Arizona Republicans voted on Saturday to censor Cindy McCain and two prominent members of the Republican Party who met with former President Donald Trump.
The censures of Senator John McCain’s widow, Senator Jeff Flake and Governor Doug Ducey are merely symbolic. But they show that the party’s private soldiers are focused on securing loyalty to Trump, even after an election that pushed Arizona away from its firmly republican roots.
Party activists have also re-elected controversial President Kelli Ward, who has been one of Trump’s most adamant supporters and one of the most prolific promoters of his unfounded allegations of electoral fraud.
The Republican Party’s combative focus in Arizona delighted Trump’s staunchest supporters and concerned Republican members who saw the party lose ground in the suburbs while the influence of its traditional conservative establishment waned in Trump’s favor. A growing electorate of young Latinos and newcomers bringing their most liberal politics from home has further damaged the Republican Party.
“This is a time of choice for Republicans. Are we going to be the conservative party?” said Kirk Adams, a former mayor and Ducey chief of staff. “Or is this a party … that is loyal to a single person?”
It is a matter of republican identity that party leaders and activists are facing across the country after Trump’s defeat in 2020, and especially after a crowd of his supporters lay down siege of the US Capitol on January 6.
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI
Nowhere is the issue more acute than in Arizona, where the Republican Party’s unwavering loyalty to Mr. Trump stands out, even in a party that has been remade everywhere in the image of the former president.
Ward relentlessly – but to no avail – sued to overturn the election results. The party used its social media accounts to incite its followers to fight and perhaps even die in support of Trump’s false allegations of victory. Two of the state’s four Republican congressmen are accused of participating in the organization of the January 6 rally that became violent.
After dominating Arizona politics for decades, Republicans are now on their heels in the highest positions in the state. President Joe Biden narrowly won a victory, becoming only the second Democrat in more than five decades to conquer the state. Consecutive victories in 2018 and 2020 gave Democrats control of both U.S. Senate seats for the first time in nearly 70 years.
Ward, a doctor and former state legislator who lost two Republican primaries to the U.S. Senate, defeated three opponents to win a second term.
In a brief interview, Ward acknowledged “the disappointment at the top of the ticket”, but said she and many other Republicans still question the results that show the victories of Biden and Democratic Senator Mark Kelly. Judges rejected eight lawsuits questioning the results of the Arizona elections.
Ward pointed to the Republican Party’s success in the elections, noting that Republicans defied expectations in local disputes.
Ward said she is a “Republican Trump” who “will always put America first, who believes in faith, family and freedom”. The way forward for the Republican Party, she said, is to keep the 74 million Trump voters engaged.
“Yes, I will be radical about these things because these are the things that keep this country excellent,” said Ward. “The people who are complaining are the people who really put us in this place where we are in Arizona, people who were pamby mamby, lie down and allow Democrats to step on them.”
Censorship targets some of Arizona’s most prominent Republicans,
Cindy McCain supported Biden and became a powerful replacement for the Democrat after years of Trump’s attacks on her husband. After the vote, she wrote on Twitter that “it is a great honor to be included in a group of Arizonans who have served our state and our nation so well”.
“I will use this as an emblem of honor,” she wrote.
Also after the vote, Flake tweeted a photo of him with McCain and Ducey in Biden’s possession and wrote: “Good company.”
Flake was one of the few Republicans in Congress who openly criticized Trump for not adhering to conservative values. He refused to run for reelection in 2018 and endorsed Mr. Biden in last year’s election.
“If tolerating the president’s behavior is necessary to remain in the Party’s good graces, I am very well to be out,” wrote Flake in Twitter before and after the vote.
Ducey is being targeted by individuals and companies to curb the spread of COVID-19. Although not mentioned in the proposed censorship, he did break with the president when signed the certification of Mr. Biden’s victory.
“These resolutions are of no consequence and the people behind them have lost any small moral authority they may have once had,” said Sara Mueller, political director for Ducey.
Many traditional conservatives fear that Ward’s censorship and combative style will alienate undecided voters and ticket dividers who handed Democrats their recent victories. But they say the party’s decisions will reflect only the views of some 1,500 committed activists.
John McCain was censored by the state Republican Party in 2014 and comfortably won a Republican primary against Ward and a general election. The self-styled independent, best known for his willingness to upset his party, had strained relations with the state party for much of his career, but was systematically re-elected by a wide margin.