Arizona's August 2 Republican primary has 5 more or less viable candidates. The last public polling was in the field way back at the end of April, conducted by Republican polling firm Trafalgar. This is how it came out:
As of the March 31 FEC reporting deadline, Lamon, a self-funder who gave his campaign $13 million, had spent the most:
Jim Lamon- $6,656,190
Mark Brnovich- $2,007,713
Blake Masters- $1,476,035
Mick McGuire- $1,080,269
Justin Olson- $131,698
But Masters has something else going for him-- actually two somethings-- German-born Nazi billionaire Peter Thiel is financing a superPAC for him and Thiel-- who is openly gay and rumored to have been Masters' ex-lover-- bought Masters one of those one-size fits all endorsements from Trump. Thiel is spending $13.5 million to help buy the seat, exactly what he did for JD Vance in Ohio-- buy an endorsement from Señor Trumpanzee and spend $13.5 million. So far he spent nearly $5 million in advertising introducing Masters and over a million attacking Brnovich and Lamon.
Anyway, I expect that current (private) polling reflects Trump's endorsement nd has moved the needle significantly in favor of Masters. However, as the campaign unfolds we're getting a very ugly picture of Blake Masters-- an anti-Semite, a racist, a thug and bully and, according the Alex Rogers and Manu Raju this afternoon, a crackpot spreader of unfounded conspiracy theories. The two CNN reporters wrote that Masters "met with conservative activists at a Phoenix IHOP this spring and was asked whether he would support investigating US intelligence operations to uncover the federal government's 'nefarious activities.' Masters replied, 'Absolutely,' and then floated the conspiracy theory that the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol actually may have been a false-flag operation set up by the FBI, according to a recording of the March 30 meeting obtained by CNN. 'Don't we suspect that like one-third of the people outside of the Capitol complex on January 6 were actual FBI agents hanging out,' Masters asked at the GrassRoots Tea Party Activists of Arizona event. 'What did people know and when did they know it? We got to get to the bottom of this.' Masters is part of a wave of Republicans who have won the coveted endorsement of former President Donald Trump after parroting his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen and downplaying the actions of the pro-Trump mob that attacked the Capitol last year."
Is that the craziest thing you heard about Republicans today? How about North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a candidate for governor, addressing an evangelical church and telling them that women should not be in political leadership positions? And it's on tape too:
Not crazy enough for you? Let's skip over to Hurst, Texas where Pastor Dillon Awes of the Stedfast Baptist Church had a very specific call for violence against LGBTQ people in his sermon from this weekend.
“What does God say is the answer, is the solution, for the homosexual in 2022, here in the New Testament, here in the Book of Romans?” Awes asked. “That they are worthy of death! These people should be put to death!”
“Every single homosexual in our country should be charged with the crime, the abomination of homosexuality, that they have,” he continued. “They should be convicted in a lawful trial. They should be sentenced with death.”
“They should be lined up against the wall and shot in the back of the head! That’s what God teaches. That’s what the Bible says. You don’t like it? You don’t like God’s Word, because that is what God says.”
Watch; listen-- just click on the image:
Do you want even more right-wing crazy? Well, technically Blue Dog Jared Golden of Maine and New Dem Elissa Slotkin of Michigan are Democrats-- albeit from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. Technically. This afternoon, they both voted against the rule bringing up a package of gun control bills-- just like every Republican did. It passed without their support: 218-205.