In quest for Arizona victory, 'Lake and Blake' is a thing, but 'Katie and Kelly' is not
PHOENIX - As early voting in Arizona was about to get underway, a left-leaning group posted a picture on social media of Sen. Kyrsten Sinema standing alongside a pair of her Democratic colleagues.
Neither of the colleagues were from Arizona. The picture was purportedly taken during a vacation in Paris.
There is no outward indication that the state’s highest-ranking Democrat will play a prominent public role in trying to help Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., or Democratic gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs across the finish line.
By contrast, Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and U.S. Senate nominee Blake Masters have shared the same stage at least four times in 10 days. High-profile GOP surrogates have included former President Donald Trump, former Vice President Mike Pence, Gov. Doug Ducey, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.
There are signs urging voters to vote for “Lake and Blake,” linking them even when they aren’t standing together.
By contrast, Kelly and Hobbs have not held a public event together. If there are “Katie and Kelly” signs, it seems they are printed in invisible ink.
Polling suggests Arizona’s top two races are close. But the parties have taken a polar-opposite approach in trying to win at the top of the ticket in a state where independents usually settle the battle between Democrats and Republicans.
In Arizona, Republicans are sticking together, at least before the election. Democrats seem to be on their own.
The strategies reflect both current public opinion and historical lessons.
John LaBombard, a former Sinema staffer now working with Rokk Solutions, a bipartisan political consulting firm, said Democratic victories in swing states still hinge on appealing to independents who aren’t enamored with the party’s national profile.
“It doesn’t surprise me that we don’t see the same sort of cavalry rushing in as the Republicans have,” he said, “because I just think it’s a slightly different recipe for success when you’re talking about competitive battleground states, where Democrats have to attract some number of independents and Republican voters to be successful.”
What matters? Inflation, abortion and threats to democracy on voters’ minds
Divergent approaches for the parties
For Democrats, there seems to be a shortage of helpful Democratic surrogates, especially as consumers remain squeezed by high inflation.
Janet Napolitano, for example, is Arizona’s last Democratic governor and former secretary of Homeland Security. She has endorsed Hobbs but only appeared with her once. Napolitano could not be reached for comment
“Sen. Kelly’s focus from day one has been on Arizona — and the lineup of Republican, Independent, and Democratic folks campaigning for him in every corner of the state reflect that,” Arielle Devorah, a Kelly campaign spokeswoman.
“Kelly is proud of the broad coalition he’s built to help move the campaign full speed ahead towards Election Day, and he looks forward to welcoming even more supporters along the way who share his vision for Arizona.”
By contrast, most Republicans are united by Trump: His preferred slate of candidates won the state’s GOP primary. While people like Ducey and Pence have crossed him on his baseless claims of a stolen election, they play reduced roles in trying to defeat the Democrats in Arizona.
When Lake was hoarse this week, Masters filled in for her at an event in Ahwatukee.
“I got the text from Team Kari saying 'We need you.' I was up in Prescott and then Black Canyon City, and sprinted down to be with you here,” Masters told the cheering crowd gathered for Lake’s question-and-answer tour.
Meanwhile Kelly and Hobbs appeared together once: walking in the Navajo Nation Parade in August.
The lone-wolf approach to Democratic campaigns in Arizona paid off for Sinema, and Kelly largely followed her approach in 2020. This year, the candidates are bolstered behind the scenes by a coordinated Democratic campaign called Mission for Arizona.
But there are other factors at play in the race to replace Ducey that hinge on the candidates themselves.
While Lake uses her MAGA star status to channel energy toward Masters and other GOP candidates on the ballot, Hobbs is rarely spotted with fellow Democrats, a reflection of what some Democrats see as Hobbs' fumbles along the campaign trail.
That includes the extended drama after Hobbs refused to appear to debate Lake onstage, forgoing a campaign staple and serving up another line of attack for Lake, the firebrand former news anchor.
While going it alone has worked in other close contests, longtime consultant Chuck Coughlin, founder of the Republican-leaning firm HighGround in Phoenix, said Democrats should show unity among their candidates, and that any perceived faults shouldn't be a factor.
"It's like baseball. In any kind of lineup, you can cloak weaknesses," Coughlin said. "You just play to everybody's strengths."
In 2010, while running Gov. Jan Brewer's re-election bid, Coughlin helped organize a statewide tour of the entire Republican ticket. Brewer, U.S. Sen. John McCain and Ducey, who was running for treasurer, campaigned together and ultimately Republicans swept the statewide races.
"We went across the state. It was a great rallying cry. It really helped build a lot of momentum," he said. All it took, he said, was someone at the top of the ticket reaching out.
"It's always good to show unity, as Republicans are trying to do here," Coughlin said of this election cycle. He couldn't recall another time, since the 1980s, that Democratic candidates had launched a joint campaign.
It's unclear if Hobbs even wants help from Kelly and Sinema. Hobbs' campaign spokesperson didn't answer a question whether she would seek the senators' support, instead pointing to Hobbs' efforts to appeal to Republican and Latino voters.
Hobbs has recruited the support of leaders like Mesa Mayor John Giles, a Republican, and Democratic Maricopa County Supervisor Steve Gallardo. She dismissed Republicans like Trump and Cruz as extremists, and pointed to her track record of election wins.
"We don’t take our cues from campaigning from Kari Lake or the Arizona GOP," Hobbs' spokesperson Sarah Robinson said. "Secretary Hobbs has never lost a race, and is the candidate who has actually won statewide. She is focused on running her own race and teaming up with the scores of people who identify Kari Lake’s dangerous ideas as a threat to our state."
Apart from one unity event in late August, when the Democratic nominees for statewide office rallied a friendly crowd at a union shop in Phoenix, and two news conferences with Democratic candidate for attorney general Kris Mayes to blast Republicans as extreme on abortion rights, Hobbs' has mostly traveled the path toward the governor's office alone.
She hasn't called for the help of Marco López, the former mayor of Nogales who challenged Hobbs for the Democratic nomination but was handily defeated. López said he never spoke to Hobbs on the campaign trail and hasn't spoken to her since the primary.
He fears that voters see Hobbs' as overly passive.
"What incentive do you give them to get up and fill out their ballot on your behalf if they don't sense that you're fighting for them?" López said. "That's why it's important to go out and campaign and be present."
It’s not that there is perfect harmony in the extended GOP. Brewer, for example, has endorsed Masters, but not Lake, whose combative political style may be too much for the governor who famously wagged a finger at then-President Barack Obama in Arizona.
But overall, Republicans expect broad public discontent to help sweep races across the state.
Democrats are trying to connect with independents in their own ways over a conservative agenda they see as going too far, and they see hope in recent success.
Swinging votes: Katie Hobbs gets backing of Republicans in Paradise Valley
Sinema stays under the radar
In many ways that began with Sinema, who in 2018 won a Senate race for Democrats for the first time in 30 years.
She did it largely by casting herself as a centrist willing to work with Republicans. Sinema didn’t campaign with David Garcia, the Democrat who challenged Ducey that year and lost by 14 percentage points.
Garcia struggled to raise money and supported ideas such as free college education and said he longed for a border with “no wall in southern Arizona.” It cost him support among the state’s sizable middle.
In 2020, Kelly ran as an independent-style Democrat in his bid to oust then-Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz.
Like Sinema, he had plenty of financial backing from the outset. His stylistic overlap with Sinema led her to appear in a memorable campaign ad that ripped McSally and praised him as “an independent voice that puts everyday people first.”
Kelly didn’t appear with Biden and Harris during the only visit to Arizona Biden made in the 2020 campaign. That happened as another wave of COVID surged across the country, and Biden deliberately held small, socially distanced events.
Two years later, matters remain complicated for the Democrats.
In many ways, Sinema plays an outsized role in defining the politically possible in Washington.
The compromises she has helped engineer in the Biden era have angered many in Democratic circles, who see her as stymying the president’s agenda.
The Paris picture, taken with Reps. Kathleen Rice, D-N.Y., and Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., and shared by a group seeking to replace Sinema with another Democrat, can't help her image on the activist left. Sinema's office declined to comment about the matter.
To independents and a smattering of Republicans, Sinema is viewed as a brake against her party’s liberal impulses.
The divergent views have left Sinema as a low-key supporter for Kelly and no factor for Hobbs. Sinema has held a fundraiser for Kelly and sent several fundraising emails on his behalf.
“Over the past two years, Mark has been a great partner in our work securing the border, strengthening Arizona’s water future, and lowering prices for everyday Arizona families,” Sinema said in a statement to The Arizona Republic. “I was proud to support his campaign in 2020 and I’m laser focused on keeping him in the Senate.”
It is similar to her remarks in her limited media interviews.
“I need his help,” Sinema said of Kelly in a September interview with KTAR (92.3 FM). “We have partnered together very respectfully in the past two years to make sure that folks out here on the East Coast actually understand what it’s like to live in a border state and to serve a border community.”
Earlier this month, Sinema deflected questions about her 2024 reelection prospects, and urged support for Kelly.
“Arizonans are in the middle of a very busy election season, and it’s important we focus our resources on keeping Mark Kelly in the Senate instead of starting the next campaign anytime soon,” she said in a statement to Politico.
Sinema has also financially backed Kelly.
Her affiliated leadership PAC gave Kelly’s campaign $10,000 — the most allowed by FEC rules — over two installments in early 2021.
She also gave $60,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which works to aid candidates like Kelly. The DSCC has provided at least $3.6 million in the current election cycle to the state Democratic Party, topped only by its spending in Nevada.
By contrast, Sinema has taken no public steps on behalf of Hobbs’ campaign.
Kelly has received more visible help from other Democrats, such as Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz. He’s had several appearances in Arizona as a senator — not a candidate — with Biden administration officials, such as Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
Endorsements from Republicans like Giles, the mayor of Mesa, and Peoria Mayor Cathy Carlat also figure prominently in Kelly’s campaign approach.
Lake, Masters embrace the Trump-led GOP
If Kelly’s public surrogates seem relatively selective, Masters has prominently welcomed help from an array of conservatives.
Polling suggests Trump is at least as unpopular as Biden, but Masters has appeared with Trump repeatedly and spent months trying to secure his endorsement during the GOP primary.
Sunday offered the most recent example of that, with Masters talking on stage at Trump’s invitation. The two traded compliments.
“He’s a tremendous guy, and a smart one, too,” Trump said of Masters. Masters, Trump said, “absolutely annihilated” Kelly at their debate last week. “He’s exactly the kind of new blood we need in the United States Senate,” Trump said.
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“How much do we miss this guy?” Masters said, standing near Trump. “We saw what successful leadership looks like. It looks a lot like President Trump. And now we see every day what failed Democrat leadership looks like.”
It’s a similar dynamic for Lake and Trump.
Trump praised Lake as an “America first all-star,” and an “unbelievable” candidate.
“Arizona, you’re too good to me. Do you love this guy or what?” Lake asked the cheering crowd. Later, she proudly declared she was ignoring what could be considered traditional campaign advice to back away from such a divisive figure.
“We had great times under President Trump,” Lake said. “And we miss you so much, President Trump.”
Lake did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Republican candidates standing with prominent GOP figures has long seemed a safe way to boost prospects in traditionally red Arizona. Recent Democratic wins, however, have given that party a cautious sense that victory is reachable, though in a different way.
LaBombard, for one, believes the go-it-alone approach is still the Democrats’ best bet with voters.
“To me, it’s a feature, not a bug, when there’s a Democrat running for office who’s charting their own path because that emphasizes their independence from the party, and, frankly, from a system that is pretty unpopular with independent voters.”
Reach the reporter Ronald J. Hansen at ronald.hansen@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4493. Follow him on Twitter @ronaldjhansen.
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