The Arizona Republican Party may have just spelled out its own death sentence. The state GOP approved resolutions on Saturday to censure three of its most prominent members, including Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, former Sen. Jeff Flake, and Cindy McCain, the widow of former Sen. John McCain. Including its previous censure of McCain five years ago, before his death in 2018, the Arizona GOP has now censured almost all of its members who have managed to win statewide in recent years.
In a state that is increasingly growing blue, with its largest county, Maricopa, which contains 62 percent of the state’s population, flipping blue for the first time (on the presidential level) since 1948 in 2020 and the state voting in two Democratic senators in two years and President Joe Biden in 2020, as well as flipping a majority of the state’s U.S. House seats blue in 2018, the Arizona GOP has chosen to shift even more to the right.
The Arizona GOP has fallen out of power very quickly, but the shift was a long time coming. For example, in the 2016 election, a year in which Republicans nationally did quite well, the state, along with Texas and Georgia in the Sun Belt, was one of just 12 states to shift leftward by voting for Hillary Clinton more so than Barack Obama, and it shifted by a whopping 5.5 points in what could be considered a red wave year. Then, in the blue wave of the 2018 midterms, the Democrats won an open U.S. Senate seat here, with Kyrsten Sinema successfully beating Republican nominee Martha McSally, as well as flipping a majority of the state’s delegates to the House. Democrats now control five of the nine House seats from Arizona.
In 2020, the state moved a further 3.8 percentage points to the left, enough to give Joe Biden a victory in the state (with a narrow 0.25 percent margin), marking the first time in 24 years a Democratic presidential candidate has won here. In addition, Democrat Mark Kelly was also successful in challenging appointed Sen. Martha McSally, winning by 2.4 percent. The Democrats representing Arizona in the House also managed to stave off any Republican challengers.
Yet, in this increasingly blue political environment, not only has the state chosen to strongly back former President Donald Trump, a person who lost the state, it has chosen to shift even farther to the right by censuring three of its most prominent members in a largely symbolic vote.
Ducey, Arizona’s popular Republican governor who won reelection by a whopping 14 points in 2018 (despite Democrats winning big elsewhere here), was a Trump supporter and even campaigned with Trump. The only “crime” against the Arizona GOP he “committed” was that he refused to overturn the results of a fair election, choosing to uphold his constitutional duty, and certifying the state’s presidential results for Biden. Despite Ducey’s support for Trump, the state GOP has still chosen to censure him.
Flake, the Republican who held Sinema’s current Senate seat from 2013 until he retired in 2019, choosing not to run in 2018, and Cindy McCain, the wife of the late Sen. John McCain, a hugely popular senator from the state until his death in 2018 and himself censured five years ago for supporting “leftist causes,” were both censured by the Arizona GOP for supporting Joe Biden in the 2020 election. Senator McCain was noted, at the time, for being the decisive vote in preventing the Republican-sponsored American Health Care Act of 2017 in passing, which, if passed, would have stripped much of the Affordable Care Act’s health protections.
In reply to the censure, Cindy McCain said, on Twitter, “It is a high honor to be included in a group of Arizonans who have served our state and our nation so well…and who, like my late husband John, have been censured by the AZGOP. I’ll wear this as a badge of honor.” As of writing, the tweet has garnered over 337,000 likes on the platform.
It is a high honor to be included in a group of Arizonans who have served our state and our nation so well…and who, like my late husband John, have been censured by the AZGOP. I’ll wear this as a badge of honor.
— Cindy McCain (@cindymccain) January 24, 2021
In his own reply, Flake said on Twitter, “If condoning President Trump’s behavior is required to stay in the AZGOP’s good graces, I’m just fine being on the outs.”
If condoning President Trump’s behavior is required to stay in the AZGOP’s good graces, I’m just fine being on the outs. https://t.co/2rzCTu1AcZ
— Jeff Flake (@JeffFlake) January 24, 2021
Ducey said in an interview, with The New York Times, “I think we are better and stronger as a party when we’re adding people rather than the alternative.”
This means that the most prominent Arizona GOP figures have now been condemned by a symbolic vote by their own parties. The only Republicans who knew how to win statewide in Arizona in recent years have now been officially rejected by their own party.
These censures came after Kelli Ward, the chairwoman of the state GOP who is a staunch Trump loyalist and considered polarizing, was narrowly reelected by state party officials, after she played a recorded message from Trump where he said, “I give her my complete and total endorsement.”
Shifting the party to the right may have spelled out its own death sentence. It is clear that Arizonan voters have rejected the Donald Trump and the “Make America Great Again” rhetoric, with voters choosing to reject Trump himself, as well as Martha McSally twice in both Senate elections there. McSally has aligned herself as being a Trump supporter.
The Arizona GOP’s Twitter account has continued pumping out pro-Trump posts. It recently retweeted tweets that said “MAGA isn’t going anywhere” and a large number of tweets congratulating Ward, despite the state party losing badly in the years she was at its helm.
Glenn Hamer, a former executive director of the Arizona GOP, called the actions “foolish” and “self-destructive.” Moderate state Republicans denounced the resolutions, saying that the censures only serve to push away moderate and independent voters, which make up about one-third of the electorate in the state.
The true test of the pro-Trump rhetoric the state GOP has been taking will not be too far off. A U.S. Senate seat and all statewide offices are up for reelection in just two years’ time.