McCain is lucky as heck that he won't be challenged Salmon or Schweikert, but since he will be challenged by Ward, while he is favored to beat her he will have to spend some money in the primary to beat her, and might even need to move to the right quite a bit.
As for the general, Kirkpatrick and Sinema would be able to make up that ground. They're solid winners and fundraisers, just their problem is not a lot of Arizonans who they are. It would take a really good year to defeat McCain though given that Arizona always disappoints whenever it seems like they're ready to flip towards the Democrats (and undecided's tend to break Republican).
I'm still standing by John McCain. All of his potential primary challengers are useless.
Maybe. But there is no one more useless in Washington than the whiny perpetually bitter John McCain. God I hope he loses, primary or otherwise. I'd be okay with Senator Richard Carmona or Senator Fred Duval (surprising he is the closest, though he did seem to run an able if silent campaign for Governor) if it meant no more McCain.
Carmona/Duval are not going to defeat McCain. Sorry, but not happening. Sinema or Kirkpatrick might though....
Carmona and Duval were both closer though...
Duval totally bungled last year's governor's race, and seeing as Carmona couldn't win in an open seat in a democratic wave, it's difficult to see him beating McCain. I could see it happen with him before Duval though.
Sinema won by double digits in her basically even district last year, and Kirkpatrick won fairly comfortably when literally everyone predicted her defeat. Seems like pretty good electability records to me.
Really? He seemed to do fine for 2014. Ducey was a far better candidate than dummy Jan Brewer and yet the margin was about the same, and against Brewer democrats won an experienced politico who had won statewide races before. I don't see how he messed it up unless you expected him to actually win that year. And Carmona faced a far stronger opponent in Jeff Flake (2012 being a Democratic Wave is a bit of a stretch, and Flake a pretty moderate Republican by today's standards). Unlike Kirkpatrick and Sinema, they actually have statewide experience, and could learn lessons from that loss (See: Charlie Baker improving his performance in 2010 and winning in 2014). I'm not saying that Kirkpatrick and Sinema couldn't win - they absolutely could. But if they don't run (which I think is more likely than not), Duval or Carmona would be strong contenders as well.
McCain should actually be hoping DuVal is his challenger. While he does have statewide experience, it's definitely the wrong kind of experience. He didn't lose by that bad of a margin, but the media did find out during the campaign last year that he drove while his license was suspended. DuVal made other rookie mistakes during that campaign to if I recall correctly.
