Democrat U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, left, has a sizable fundraising lead over his top GOP competitors, clockwise from top right, Blake Masters, Mick McGuire, Mark Brnovich and Jim Lamon. /Twitter Profile Photos
BY TAL AXELROD | The Hill
Arizona’s GOP Senate primary is turning increasingly bloody in a contest that could determine who wins control of the Senate in November.
As the race to nominate Sen. Mark Kelly’s (D-Ariz.) GOP opponent hurtles toward its Aug. 2 conclusion, businessman Jim Lamon, former tech executive Blake Masters and state Attorney General Mark Brnovich are throwing elbows and millions of dollars around in a race that polls show remains fluid.
Lamon has dumped millions of his own dollars going scorched-earth against Masters over his ties to PayPal founder and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel after Masters scored former President Trump’s endorsement earlier this month. Outside groups backing Masters, like the Club for Growth and a well-heeled super PAC seeded by $13.5 million of Thiel’s money, are responding in kind. And Brnovich is hanging on as Trump harangues him for not overturning his defeat in the state in 2020.
And operatives say it’s just getting started.
“Given the fact that early ballots have not gone out yet, I think there’s still a lot of energy in all of these campaigns where I think they’re going to do everything they can to be successful. It’s shown to date that they’re using the attack strategy,” said Lorna Romero, an Arizona GOP strategist who worked on the late Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) 2016 reelection campaign. “I think this is just the start of it.”
What had already been a contentious primary turned into a slugfest this month after Trump endorsed Masters, handing the protege of his ally, Thiel, a key boost.
Lamon, who had already loaned his campaign $13 million in total through the end of the first quarter of 2022, last week released a blistering ad casting Masters as a “fake” and a “puppet” with “Big Tech pulling his strings.” Versions of that message have been echoed in a slew of statements from Lamon.
Another ad touting Lamon’s past military service urges voters to not “believe Blake Masters or his pro-China, Big Tech billionaire.”
