Winning in Arizona means playing from the center of the board – something Kari Lake, Blake Masters and Mark Finchem simply can’t do.
By Greg Moore | The Arizona Republic
Nationally, they think we’re crazy, but we know better.
Kari Lake, Blake Masters and Mark Finchem marched their way through Arizona’s primaries carrying Donald Trump’s tiki torch. Lake is in a race that’s too close to call. Masters and Finchem are celebrating victories.
The guess here is that by November, they will have found that extremism and conspiracy theories might, sadly, get candidates through a primary, but such tactics are a losing long-term strategy in Arizona, despite how it must look to our friends back East – from the Politicos across The Atlantic to The New York Times and Washington Post – where they have, rightfully, wondered whether voters in the Southwest have spent too much time in the sun.
Arizona isn’t as red as it’s painted
Lake, running for governor, whipped up her base by saying, without providing evidence, that the election was being rigged during early voting season.
Masters, seeking a spot in the U.S. Senate, took that conspiracy further by suggesting, also without bothering to back up his claim, that theCapitol riot was an inside job, fomented by undercover FBI agents.
Finchem, meanwhile, is an election denier, seeking to become the state’s election chief.
Good for Trump so far:What to know about primary results
National media outlets might be using their laptops and TV studios to paint Arizona in conservative crimson, but I can assure you, as someone who’s lived here since 2011, the state is somewhere on the political spectrum between moderate mauve and progressive purple.
