Topline
Blake Masters will be the Republican nominee in Arizona’s Senate race this year, the Associated Press projected early on Wednesday morning, after the former venture capitalist secured a key endorsement from former President Donald Trump and financial support from Masters’ onetime boss, billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel.
Arizona Republican U.S. Senate candidate Blake Masters speaks to supporters at a campaign party, … [+]
Key Facts
The AP called the race for Masters at 3:45 a.m. Eastern, with nearly 75% of votes counted.
Masters led with 38.4% of the vote, followed by Jim Lamon at 29.1% and Mark Brnovich at 18.6%.
What To Watch For
Masters will face off against incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly in a November general election. Polling for the general election is still limited, but most forecasters expect the race to be close, especially as Democrats brace for a challenging midterm.
Key Background
Masters earned Trump’s endorsement two months ago, partly due to Masters’ hardline stance on border and immigration issues. A former executive at Thiel’s investment firm, Masters’ bid for the Senate was also backed indirectly by a super PAC that received millions of dollars in donations from Thiel (a PayPal cofounder with a net worth of $5 billion), plus thousands from cryptocurrency twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (who are each worth $3.4 billion) and banker Andrew Beal (net worth of $9.5 billion). Masters has courted controversy: He has proudly referred to himself as a “nationalist,” falsely claimed Trump won the 2020 election and suggested many January 6 rioters may have been FBI agents. Meanwhile, Brnovich has run for Senate partly on his record of suing the Biden Administration as Arizona’s attorney general over federal border policies, though Trump has attacked him for declining to back the former president’s false voter fraud allegations. And Lamon—who founded a solar energy company—has lent millions of dollars to his own campaign, and has aired several ads attacking Masters.
Tangent
rump has endorsed dozens of GOP candidates in this year’s primaries, but his record is mixed. Mehmet Oz won Pennsylvania’s Senate primary after earning Trump’s support, and J.D. Vance—who was backed by Trump and Thiel—won the Ohio Senate primary, but Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger both fended off Trump-endorsed primary challengers after breaking with the former president after the 2020 election.
Further Reading
Poolside Fundraisers, Crypto And Mini-Trumps: Inside Peter Thiel’s Life After Facebook (Forbes)
Winklevoss Twins Team Up With Peter Thiel To Support Arizona Senate Candidate Blake Masters (Forbes)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2022/08/03/trump-backed-blake-masters-wins-arizona-gop-nomination-for-senate/