Trump-Backed Blake Masters Emerges Victorious in AZ Senate Primary

By Abby Liebing August 3, 2022 at 10:06am

Voters in Arizona went to the polls yesterday for the primaries, and Trump-backed Blake Masters emerged victorious with the GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate.

Masters will face off against Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly in November. With control of the Senate in question, it will be one of the most closely watched races, NPR reported.

Masters, a former chief operating officer of the investment firm Thiel Capital, was endorsed by former President Donald Trump in June.

He beat businessman Jim Lamon, retired National Guard Maj. Gen. Michael McGuire and state Attorney General Mark Brnovich to secure the Republican nomination.

With about 80 percent of the votes counted, Masters had 39 percent of the votes, while 29 percent went to Lamon and 18 percent to Brnovich.

Though Lamon outspent Masters on television ads, Masters’ campaign had the benefit of financial support from Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal and a longtime friend and boss of Masters.

Lamon was also the subject of some controversy concerning the 2020 election, according to the Arizona Republic.

In December 2020, Lamon was one of 11 Republicans to sign a document falsely claiming he was authorized to cast the state’s electoral votes for Trump.

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He later said it was supposed to be a contingency plan and that he meant to put himself forward as one of Arizona’s electors only if the results of the election were decertified.

While many believe the Arizona Senate race will be one of the GOP’s best chances to get seats from the Democrats, polling ahead of the primary indicated that Kelly had a slim lead over his potential Republican opponents, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Kelly, a Navy veteran and former astronaut, ran unopposed for the Democratic nomination.

Arizona was once a reliably red state.

But in 2018, voters elected Democratic Sen. Krysten Sinema, and President Joe Biden narrowly won the state in 2020. Kelly won a special election that year by 2.4 points, according to NBC News.

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