But in a nod to Trump, she has said she doesn’t think the election was fair. Robson, the wealthy real estate developer and former member of the state’s board of regents, has refused to say that the 2020 election was stolen. They’re choosing the actual direction of the party.”īut when asked if Trump could come out a loser either way, Barnes said, “No, I don’t think so.” We have Donald Trump doing his thing with his candidate … The voters in the Republican Party in Arizona may not be aware of this yet, but they’re not just choosing a candidate to represent the party in the general election.

What was happening, he added, was a slow-motion, real-time “tearing of the fabric in the Republican Party that’s there for us to see. In the run-up to Trump’s rally with Lake, Stan Barnes, a former state lawmaker and longtime Republican consultant, described the Trump and Pence appearances in Arizona as “like some sort of celestial planet lineup that you witness every millennium … That’s what it feels like on the ground in Arizona.” Lake herself has suggested she might not accept the results of her election - a line derived from the Trump playbook. Some said they wouldn’t believe it if she did. And it wouldn’t change Trump’s supporters’ minds about him if his preferred candidate for governor, Lake, loses to Pence’s choice in the primary on Aug.

It was the prospect that he would run again that they were cheering when they arrived. Republicans lost two Senate seats and a presidential race for the first time since 1996. To Trump’s supporters, it doesn’t matter how much damage was inflicted on the state party during his tenure. In parts of Arizona, said Chuck Coughlin, a veteran Republican strategist based in Phoenix, “you can say some crazy shit” and still be viable. Walt Blackman, a Republican state lawmaker running for Congress, recently made headlines for his suggestion that abortion is tied to efforts to exterminate Black people. 6 committee about Trump’s efforts to overturn the election.

It’s the largest county in Arizona, the state where Ron Watkins, a celebrity in the QAnon conspiracy world suspected of being Q, is running for Congress.Įarlier this week, the state Republican Party censured Arizona’s Republican state House speaker, Rusty Bowers, for testifying to the Jan. The former vice president appeared with Robson in Maricopa County, where Trump supporters conducted an “audit” of the last election that was derided by honest observers as a farce. Pence was, indeed, there - having come to the state to support Karrin Taylor Robson, who is running for the Republican nomination for governor against the Trump-endorsed Kari Lake, who still insists, falsely, that Trump won the election in 2020.īut even the setting of the stop underscored how tilted this “proxy-battle” would be. Leaving the rally with her 11-year-old grandson - and stopping for a T-shirt that was too big for him, but that he said he could tuck in - Georgianna Bruso said she “didn’t even know” Pence was in the state.

“I don’t have an opinion on ,” said another, who was eager to persuade Trump to “head up a liquidation of the federal government” if elected. They rallied on Friday in a bunting-clad arena wearing “Still my president” T-shirts, offering wild conspiracies about the last election and certainty that Trump would win the next one.įor them, Pence - and every vestige of the old, establishment wing of the GOP - is in the past.

David penc