He was a former Navy aviator and an astronaut. But his two years as a United States Senator had been lackluster at best. However, Kelly’s Republican opponent, Blake Masters, fell short and failed to flip the Senate seat to the GOP column. The Daily Caller explains.
November 14, 2022
“Democratic Arizona Senate candidate Mark Kelly defeated his Republican opponent Blake Masters Friday in the state’s tight election.
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November 14, 2022
“Kelly won 51% to 46% after the race’s results were delayed in the state over a slow count of the votes, The New York Times results found. The incumbent Senator received 1.12 million votes with 83% of the vote, while Masters raked in slightly over one million.
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“The incumbent Senator held the seat that he first attained in a 2020 special election following the death of former Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain. Flipping the Arizona Senate seat was seen as crucial in Republicans’ quest to win back the Senate.”
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How was Kelly able to pull it off? One reason is that the Senator, a stalwart Democrat, broke with President Joe Biden in a kind of election-eve conversion on several issues.
“The incumbent Senator vocally criticized President Joe Biden over his immigration and energy policies. According to CBS News, he broke from his own party by opposing the reversal of Title 42, a COVID-19 protocol allowing for the expulsion of migrants to protect against the virus.
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“He also said during an Oct. 7 debate against Masters that Biden was ‘wrong’ to oppose increased fossil fuel production, despite having voted twice against amendments that would have required the administration to increase oil and gas drilling.”
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Kelly also benefited from the unexpected rise of abortion as an issue driving young women voters to the polls.
One of the other factors that contributed to Kelly’s victory was the abundance of money in his campaign and the lack of the same for Masters, as the Hill explains.
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“Kelly, a retired astronaut and husband of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), was buoyed throughout by a juggernaut of a fundraising operation. According to his Federal Election Commission filing on Oct. 19, the final financial snapshot of his campaign, Kelly raised more than $80 million for the run, a number that allowed him to flood the airwaves throughout the three-plus month stretch between the primary and Tuesday’s election.
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“By contrast, Masters only raised $8 million, with more than half of that total being raised by July 13 to help him win the primary over businessman Jim Lamon and state Attorney General Mark Brnovich, forcing him to rely on outside money to help boost him in the final months of the campaign.
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“After receiving $15 million in outside money from Peter Thiel to help guide him through the primary, a battle between Thiel and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) emerged over who was going to help Masters financially in the final stretch of the campaign. After Thiel proposed that each spend $5 million to help the GOP nominee, talks broke down and the Senate Leadership Fund decided not to engage further.
“Signaling troubles, the Senate Leadership Fund canceled nearly $10 million in ads in late September, leaving other GOP groups to pick up the slack. Among those was the Club For Growth, which spent an additional $5.5 million on Oct. 28 to boost Masters.”
The Republicans lost a Senate race it might have run by not supporting Masters sufficiently.