain has been an outspoken advocate against human trafficking. She has advocated for victims while tackling legislation at the federal and state levels to combat trafficking, and some of her work through the McCain Institute’s Human Trafficking Program has raised awareness nationally about the issue.
She also is a former chairwoman of HALO USA, a humanitarian organization focused on clearing war-torn communities of land mines and other unexploded bombs and devices.
In recent months, she has represented the senator at public events.
In February, Cindy McCain accepted the Munich Security Conference’s Ewald von Kleist Award on behalf of her husband. In March, she read a statement on his behalf at a ceremony unveiling the Salt River development he has advocated for. Later, she appeared on his behalf at a ceremony honoring her husband and the late U.S. Rep. Morris Udall at Grand Canyon National Park.
Prior to the senator’s diagnosis, Cindy McCain was under consideration as a State Department “ambassador-at-large in Washington, focusing on a specific issue such as human trafficking,” but the job never materialized.
She is chairwoman and majority owner of her family’s beer-distributor business, the Hensley Beverage Co., and mother of four children, Meghan, Bridget, John Sidney McCain IV (known as Jack) and James, who goes by Jimmy.
Kirk Adams
Ducey chief of staff Kirk Adams is the governor’s point man on state and national issues, putting him at the forefront of Ducey’s conversations with the White House and Congress on issues ranging from health care to tax reform.
Adams, 45, a former state lawmaker and speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2012.
Adams is said to have loftier political ambitions, but in a September interview with the Arizona Capitol Times, he called his chief-of-staff role “the best job in the country.”
Asked whether he planned to run for elected office again — and, in light of John McCain’s illness, whether he was interested in serving in elected office again — Adams responded, “Sen. McCain is not resigning, and I have no plans.”
Adams has had close relationships with the influential, right-leaning Koch political network, which has spent millions of dollars to influence races in Arizona and across the United States.
With Ducey gearing up for a generalelection race for re-election, an appointment of his chief of staff could be politically risky.
Barbara Barrett
Barbara Barrett, 67, is the first woman Republican to run for governor in Arizona.
She is known for her business accomplishments and service on various corporate and philanthropic boards, including Raytheon, the Mayo Clinic and the Smithsonian Institution’s Board of Regents.
More recently, she was chairwoman of the Aerospace Corporation’s Board of Trustees from 2013 to December 2017. A news release from the corporation, issued Dec. 19, said she “elected to step down as chairman.”
Barrett and her husband, former Intel Chairman Craig Barrett, have a home in Paradise Valley as well as a ranch in Montana.
They donate to Republican candidates and philanthropic causes. They have given large sums to Arizona State University — her alma mater — and several buildings and programs bear their names.
She has never held elected office.
Jon Kyl
Former U.S. Senate Republican Whip Jon Kyl, who did not seek re-election in 2012 after three terms and 26 years in Congress, is close to the governor and his team. As conservatives, the pair have forged a close bond over the years on politics and policy.
Ducey has referred to Kyl, 76, as a mentor, and leaned on him during his transition from state treasurer to governor. Most recently, the governor enlisted Kyl, a onetime practicing attorney specializing in water law, to help with negotiations to reshape Arizona’s water policy.
After leaving the Senate, Kyl joined the high-powered Washington, D.C., law firm Covington & Burling. As senior adviser, he helps clients on issues including tax, health care, defense, national security and intellectual property.
That job and his age make it unlikely that Kyl would accept an appointment that lasts years.
Kyl and Ducey met when Ducey first considered running for office, and the governor has said he views Kyl as a model public servant.
“I would say that Sen. Kyl helped me out in every way,” Ducey said in 2014. “‘Mentor’ is not a word I would use loosely at all. I would say that Sen. Kyl has mentored me in many ways. I’m a huge fan of how he carried himself in his public career, the policies that he moved forward.”
In 2006, Time magazine named Kyl one of America’s 10 best senators; it’s a job he could easily return to if necessary.
Karrin Taylor Robson
As founder and president of a landuse strategy and real-estate development company, Karrin Taylor Robson would bring an economicdevelopment background to the seat.
Ducey named her to the Arizona Board of Regents last year, noting her “well-respected voice” in the state’s business and political arenas.
She has worked with national groups representing major landowners and stakeholders across the U.S. on environmental law and policy on endangered species and wetlands issues.
John Shadegg
Former Congressman John Shadegg was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994 as part of the “Republican Revolution,” in which the GOP took control for the first time in 42 years.
Shadegg, a fiscal conservative who was respected within the House Republican caucus, gained national attention for his outspoken criticism of the Obama administration’s health-care plan. During debate of the “Obamacare” legislation, he held up an aide’s baby on the House floor while arguing it would raise the baby’s future taxes.
After seven terms, Shadegg announced in 2010 he would not seek re-election. He said he would pursue his “commitment to fight for freedom in a different venue.”
Shadegg is the son of the late Stephen Shadegg, who was a longtime strategist and ghostwriter for U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater.
Now a partner with the Polsinelli PC law firm in Phoenix, Shadegg is believed to have Senate ambitions and appeared to briefly flirt with running to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., in the weeks after Flake announced he would not seek re-election in 2018.
Eileen Klein
Ducey appointed Eileen Klein as state treasurer in April, after Jeff DeWit accepted a job with President Donald Trump’s administration.
She has deep publicpolicy experience and is well-known in business and public-policy circles.
Before her appointment as treasurer, Klein was president of the Arizona Board of Regents, which governs the state’s universities. Klein previously served as chief of staff to former Gov. Jan Brewer and as a former director of the Governor’s Office of Strategic Planning.
Matt Salmon
Matt Salmon served five terms in the U.S. House of Representatives before announcing his retirement last year, but he is said to be interested in the Senate. In the 2016 election cycle, “tea-party”aligned conservative groups tried to recruit him to challenge McCain in Arizona’s Senate primary.
When he announced he was leaving Congress in February 2016, he said he wanted to spend more time with his wife, children and grandchildren. “I strongly believe in the simple truth that in any man’s life, his top priority should be his family,” Salmon wrote in a column for The Arizona Republic.
Salmon, a conservative from Mesa, shares many political views with Ducey, including that government is often too intrusive.
Since leaving Congress, Salmon has worked as Arizona State University’s vice president for government affairs, overseeing the university’s local, state and federal relations team.