3 reasons McSally will win; 3 why she won’t

We are now T-minus 253 days until Arizona elects a U.S. senator.

It’s looking bad for Martha McSally. Except, of course, for when it’s looking good for Martha McSally.

Here’s the question all of Arizona — actually, all the nation given the importance of this race — will be asking over the next eight months: Can McSally win?

The answer is yes. And no. Most polls suggest Mark Kelly could dispatch McSally to the political boneyard, giving Arizona’s unelected senator the distinction of becoming the first state’s Republican to lose not one but two Senate seats to Democrats.

But I wouldn’t start digging her political grave just yet. (I would, however, keep that shovel handy.)

Here’s how McSally wins: 1. Trump, Trump, Trump

Conventional wisdom suggests McSally will not win if she runs the same campaign she ran in 2018, when moderate Republican women sent Democrat Kyrsten Sinema to the Senate.

Yet there she is, all in for Donald Trump. Not even the president’s plan to cut $156 million from the F-35 fighter jet program that is based at Luke Air Force Base – this, to free up funds for the border wall – has thus far prompted a peep of protest out of McSally.

Instead of shaking the presidential pocket lint out of her hair, she’s banking on the stuff being spun gold.

Impeachment didn’t hurt Trump. Polls show his approval ratings, though still under water, are inching up and his disapproval numbers dipping down.

And while moderate voters may be inclined to think the guy’s a pig, he’s bringing home the bacon according to their 401(k)s. More than 55% of voters polled approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, according to RealClearPolitics’ average of seven national polls, while 39.4% do not.

“That swing electorate of Republican women and independents, which she’s getting hammered on, she’s got to bring them back,” veteran Republican consultant Chuck Coughlin told me. “I think their theory right now is bring them back with fear that Democrats will destroy the economy. That’s what they’re banking on. Is it enough? I don’t know.”

If Trump wins big, he’ll Make McSally a Senator Again. If he doesn’t win big …

2. Moderates won’t ‘Bern, Baby, Bern’

If there is one Democrat who McSally is rooting for, it’s the Democratic frontrunner, Bernie Sanders.

It’s still the early days but Democrats seem determined to lurch so far left that they push moderate voters right into McSally’s waiting hands.

A show of hands of swing voters anxious to move the Senate into Democratic control just as a self-proclaimed “democratic socialist” becomes the party’s nominee for president?

Anybody?

Diehard lefties buy into that pipe dream but moderates may have trouble going there.

“The only path I see to her (McSally) winning,” longtime Democratic political strategist Barry Dill told me, “is in the event that Democrats nominate Bernie Sanders to be their presidential nominee and Trump wins in a landslide as big as Richard Nixon over George McGovern.”

Speaking of landslides, Sanders rolled through Nevada over the weekend ...

3. Mark Kelly is no Kyrsten Sinema

McSally is facing a formidable candidate in the former astronaut and Navy pilot – the husband of one of Arizona’s most beloved figures, former Rep. Gabby Giffords.

But Kelly also is a first-time candidate who hasn’t yet been put under microscope, so it’s difficult to judge how he’ll hold up.

It was always a given that McSally would portray Kelly as an extreme liberal. But who knew Kelly would help her out by telling The Arizona Republic’s Yvonne Wingett Sanchez that he’d endorse Sanders if he’s the nominee?

Sinema never would have blundered into such an admission.

Kelly is out-polling McSally thus far, but more than a third of the state’s voters — including four out of 10 independent voters — still don’t have a clue who this guy is.

Expect Kelly to steer to the middle of the road. But unless he’s the male equivalent to Sinema — a veteran campaigner who just barely eked out a win in 2018 — that may not be enough. Coughlin says his HighGround polling ranks Sinema as the state’s most popular politician, a charismatic senator who proved adept at capturing crossover voters.

A senator, by the way, who likely won’t stick her neck out to endorse Kelly. Sinema has said her constituents “don’t care” about endorsements, which is a handy way of preserving her own brand of neutrality.

Don’t, however, count Kelly out just yet.

Here’s how McSally loses: 1. Mini-me Trump remains a bad look

Everyone waited to see if McSally would court the moderate Republican women and independents who shunned her in 2018.

She brought such talk to a screeching halt last month with her “liberal hack” shtick, an obviously calculated attack on the media that extended to selling

“You’re a liberal hack, buddy” T-shirts to raise funds for her campaign.

The Republican base LOVES it. But the people in the middle — the ones who voted for Trump in 2016 then voted for Sinema in 2018?

They’re not overly fond of hacks of the liberal or conservative persuasion. They’re looking for somebody, anybody, who can cross the chasm and get something the freak done.

Polls thus far suggest that’s not McSally. A HighGround poll taken in mid-February shows Kelly with a nearly 10-point advantage in voter-rich Maricopa County (47%-37%) and a huge lead among those all-important independent voters (52%-28%).

He also leads with women, a key demographic McSally couldn’t crack in 2018.

“I think she’s got a shot given the popularity of Trump,” GOP strategist Coughlin said. “If she runs the same campaign she ran against Sinema, I think she loses.”

2. Kelly becomes Kyrsten

McSally is the incumbent, but you wouldn’t know it given her numbers, both in the polls and at the bank.

Outside Democratic groups have been hammering McSally for months, mostly on her votes that had the effect of killing protections for people with pre-existing conditions. She has all but begged outside GOP groups “to wake up, and get involved, and start muddying up the landscape a little bit”.

I’m not sure what they’re waiting for.

While most people either know and love McSally or know and despise her, more than a third of voters don’t yet know enough about Kelly to have an opinion, giving him room to grow.

His signature issue — guns — should give him a leg up with moderates who cannot understand why hardcore Republicans fall into a dead faint over the prospect of universal background checks or red-flag laws aimed at getting guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t possess them.

Look for Republicans to try to portray Kelly as Bernie’s Best Bro. But Kelly will have the money to tell his own story.

“The Kelly campaign … has to remind the voters of Arizona that this is John McCain’s old seat and that Martha McSally is a sellout to Donald Trump,” Democratic strategist Dill told me. “That he will bring the independence necessary in memory and in honor of John McCain to that U.S. Senate seat. And he can do that with great credibility.”

3. McSally shows no charisma

On paper, McSally’s a superb candidate. She’s a retired Air Force colonel, the first woman to fly an American warplane into combat and the first to command a fighter squadron. She’s a two-term congresswoman from a swing district where she not only got elected but got elected again.

But on the campaign stage, to put it in terms a pilot might understand: she’s a flameout.

Simply put, McSally just doesn’t come across as likable.

Anyone who watched her trying to warm up the crowd before President Trump’s Arizona rally last week witnessed a painfully awkward performance. And those were her peeps.

Meanwhile, Kelly was out last week with his first campaign ad, introducing himself to Arizona, talking about his struggles as a kid and how his police officer parents made him the person he is today.

McSally also was out last week with her first campaign ad. It was a Gatling gun attack on Kelly, ending with a picture of her scowling at something off in the distance.

She might want to make a quick trip to charm school.

“She needs to appeal to them (swing voters) on an almost personal level,” Republican campaign consultant Chris Baker told me. “She needs to be likable to those swing voters who by definition aren’t ideologues. I do think she needs to win that battle of likability with swing voters and she’s capable of doing it. That is something she did not do well in 2018. But she’s not up against Sinema who is a uniquely talented, very strong opponent.”

In this, her second campaign for the Senate, McSally has yet to really introduce herself to Arizona. About all we really know about her is that she was in the military, she’s in Trump’s pocket and yes, she loves Boomer.

Memo to Martha: Trotting out your dog every once in awhile to show your softer side is not a winning strategy.