Arizona's Kari Lake and Blake Masters, a whining witch and a woebegone warlock, are both eying a Senate seat in 2024, reports Politico. This has the state's semi-rational Republicans worried sick; with Kyrsten Sinema's Democratic departure as an independent, and Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego in the race, they had hoped to eke out a GOP victory through a plurality of the vote.
Said the Senate's #2 GOP guy, John Thune: "Any candidate in ’24 that has, as their principal campaign theme, a stolen election, is probably going to have the same issues that some of the ’22 candidates had. I just don’t think that’s where the American public is. It’s a swing state — we need to have a good Republican nominee, obviously. You know, whoever gets in, I hope they focus on the future, not the past."
Wise advice. Which was met by this, from a lady "senior adviser" to Ms. Lake — the reigning harpy of Trumpian bitching about imaginary electoral thefts: "[Thune is] everything wrong with the Republican establishment," and the "Washington cartel [is] signaling that they’re willing to hand an Arizona Senate seat to the radical left."
I love it. You go, girl.
What puzzles about Politico's and semi-rational Republicans' premise is that a GOP victory via plurality would still seem a good bet, even with wacky Kari or clueless Blake as the party's standard-bearer. With every Sinema vote, Gallego's total would sink a bit more, because Sinema's votes, it further seems, would come almost exclusively from Garello's Democratic column.
What am I missing here?