Vulnerable Republican appointed to Senate after losing election is in deep trouble again

Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ) was already rejected by voters in 2018, and a poll released Tuesday shows Arizonians are gearing up to reject her again in 2020.

A new poll from OH Predictive Insights, first released by the Hill, shows former astronaut Mark Kelly leading McSally by a whopping 5 points, 46% to 41%. The same firm conducted polls in February and May, and each time is a little worse for McSally.

In February, McSally was leading by 2 points; and in May, she was leading by a single point. Now she’s trailing by 5 points.

McSally, a former House member, lost her 2018 Senate race to Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema. Despite voters rejecting her anti-health care platform, McSally was still appointed to the Senate by the state’s Republican governor to finish out the term of the late Sen. John McCain.

The new poll shows Arizonians might pick up on 2020 where they left off in 2018.

“The poll shows a dangerous trend for McSally,” the Hill reports, especially in Maricopa County. With the state’s largest city (Phoenix), Maricopa County is home to 60% of the state’s voters.

“Maricopa County is the problem,” Mike Noble, a Republican pollster with OH Predictive Insights, told the Hill. McSally “had a problem in the previous poll where she was down five, and now she’s down nine.”

In 2018, McSally lost Maricopa County by only 2.4 points.

Across the state, Kelly leads with men, women, white voters, and Hispanic voters.

The polls aren’t the only place McSally is trailing. When it comes to fundraising, Kelly is blowing McSally away.

In July, Kelly reported raising almost $1 million more than McSally in the second fundraising quarter, which ended in June. Overall, Kelly has more than $1.5 million in his account than McSally.

“Kelly is one of the first people mentioned by national Democrats when they talk about their chances of picking up Republican seats — he’s usually mentioned first,” Larry Sabato, a political science professor at the University of Virginia, said in early July. “He may be one of the very few Senate candidates to outspend an incumbent and that doesn’t happen very often.”

Arizonians already rejected McSally, only to see her foisted upon them as their unelected senator. Recent polls show voters are ready to reject her again.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.