ICYMI: Republicans go scorched-earth in Arizona Senate primary [The Hill]

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The Hill: Republicans go scorched-earth in Arizona Senate primary
By Tal Axelrod
June 15, 2022

Key Points:

• Arizona’s GOP Senate primary is turning increasingly bloody.

• 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. 

• Operatives say it’s just getting started. 

• What had already been a contentious primary turned into a slugfest this month after Trump endorsed Masters.

• 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… urges voters to not “believe Blake Masters or his pro-China, Big Tech billionaire.”

• Alongside the ads, opposition research dumps appeared almost daily last week, including the unearthing of 17-year-old comments Masters made in which he said a border is just a “line in the sand”; remarks from the spring wondering whether the FBI was involved in last year’s Capitol riot; and an interview from April in which he said “Black people, frankly,” are to blame for gun violence.

• Masters’s allies, meanwhile, are using their own considerable funds to hit Lamon at the same time. The pro-Masters super PAC accused Lamon’s business of having ties to China… while Club for Growth released another ad.

• At the same time, Trump has lobbed occasional volleys at Brnovich, this month calling him a “disappointment” for not overturning the results of the 2020 election in Arizona, which the former president baselessly said was “stolen.”

• The GOP infighting follows what is increasingly becoming a common theme of Republican primaries. 

• A GOP strategist supporting Lamon said… “Frankly, it’s only going to get more aggressive as time goes on.” 

• While the candidates duke it out to collect support from undecided voters, some Republicans are voicing concerns that their ultimate nominee will be too bloodied after the late primary and aren’t focusing on a message that appeals to a purple state general electorate. 

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