Politico, Cook Political Move Arizona Senate Race to Toss Up

Politico, Cook Political Move Arizona Senate Race to Toss Up

Politico and Cook Political Report moved the Arizona Senate Race between incumbent Democrat Sen. Mark Kelly and Republican Blake Masters to Toss Up from Lean Democrat.

These moves so close to Election Day are big deals!

Usually, the candidate raising and spending the most money will win due to exposure. The Republicans started “to write off” the Senate race as the “Senate Leadership Fund pulled their remaining ad buys in Arizona.” Peter Thiel and Heritage Foundation-backed groups pledged “another $5 million to the race.”

From Labor Day to now, Kelly and the Democrats spent $44.4 million to the Republicans $22.7 million.

Cook Political changed its rating due to private polling, especially since support for Biden drops in Arizona:

Biden defeated Trump by just 0.3 points, 49.2%-48.9%. And with Biden now polling far behind his 2020 percentage, even if Kelly outpaces the president by more this year, it could still not be enough.

Talking with multiple sources this week, we have found across the board that Democrats acknowledge this is once again a margin-of-error race. We have seen tightening public polling as well. When we changed our rating in Kelly’s favor last month, the incumbent was ahead by 8.7 points in FiveThirtyEight’s average. Today, that lead has shrunk to 3.6 points.

I’ve noticed Kelly has made the border crisis his main talking point, calling out fellow Democrats and Biden for ignoring the crisis.

People need to follow the border crisis in Arizona, not just Texas. The fentanyl surge affects Arizona more, with people calling the state Fentazona.

Cook Political is not 100% secure behind the Toss Up, though:

Even with this change, we have a caveat — of all the races we now have in Toss Up, this one still looks the best for Democrats. We might put a pinkie on the scale for Kelly at the end of the day — and many Republican strategists would as well. But as it stands now, the race could go either way — and if Arizona is falling, many states before it already have, most likely, including Nevada and maybe Georgia. If it ends up being a wave night, do not be surprised to see surprise results like in Arizona, which means we are not talking about if Republicans have won back Senate control, but how large their majority could be beyond 51-49.

Politico agrees that Biden’s drop in Arizona is responsible for the rise of Masters, but the “electoral environment and relative strength at the top of the ticket” has also helped him:

But Masters is being buoyed by the electoral environment and relative strength at the top of the ticket. While it’s true that Kelly and [GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari] Lake are running stronger campaigns than their opponents, Lake and Masters are running as more of a ticket than the Democrats. Billboards and yard signs dotted around the Phoenix metro area read “VOTE LAKE & BLAKE.” And at Lake’s well-attended campaign events, she often shouts out her the Senate candidate in her stump speech.

It’s common for Arizona’s elections to go down to the wire. Kelly led GOP candidate Martha McSally in the special election two years ago by double digits on Labor Day. He only won by two points.

Politico litters the rest of the article with the usual attacks on the Republicans:

And this year’s GOP ticket, populated largely with candidates who’ve sowed and promoted falsehoods about the last election in Arizona, is banking even harder to the right. At an event earlier this week at a Phoenix megachurch with most of the statewide and legislative candidates, Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.), who is seeking reelection in a Phoenix-area swing district, previewed the combative posture House Republicans will take with the Biden administration, promising to go “far beyond defunding” federal agencies.

“We’re gonna have some government shutdowns. We need you to explain to our brothers and sisters out there that there’s nothing wrong with that government shutdown,” Schweikert told the crowd of Republican activists. “That is how the system is supposed to work.”

Meanwhile, state Rep. Mark Finchem, the Republican nominee for secretary of state, appeared to suggest that if his opponent, Democrat Adrian Fontes, wins next month, Lake could face physical threats since the position is first in the gubernatorial line of succession in case of a vacancy.

“Do you think that makes her a target?” Finchem asked the crowd of hypothetical ticket-splitting victories. “Oh, yeah.”

Left-leaning polling firm Data for Progress also found Kelly and Masters in a tie and Lake leading Democrat candidate Katie Hobbs:

The survey of 893 likely voters in Arizona conducted from Oct. 11 to Oct. 17 found that 47 percent of respondents would vote for Kelly and 47 percent would vote for Masters, with 4 percent not sure and 3 percent supporting Libertarian Marc Victor.

The poll also found that Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake is leading her Democratic opponent Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs by 4 percentage points.

Can you imagine how the firm felt when only 42% of the respondents favored Biden, while 49% preferred Trump?

Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.