Trump-Backed Blake Masters Wins GOP Senate Primary In AZ, While Former President's Gubernatorial Pick, Kari Lake, Takes Commanding Lead

Trump-Backed Blake Masters Wins GOP Senate Primary In AZ, While Former President's Gubernatorial Pick, Kari Lake, Takes Commanding Lead


Former President Donald Trump had another good primary night on Tuesday, especially in the key battleground state of Arizona.

There, Trump’s U.S. Senate pick, Blake Masters, a former chief operating officer of the investment firm Thiel Capital, handily won his primary election in a race called Tuesday night by The Associated Press. He beat out, among others, businessman Jim Lamon, state Attorney General Mark Brnovich and Michael McGuire, a retired National Guard major general.

Trump endorsed Masters in June, during which time the candidate said he had enough concerns about the 2020 election results in his state to have objected had he already been serving in the Senate.

“I think what [Sen. Josh] Hawley and, I believe, what [Sen. Ted] Cruz did was right,” Masters told NBC News, according to NPR. “I think their constituents had a lot of concerns.”

The Arizona Republican Party congratulated Blake on his victory Wednesday morning.

“Congratulations to Blake on winning the Republican primary in Arizona. Blake fought hard against several well-qualified GOP candidates. He’s a great candidate who’s well-positioned to beat Mark Kelly in November,” the state party’s chairman, Rick Scott, said in a statement published on the party’s website.

“D.C. Darling Mark Kelly has completely abandoned Arizona. He votes with Joe Biden over 94% of the time while hardworking Arizonans are being crushed by soaring prices and the Biden-Kelly border crisis,” Scott continued.

“Arizonans literally can’t afford 6 more years of Mark Kelly’s reckless agenda. Blake Masters will take on Joe Biden and D.C. Democrats. He’ll fight to secure the border and lower prices. Come November, Arizonans are going to reject the Biden-Kelly agenda and send Blake Masters to the United States Senate,” he added.

Meanwhile, Trump-backed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, who served as a Phoenix-area newscaster for decades, has a lead over her closest challenger, Arizona Board of Regents member Karrin Taylor Robson by fewer than 12,000 votes as of this writing.

Fox News adds:

As of Wednesday morning, Lake had 46.2% of the vote, and Taylor Robson had 44.5% in the Republican primary. The two women are seeking to succeed term-limited Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican.

Lake on Tuesday night predicted in a speech to supporters at a primary election night rally that she is “winning this 100%” and claimed that there’s “no path to victory for my opponent. We won this race.”

Taylor Robson took to Twitter to tell supporters “we feel calm and confident, and we will wait for every vote to be counted!”

The GOP gubernatorial primary was another proxy battle between Trump and his former vice president, Mike Pence, the latter of whom backed Taylor Robson, along with outgoing GOP Gov. Doug Ducey.

As of this writing, The New York Times election tracker says that only 80 percent of precincts in Arizona have reported GOP gubernatorial primary results. That said, the Democratic nominee — Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs — has been declared the winner in her race with, so far, more than 72 percent of the vote.


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