McCain in jeopardy — because of Trump
Senator faces tough primary battle versus arch-conservative
PHOENIX — After 30 years in the Senate, during which he transformed himself from war hero into political icon, John McCain now finds himself in more jeopardy than at any time during his political career. And for much of that, he can blame Donald Trump.
This re-election campaign, his fifth, is forcing the Arizona Republican to do battle on multiple fronts, testing his political dexterity in ways unlike any of his previous races, including two unsuccessful bids for the presidency.
First he must clear his primary Tuesday, a day after he turns 80, against an arch-conservative whose campaign received a late six-figure boost from a Trump donor. Then, assuming he wins the nomination, he must move into a general election just two months away against a well-funded Democrat, U.S. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, whose campaign is wrapping McCain’s support for Trump around the veteran Republican’s neck in a bid to drive up Latino turnout.
McCain insists that he will not alter his high-wire campaign strategy, which basically involves steadfast support for Trump while also reserving the right to regularly criticize the GOP nominee when he does or says something objectionable.
But the personal and political antipathy between McCain and Trump has led some experts to suspect that McCain will dump Trump after he secures his party’s nomination Tuesday. The political calculus is that he desperately needs Trump’s voters to win the primary but needs Trump voters and anti-Trump independents to win the general election. McCain says he does not expect to stop supporting Trump before Election Day.
McCain’s challenges extend beyond the Trump complications: He is running as a well-established figure with clout and experience in Washington in an era in which anti-establishment views are on the rise. He’s running as a pluggedin senator who will deliver for his state’s parochial interests, particularly on water issues, after years of burnishing his image as a maverick who chastised his Senate colleagues for using taxpayer dollars for political pork to win votes back home.
And he’s running as a staunch military hawk who wants an international force of 100,000 troops, led by 10,000 Americans, fighting Islamic State forces in Syria at a time when the public has grown weary of wars in the Middle East.
All of that comes with Trump at the top of the ticket, sometimes lashing out at McCain, sometimes tenuously embracing him, but almost always sucking up all the oxygen in the campaign.
The most immediate embodiment of McCain’s problems is Kelli Ward, 47, a former state senator who knows that Trump crushed the field in the March presidential primary by stoking the fires of Arizona’s long-running battles over illegal immigrants crossing the southern border.
Ward is McCain’s main primary challenger Tuesday; she has attended Trump rallies and embraced his rhetoric while highlighting McCain’s bipartisan work on immigration bills that would grant undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship.
Public and private polling give McCain a big lead over Ward, but this week’s CNN poll showed him with just 55 percent of the likely Republican primary vote. “We’re going to do well, not great, but we’re going to do well,” he told supporters at a rally.