Masters failed to outrun his errors
US Senate race with Kelly had its ups and downs
This story, drawn from interviews with people involved in both major parties, details how one of the most important races in the country in 2022 unfolded after the primary.
Blake Masters began August with high hopes after clinching the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate race in Arizona and ended it with ominous signs of a problem that plagued him throughout his ill-fated campaign.
It was a span in which Masters easily dispatched his four GOP primary rivals, aided by the endorsement of former President Donald Trump.
But it was also a period when Sen. Mark Kelly’s well-funded campaign turned fully to Masters, whose coffers were nearly bare from an extended primary battle. Kelly and his allies saturated TV screens all over Arizona with the image of Masters as an extremist with
little response.
Unofficial election results show Kelly defeated Masters by 4.9 percentage points.
In the end, Kelly’s vote share was almost unchanged from his 2020 victory over former Sen. Martha McSally, RAriz. It underscored an electoral status quo that helped preserve Democrats’ Senate majority in Washington and left Republicans ruminating about another missed opportunity in the nation’s newest swing state.
This story, drawn from interviews with people involved in both major parties, details how one of the most important races in the country in 2022 unfolded after the primary.
Masters’ campaign declined to comment.
Emma Brown, Kelly’s campaign manager, said the election cycle had “peaks and valleys” that led many to presume Kelly’s seat was likely to fall to Republicans, then a lock for Kelly to keep, and, by the end, a toss-up.
“The culmination for us was understanding that we were in an unpredictable political environment and in a close race,” Brown said. “I don’t think we were ever in a position where we thought to ourselves that we’ve got this locked down and that we’re going to win.”
Even so, when Masters clinched his party’s nomination, Kelly’s team was pleased, too.
The GOP’s choice ensured Democrats faced the candidate they viewed as easiest to paint as an extremist and who had made numerous controversial remarks they could roll out against him.
In hindsight, both parties pointed to those mistakes by Masters and a persistent lack of campaign resources that left him unable to define himself to voters or meaningfully tear into Kelly’s standing with them as key to the race.
As both sides expected, the contest tightened in the final weeks, but by then Masters couldn’t overcome the image heaped on him.
As GOP primary ended, new worries
Masters vaulted from the middle of a five-way Republican primary to the nomination on the strength of former President Donald Trump’s June 2 endorsement.
By that time, Masters had benefited from $15 million in outside spending from his mentor, billionaire Peter Thiel, but his campaign had never raised much of its own money. That mattered because candidate campaigns can direct their messages as they want and get television advertising discounts not available to outside groups.
Through mid-July, Masters had only pulled in $4.3 million from donors. He loaned his campaign $448,000 to that point and had just $1.6 million in cash. In the final days heading into the primary, Masters loaned his campaign another $580,000.
Trump was concerned with Masters’ ability to financially compete with Kelly, two people familiar with Trump’s thinking said.
Trump responded with the kind of action he had taken in other races for years: He held a rally intended to boost the prospects and profile of his preferred candidates.
The July rally in Prescott Valley may have helped Masters — and other Republicans, such as gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake — win the primary, but it did little to change his relatively light fundraising.
Masters emerged from the primary with a 10-percentage point victory.
Afterward, he overhauled his team, naming a new campaign manager and bringing on additional help. By contrast, Kelly’s operations and the affiliated Mission for Arizona that coordinated with Democrats, had a mark of constancy.
They began in 2019 when Kelly began running in the special election to fill the final two years of the late Sen. John McCain’s last term. When Kelly won in 2020, it meant the campaign never really ended for some.
“People always talk about yearround organizing, but we actually got to do it,” Brown said. “We came right off of the 2020 campaign with a significant field and voter-protection and data infrastructure that we just kept going on all the way through.”
Coming off the primary win, Masters struggled with fundraising. The rest of August he raised only $561,000 from individuals. Kelly raised $4.1 million in the same span.
It led to what the Kelly campaign called “the surge,” a drastic uptick in spending in August that for the first time could focus on Masters.
An August avalanche against Masters
In the first week after the primary, Kelly’s campaign estimated it outspent Masters’ campaign on ads 6 to 1. Other Democratic groups kicked in even more. By the end of the month, Kelly and Democratic allies still outnumbered Masters and Republicans about 4 to 1.
Masters didn’t have much name recognition and his campaign staying dark in the crucial first few weeks allowed Democrats to define his image in the public eye.
On televisions, cellphones, social media apps and mailers, Kelly’s campaign and Democratic allies blanketed a mix of ads featuring Masters speaking on subjects they expected to startle voters.
The ads showed Masters’ discussing his views on abortion rights, the future of Social Security and wanting political gridlock.
They were selected for maximum negative impact, but even Republicans noticed the ads were straightforward and largely unadorned with the kind of editing flourishes intended to make candidates seem like cartoon villains. The ads featured Arizonans reacting worriedly to what Masters had said.
The Supreme Court’s June ruling that erased federal abortion rights pressed that issue to the public fore. Masters had described supporters of abortion rights as “demonic” and said that for them it was akin to a “religious sacrifice.” He did not describe the procedure itself in those terms, but that detail mattered little on a charged issue.
At a June Republican candidate forum, Masters mused about privatizing Social Security. He later said he meant that the government should help spur investment for younger people. But it was an issue that worried older voters.
In college-era writings, Masters ripped U.S. military leadership and questioned the wisdom of America’s involvement in foreign wars, including both world wars. It was a subject that put him on the defensive with some veterans.
Republicans watched in dismay at the only Senate campaign in the country facing questions over privatizing Social Security or deflecting questions over military leadership.
Masters could not afford a sustained response. What they could do is soften his rhetoric in interviews and on his campaign website.
Masters told The Arizona Republic in August that he favored state-level abortion laws and wanted to focus most on barring third-trimester abortions. On his website, he took down his “100% pro-life” message and emphasized limits on abortions.
He made other changes, such as removing language that echoed the great replacement theory, an idea first popular among white nationalists that Democrats want illegal immigrants to keep their party politically viable.
But those changes drew coverage in Arizona and with national media outlets as well, that brought new attention to his original statements.
Democrats believed Masters’ unfavorable ratings soared between July and September, and never really came down.
Masters sought to frame the campaign on the issues of Kelly’s unswerving loyalty to President Joe Biden, an approach that Republicans argued had led to record inflation and disastrous conditions on the southern border.
Kelly knew inflation was a sore subject with voters. He didn’t reject it as an issue, and didn’t try to claim that it had been solved by legislative action. Instead, he said he took steps to address it and empathized with voters feeling the pinch.
It may have softened the blow of the top election issue that helped Republicans across the country.
Facing other tight races, McConnell moves on
Before summer’s end, McConnell had seen information testing public opinion about Masters. One person familiar with the information shared with McConnell, said Masters’ favorability was lower than former Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore’s was after reports that he pursued romantic relations with teen girls when he was in his 30s.
McConnell decided the Senate Leadership Fund, a PAC aligned with him, would not invest in Masters’ campaign. That led to a protracted standoff with Thiel, whom both sides expected would play an active role in the general election, as he had during the GOP primary.
Instead, news of the stalemate only drew more attention to Masters’ problematic candidacy and suggested to potential donors their money would be wasted in Arizona.
Republican donors saw other needs anyway.
In Ohio, Republican J.D. Vance found himself in a surprisingly competitive race with Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio.
In Georgia, Republican Herschel Walker was in a dead heat with Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga. The Senate race in Pennsylvania seesawed between Democrat John Fetterman and Republican Mehmet Oz.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., was expected to pull away with his reelection bid, but Democrat Mandela Barnes kept coming back within striking distance. Republicans also saw pickup opportunities in New Hampshire and Nevada.
In the end, Democrats won the Pennsylvania race, and Walker sent the Georgia contest to a runoff next month. Elsewhere, both parties held what they had. But it came at a huge cost.
McConnell’s affiliated SLF spent more than $230 million in other Senate races, but nothing in Arizona.
As the calendar turned to September, Kelly was in Washington as the Senate tended to unfinished legislative business. Meanwhile, Masters remained consistently behind in public polling.
It reinforced something to potential
donors that neither campaign believed: The race wasn’t going to be close.
While Masters’ campaign couldn’t capitalize and with Thiel still not spending, other major Republican-aligned groups began spending heavily in the state, such as the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the politically active arm of the Heritage Foundation.
But the money was fitful and late, so the time they booked cost more. And they always had to pay the higher cost, outside groups are charged compared to candidate campaigns.
In October, Masters made a strong showing during the only candidate debate in the general election. It was one area where his primary experience gave him an advantage over Kelly.
Masters had participated in several candidate forums in the GOP primary, while Kelly’s entire debate experience was the one debate with McSally in 2020.
Masters sounded confident, made sharp attacks on Kelly and left feeling as though he had achieved what he needed, as footage of that period for a documentary by Fox News’ Tucker Carlson made clear.
It may have resonated with Republicans, too. Masters’ favorable ratings ticked upward, though his unfavorables were high and unchanged.
Not long after, Masters traveled with Lake as part of a “Lake and Blake” ticket intended to transfuse the enthusiasm in conservative quarters for her to him.
The events drew more media attention to Masters and got him an extended look with Lake’s supporters.
By then, Masters was pushing out his campaign messages to counter Kelly’s. Democrats said Masters’ ads were effective, but came too late, rarely made it to TV and didn’t get enough play to truly damage Kelly.
Masters pulled in endorsements from and an appearance with Gov. Doug Ducey and former Vice President Mike Pence, both of whom appealed to Republicans outside Trump’s orbit.
Even as Masters closed in on Kelly, however, his campaign let another opportunity pass.
Karrin Taylor Robson, who narrowly lost the Republican gubernatorial nomination to Lake, backed the entire GOP slate after her loss and in late October signaled she was willing to more explicitly endorse Masters. He needed to consolidate support from every corner of the GOP to help offset Kelly’s advantage with independent voters.
But he never responded to the offer, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Unofficial election results show that far from setting the GOP pace, Lake and Masters both missed out on thousands of votes in places where more anodyne Republicans piled up support.
The Victor factor
There was another drag on Masters’ chances: Libertarian Marc Victor.
Victor is a Phoenix attorney who ran for the U.S. Senate in 2012, when thenRep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., defeated Democrat Richard Carmona, the former U.S. surgeon general under President George W. Bush.
That year, Victor pulled in 102,000 votes.
His shoestring campaign in 2022 found limited financial interest, raising less than $9,000 from Arizonans through Oct. 19.
He found more generosity from California Democrats.
Victor collected $46,000 in maximum donations from several members of the Conway family associated with SV Angel, an investing company in San Francisco.
It was about a third of all the money Victor raised from all donors.
Ron Conway, the founder of SV Angel, is described as a “major donor and advisor” to the Giffords organization, which is headed by Kelly’s wife, former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz. He and his wife also contributed to Kelly’s campaign in the 2022 cycle.
Victor didn’t play a major role in settling the race, but it’s clear he hurt Masters’ chances.
Victor took part in the only candidate debate after the August primary, dividing the one-hour event three ways instead of two.
He quit the race in the final week and urged his supporters to back Masters. But he remained on the ballot and wound up pulling in 53,000 votes, about 2% of the total.
Whatever momentum Victor’s exit might have brought was blunted the next day by former President Barack Obama’s rally in Phoenix, though it didn’t signal a move to the left for Kelly.
By the final days, public polling and political analysts had the race as a tossup.
Kelly’s campaign notably sounded less confident in private discussions, according to one person involved.
They remained sure of their approach, but less so about whether it would work.