The Republican Civil War Heads to Arizona

On Tuesday, former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, jumped into the race for Arizona’s now-open Senate seat. Arpaio is, to put it mildly, controversial. He was recently pardoned by President Trump for contempt of court (the case related to racial profiling), he’s publicly questioned whether President Obama’s birth certificate is real and he at one point forced prisoners to wear pink underwear (Jim Swift has more on Arpaio here).

And, oddly enough, his entry into the Republican primary might end up helping establishment-friendly Republicans.

Before Arpaio’s entry, the main contenders for the nomination were Republican Rep. Martha McSally and Kelli Ward. Ward, a Trump-aligned candidate who could be problematic in a general election, was leading McSally, a more mainstream Republican, 42 percent-34 percent, in a November survey from Republican pollster OH Predictive Insights.

But in a new OH Predictive Insights poll, McSally has a slim lead over Arpaio, 31 percent-29 percent. Ward was in third place with 25 percent of the vote.

In other words, these polls showed that McSally was having trouble putting Ward away by herself. But when the more Trump-friendly, anti-establishment vote is split between two candidates, McSally has a better shot of winning.