Martha McSally makes it official: She's running for the Senate
U.S. Rep. Martha McSally, a two-term Republican from Tucson and former Air Force combat pilot, on Friday officially entered an already volatile race for Arizona's open U.S. Senate seat, setting the GOP field for the drive to the Aug. 28 primary.
In a video posted to YouTube Friday morning, McSally plays up her Air Force background, including being the first female pilot to fight in combat, and presents herself as a member of Congress who gets things done in an age of gridlock.
She also signals her intent to align herself with President Donald Trump — in tone and policy — whose backing could be crucial in the Republican primary.
"Like our president, I'm tired of PC politicians and their BS excuses," she says on the video. "I'm a fighter pilot and I talk like one. That's why I told Washington Republicans to grow a pair of ovaries and get the job done. Now I'm running for the Senate to fight the fights that must be won."
Later Friday morning, McSally, 51, kicked off campaigning with an appearance at an air hangar in her hometown of Tucson. There McSally again traced her military career, including her combat duty and challenges to Pentagon rules regarding clothing for women in the Middle East.
“I don’t sit quietly and I don’t scare easily," she told the crowd.
“Arizona, you have my word. On any issue of taxes, standing, regulation or security, I will always be a voice and a vote for the working people of Arizona I represent."
McSally's Senate bid had been widely anticipated from almost the moment on Oct. 24 that incumbent U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., announced he would retire rather than face re-election this year.
But the race's dynamics took a turn earlier this week with former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's announcement that he also is seeking the Republican nomination.
The three-way primary race pits McSally, the favorite of the traditional GOP establishment, against Arpaio of Fountain Hills and Kelli Ward, a former state senator from Lake Havasu City, both of whom will be battling to win the party's conservative base.
With control of the narrowly divided Senate at stake, the competition to replace Flake could become one of the year's national marquee races.
At her Tucson event, a T-6 fighter plane used in World War II by the Women Airforce Service Pilots was positioned behind the stage. It was intended as a visual reminder of McSally’s military emphasis as well as her second bill in Congress that was signed into law. That 2016 bill restored the WASP’s right to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
McSally flew in the vintage T-6 to campaign events Friday at a hangar in Phoenix and at the Yavapai County Court House in Prescott. The late former five-term U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz., and six-term senior U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., both launched campaigns from the county's historic courthouse steps.
"I will speak candidly, maybe a little bluntly at times, always truthfully, and never in the droning, empty platitudes of the politically correct," McSally told her crowd in Phoenix. "They don't teach that stuff in fighter-pilot school, and I'm not about to learn it now. I'm running, after all, for a Senate seat once held by an aviator named Barry Goldwater. He set the standard for speaking directly. ... He is one of the greatest senators our country has ever known. Do you agree?"
The audience applauded.
READ MORE: McSally's Senate ambitions began last summer
Barry Goldwater Jr., a former California congressman, was on hand for McSally's appearance at Swift Aviation at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. Asked before the event if he was backing McSally for his father's old Senate seat, Goldwater Jr. said: "Yeah, I think so. It's still a little early, but I want to hear what she has to say."
Like McCain and Flake in recent campaigns, McSally likely will have to run to the right in the primary and, if she prevails, pivot toward the political center for what most observers expect would be a tough general-election campaign against U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., the well-funded front-runner in the Democratic Senate primary.
In Phoenix, McSally detailed a Trump-style platform, particularly on border security and immigration, for her Senate campaign.
McSally outlined a strategy "to control our border by more agents, sensor, aerial assets, both manned and unmanned, and every other effective means, including a border wall."
"When facing vicious cartels and the possibility of terrorists, a secure border is not just the people's right, it is the federal government's urgent responsibility," McSally said. "My position is simple: There should be no sanctuary for anyone breaking those laws and harming our people. And no sanctuary cities for violent felons who do not belong here."
Since Flake's surprise retirement announcement, McSally has sought to raise her profile by piling up appearances on Fox News and has posted on social media pictures of herself with Trump, whom she avoided discussing throughout the 2016 elections and for months more after he entered the White House.
Earlier this week, she was seated near Trump at his hourlong public discussion with congressional Democrats and Republicans of immigration and border-security issues. On Wednesday, she helped introduce a hard-line border-security and immigration bill that the White House said "would accomplish the president’s core priorities for the American people."
McSally's announcement video included a clip of Trump praising his "friend" McSally as "the real deal" and "tough."
"Look, even when I had no idea I would be embarking on this endeavor, and I'm in a district that didn't vote for him, he's the president of the United States and I'm going to work with him in order to achieve our objectives," McSally told The Arizona Republic in an interview after her Prescott stop. "There's nothing wrong with that."
McSally met briefly with reporters after her announcement and was asked about reports that Trump, while meeting with members of Congress on immigration, referred to immigrants coming from "s--thole countries."
“I’m partnering with the president. I’m the one right now working with the administration to get things done,” she said. “I speak a little salty behind closed doors at times as well, so I’m not going to throw the first stone on using any language,” McSally said of Trump’s alleged comment. “Look, the issue he was trying to get to is we’ve got to reform our immigration system.”
The Republican primary has the potential to be a proxy war between the national GOP factions represented by Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and former White House strategist Steve Bannon.
Trump has not yet endorsed a candidate in the race to replace Flake. But despite McSally and Ward's attempts to curry his favor, Arpaio is widely seen as the likeliest recipient of such a gesture were Trump to inject himself in the race. Arpaio was an early, high-profile backer of Trump's insurgent presidential campaign, and Trump repaid Arpaio's loyalty in 2017 by pardoning him of a federal conviction of criminal contempt of court in connection with a racial-profiling case.
"I would certainly welcome an endorsement from him (Trump), but I'm not asking him to fight this fight for me. I'm ready to fight it myself," McSally said.
McSally is aligned with McConnell, who, even before she publicly announced her intentions, said he considers McSally to be one of his top recruits of this election cycle. Fox Business reported this week that McSally had received assurances that a political action committee aligned with Republican leaders in the Senate will provide financial support to her campaign.
"Nobody's recruited me," McSally told The Republic. "This call to duty was churning inside me and I can't turn it off. ... This is personal, and the only one who's recruited me is me."
Ward had been endorsed by Bannon, who spoke on her behalf at an October campaign event in Scottsdale. However, since Trump and Bannon's major public falling out, Ward has distanced herself from Bannon.
"Like in nearly every other state facing a Senate election this cycle, the Arizona Republican primary will be nasty, expensive and very long," David Bergstein, a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesman said Friday in a written statement. "It will drain the GOP’s resources, demoralize their voters, and expose the flaws in each of their candidates."
McSally's decision to run for the Senate also presents her party with another dilemma. She is abandoning her moderate 2nd Congressional District in southern Arizona and Republicans now must field another candidate there. It's a competitive House seat that the GOP may find difficult to hold in this year's midterm elections, when Democrats are expected to make gains.
McSally was elected to the House in 2014, defeating incumbent U.S. Rep. Ron Barber, D-Ariz., in a close race. She was re-elected in 2016.
Should McSally win in November, she would become the first U.S. senator from Pima County since U.S. Sen. Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz., who served three terms from 1977 to 1995.
A general-election victory by McSally, Ward or Sinema would send Arizona's first woman U.S. senator to Washington.
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