Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly has gained reelection in Arizona, soundly defeating Republican Blake Masters in what was as soon as seen as a powerful pickup alternative for the GOP.
Holding on to Kelly’s seat marks a key victory for Democrats of their quest to keep up management of the Senate. They’re now one win away from making this a actuality — and it may occur in Nevada, with issues trending in the proper route for incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto.
Kelly, a former astronaut and husband of Gabby Giffords, got here to Washington in 2020 after successful a particular election to serve out the remaining time period of the late Sen. John McCain (R). For months he led within the polls, however the race tightened within the ultimate days earlier than Election Day.
Masters, a 36-year-old enterprise capitalist who spent most of his profession working for billionaire Peter Thiel, ran an rebel marketing campaign with a give attention to matters fashionable among the many far proper, together with bashing important race principle and Huge Tech. An endorsement by former President Donald Trump and billions from Thiel helped Masters eke out a win within the GOP major amid a crowded discipline of candidates.
However Masters’ libertarian-leaning file and far-right positions had been a drag on his marketing campaign. Whereas some Republicans selected a extra measured path, Masters declared his assist for a nationwide abortion ban within the wake of the U.S. Supreme Courtroom’s reversal of federal abortion rights this summer season. He endorsed privatizing Social Safety, a stance no different GOP candidate took. And he continued to echo Trump’s false claims that Joe Biden misplaced the 2020 presidential election.
Masters hoped voters’ considerations with inflation and crime, which had been a few of the largest themes in GOP adverts this election cycle, would carry him to victory. Nonetheless, preliminary exit polls from the election confirmed that fewer than a 3rd of voters noticed inflation because the defining challenge of the election. The survival of democracy and abortion rights weighed simply as closely of their minds.
Kelly sought to blunt assaults over rising inflation and the excessive price of residing by touting his assist of Democratic laws decreasing the price of pharmaceuticals and highlighting his opponent’s previous assist for privatizing Social Safety. He additionally put some daylight between himself and the management of the Democratic Social gathering on the hot-button challenge of immigration, calling the scenario on the southern border a “mess” and “a chaos.”
Late within the race, Kelly was joined at a marketing campaign occasion by a number of members of McCain’s household, underscoring his appeals to unbiased and Republican voters alike.
Nonetheless, Kelly was by no means a thorn within the facet of his occasion as a lot as fellow Arizona Democratic senator Kyrsten Sinema, who isn’t up for reelection till 2024. He embraced progressive priorities that Sinema opposed, together with proposals that might have raised the minimal wage to $15 and reformed the Senate filibuster guidelines.
Kelly was probably the most fashionable Democratic Senate candidates this yr ― a minimum of with regards to fundraising. He went into October with nearly six occasions the amount of money available as Masters, and he raised greater than $52 million in whole up till that time, whereas Masters had introduced in just below $5 million. Consequently, outdoors GOP teams had been compelled to step in and assist bail out Masters.
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