By Isabella Hulsizer | Arizona Republic
Cindy McCain blasted the Arizona Republican Party in a podcast interview published Wednesday, saying the “local” GOP is no longer “the party my husband and I belonged to.”
“We have, on my side of the aisle, on the Republican side, we see a local party in Arizona that’s not functioning well,” Cindy McCain said in an interview with Politico’s “Women Rule” podcast. “And it’s excluding people. And it’s excluding people for the wrong reasons. If you’re not walking the line, then you’re out. That’s just not right. That’s not the party that my husband and I belonged to.”
Cindy McCain also said she “really can” see a Democrat carrying the traditionally red-state Arizona in the 2020 presidential election. A Democratic presidential candidate has not won Arizona since President Bill Clinton in 1996. Clinton was the first to do so since President Harry Truman in 1948.
Her husband, the late Sen. John McCain, was the 2008 Republican presidential nominee and was elected to six Senate terms in Arizona. He died on Aug. 25, 2018.