Republican U.S. senatorial candidate Blake Masters speaks during his election night watch party on Aug. 2, 2022, in Chandler, Arizona. Photo by Brandon Bell || Getty Images
BY KEVIN STONE || KTAR.com
It’s not on his campaign website anymore, but Arizona Republican U.S. Senate nominee Blake Masters said Thursday he still thinks President Joe Biden wasn’t fairly elected.
“I still believe the election was not free and not fair,” Masters told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Arizona’s Morning News. “I think if everybody followed the rules and the law as written, President [Donald] Trump would be in the Oval Office.”
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That was similar to the wording on Masters’ website leading up to his victory in last month’s GOP primary, a five-candidate race he took control of after receiving Trump’s endorsement.
“The 2020 election was a rotten mess — if we had had a free and fair election, President Trump would be sitting in the Oval Office today and America would be so much better off,” the site said until at least Aug. 1, a day before the primary, according to an archived version cited by CNN last week.
CNN said that language was removed by Aug. 26. Media reports have also noted changes to the abortion section of Masters’ website since he won the GOP nomination and turned his focus from fellow Republican opponents to Sen. Mark Kelly, the Democrat he hopes to unseat.
“It’s funny, because you change one thing about the website and the media pounces. … I tweak my stump speech week over week, too, but no, I don’t run from or hide from anything I’ve said,” Masters said.
The first-time candidate said that while his campaign tactics are evolving, his stance on the issues remains consistent.
“If we change something from time to time, that just reflects a new way that we’re talking about something, but it’s not a backtrack or anything like that,” he said.
