A Republican primary on Tuesday for the Senate seat to replace Sen. Jeff Flake pits a candidate identified with late Sen. John McCain and another who backs President Donald Trump, USA Today reported.
The GOP establishment believes that Rep. Martha McSally has the best chance to keep the seat Republican in the November election.
In addition to the fact that today’s primary vote happens to come just days after McCain’s death and before his funeral, the pro-Trump candidate Kelli Ward waded into controversy with remarks she made after the McCain family announced the senator was discontinuing his treatment for brain cancer.
Ward was reacting to a post by one of her campaign staffers questioning if it was “just a coincidence” that the McCain family’s announcement came the same day Ward started a campaign bus tour in the final days of the campaign or if it was a plant to take media attention away from, the Arizona Republic reported.
"I think they wanted to have a particular narrative that they hope is negative to me," Ward wrote in remark on Facebook, which has since been deleted, according to the Republic.
When her remarks were harshly criticized, especially after McCain died a few hours after she made them, Ward doubled down on her comments in a tweet on Monday, saying that “Political correctness is like a cancer.”
Ward later offered an apology, saying she wanted to set the record straight, saying, “I understand how many could have misconstrued my comments as insensitive, and for this I apologize. The intention of my comments were in no way directed at Sen. McCain or his family," adding that they "in reference to the media" and its "hope for a narrative that would hinder the momentum of our campaign," according to CNN.
In a statewide poll conducted by OH Predictive Insights earlier this month before McCain’s death and the latest controversy, McSally was leading with 47 percent in the Republican primary, according to tuscon.com
This put her far ahead of Ward with only 27 percent. Former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was pardoned by Trump last year for criminal contempt off court, is in third with just 13 percent.
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