I am about to tear my hair out! Since Democrat Kyrsten Sinema overtook Republican Martha McSally on Thursday in the race to become Arizona’s next senator, there have been a growing number of comments here at DKos that authoritatively state that McSally will be appointed to McCain’s seat after placeholder, Jon Kyl, is expected to step down in January. This is insane.
This urban legend started in August when the McCain family announced that Senator McCain would no longer receive treatment for his brain cancer. At the time, Sinema was leading in the polls, which showed her both winning a majority of registered Independents and getting more Republican cross over voters than is typical. McSally was constantly on the defensive about her vote for the AHCA, which would have ended Obamacare, including it’s guaranteed coverage of pre-existing conditions. The narrative was beginning to set that she was going to lose. Since the public knew that McCain’s passing was imminent, but didn’t know how long he had left, a rumor started that, if she lost in November, McSally would be appointed to McCain’s seat when he passed away after that.
Senator McCain passed away sooner than most expected, on August 25th. Despite McCain’s reported wishes that his wife, Cindy McCain, be appointed to fulfill the remainder of his term, Governor Doug Ducey chose former Senator Jon Kyl instead. This was the politically safe thing for Ducey to do. First, he had not nailed down his own re-election. Trump die hards had come to hate John McCain, and they were certain to dislike his wife, who has expressed more moderate views than her husband, even more. Ducey would need the votes of both Trump fans and Trump skeptic centrists to win. Secondly, Ducey was only going to nominate someone that Mitch McConnell approved of, because he’s an establishment guy with future ambitions. And the choice had to be acceptable to the Trump administration as well.
Hearings on the controversial nomination of Brett Kavanaugh for the U.S. Supreme Court began on September 4th. What McConnell needed most was a solid ally. Since Jon Kyl was already in Washington as the sherpa for Kavanaugh through the confirmation process his selection to be Arizona’s new senator was both reassuring to and convenient for McConnell. And it was good for Ducey as well. Kyl was first elected Senator in 1994, and was easily re-elected twice after that. Ducey could easily explain that he picked someone who has previously won the approval of the voters, and could easily slide into the position with a minimum of fuss.
From conservative Arizona pundit, Robert Robb:
Kyl’s appointment does negotiate the Trump politics well for Ducey.
Kyl is obviously an acceptable figure to the Trump administration, which tapped him to guide the nomination of both Jeff Sessions as attorney general and Brett Kavanaugh as a U.S. Supreme Court justice through the Senate confirmation process.
But Kyl is widely respected, and wholly acceptable, to those, at least in Republican ranks, who find Trump loathsome. Sen. Jeff Flake, who regularly inveighs against Trump, warmly welcomed Kyl’s appointment. As did Cindy McCain.
One thing Governor Ducey did not accomplish was appointing a Senator who would vigorously defend the senate seat as an incumbent in 2020. From the beginning, Kyl asserted that he only planned on serving until January, when the new, 2018 legislative session would begin. Some called it a punt on Ducey’s part. Others thought it was smart politics, that Ducey would be able to pick someone after the heat from the midterm elections had died down. Any criticism of his choice would not affect his re-election, nor overshadow the other races being fought in Arizona and nation wide.
Fast forward to October. The polls between McSally and Sinema have tightened, but 538, and other poll aggregators still showed a narrow but persistent lead for Sinema though it’s close enough that the race is considered a tossup. McSally, still being forced to defend her many votes to end Obamacare, stops trying to thread the needle between establishment republican and Trump acceptable, and goes full Trump. Where team Trump had previously scuttled plans to hold a rally in Phoenix the second week of September, and in Northern Arizona the first week of October, on short notice the Phoenix area was added to a Trump western state campaign swing. McSally continued to struggle in her new Trump embrace. She awkwardly sniped at reporters on camera, and the clips were repeatedly played on TV news broadcasts in the state and on social media.
As an example, watch how she reacts to being asked about Trump’s horseface insult to Stormy Daniels at 1:49
During the frenetic month of October and the first days of November, in the run up to Election Day, the rumor that Governor Ducey will appoint McSally to replace Kyl if she loses dissipates as it looks like she might win. Can’t appoint a person to Senate seat B, if they are already occupying Senate seat A. All of that changed this past Thursday evening when Sinema moved into the lead as Arizona continued the process of counting votes. The claims by McSally’s campaign that yet to be counted outstanding votes in Maricopa county would favor her and turn the tide never materialized over subsequent days. With her possible pathway to victory narrowing, and a loss looking all but certain, the rumors of an imminent appointment to the McCain/Kyl seat flared to life again. But with a new twist.
Theory 1—McSally isn’t going all Rick Scott with faux claims of election fraud because she *knows* she will be appointed to replace Kyl in January.
You know what other republicans aren’t screaming about election fraud? Governor Ducey, the de facto leader of the sate GOP, Maricopa county based congressmen Lesko, Schweikert, and Biggs, and Attorney General Brnovich, because they are all winning re-election handily. They don’t want their victories tainted by claims of fraud. And McSally is behind. The only chance she has of winning is if a bunch of votes start getting put in her column. So why would she want the counting to stop? She needs it to continue.
Theory 2—Ducey will appoint McSally to replace John Kyl in the Senate when it’s official that she loses.
Why would Ducey appoint to the senate someone who just lost a statewide election for senate?
1). Republicans turn on their electoral losers and banish them. The supreme leader of the republicans, Donald Trump, publicly heaped scorn on republicans who lost, by name, not even 24 hours after they lost their races. The White House and republican leaders at the RNC and RSCC were reported to be unhappy that McSally did not make strong public assertions that there was election fraud taking place once she fell behind. Never Trumpers are giving a backhanded defense of McSally by saying she is right to not make spurious claims of fraud because she lost fair and square by going full Trump. While democrats are disappointed that Beto, Abrams, and Gillum didn’t win, they are still inspired by them, and are gaming out possible futures where they can win. Republican Election Day losers? Rosendale, Morrissey, Schuette, Brat, and crew have already been left with the old banana peels and empty pizza boxes in the garbage can by the curb. I can visualize all the “How Bad Did McSally Suck?” hot takes that will be published as soon as the vote counting is done.
2). Doug Ducey will do what is best for Doug Ducey. He is an ambitious man with future plans. He has successfully managed to be both a solid establishment type and have Trump’s blessing. (That is something McSally failed to pull off). The most important thing he needs to accomplish with this pick, is to put someone in that seat who will be able to win re-election in 2020, when the democrats will go all in to defeat them.
3). Arizona does not lack for ambitious, polished, republican officials who win their elections and want that senate seat. Since the day John McCain announced he had an almost universally fatal form of cancer, dozens of republicans have been doing everything possible to get their resumes in front of Ducey’s eyes. The GOP bench here is stacked. Ducey does not have to pick McSally, who will be asked constantly for two solid years how she plans to win re-election in 2020 when she couldn’t win in 2018, because Ducey has a bus full of solid prospects.
4). The only way McSally gets nominated to replace placeholder Kyl is if she loses. And if she loses it’s because she ran a horrible campaign. In a bruising primary against uber freaks, Kelli Ward and Joe Arpaio, McSally had to move closer to the crazy to ensure a victory. After that, she never seemed to find firm footing. She was relentlessly attacked by Sinema and her surrogates for her votes to repeal Obamacare, and her record of voting in lockstep with Trump. After trying to gain traction as a not McCain, and not Flake, but still establishment (i.e. safe) republican failed, she decided in October that her only chance was to endear herself to the Trump base and gin them up. That strategy failed. She is underperforming both Trump’s 2016 margins and Ducey’s current margins. She is losing Maricopa county which usually goes red.
And it’s not just Maricopa county. She is underperforming in Pinal, Navajo, Cochise and other red counties.
Given all of that, why would Governor Ducey, the state GOP, the RSCC and big republican donors trust her to win in 2020? They don’t.