Biden nominations of McCain and Flake to ambassadorship a signal for 2024, Arizona strategists predict

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President Joe Biden’s nominations of two Arizona anti-Trump Republicans to ambassadorships will likely be a key part of the president’s strategy to win the state again in 2024, local strategists believe.

Biden announced former Sen. Jeff Flake as the U.S. ambassador to Turkey on Tuesday and named Cindy McCain, widow of the late Sen. John McCain, U.S. ambassador to the U.N. World Food Programme, a diplomatic mission based in Rome, in April. Both of them endorsed Biden before the 2020 election.

The president’s decision to pick two Arizona Republicans — neither of whom are particularly popular among Republicans within the state — shows “how important they were to Biden winning Arizona” in 2020, Mike Nobel, the chief of research & managing partner of OH Predictive Insights, told the Washington Examiner.

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Biden was the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the southwestern state since President Bill Clinton captured it in 1996.

“When 2024 rolls around, the suburban women and independents will definitely hear about Biden’s bipartisanship here. Are there two Republicans who had more to do with Biden’s very slim victory in Arizona than these two?” Nobel asked. “Neither Flake and McCain are popular among the GOP base, but they still retain high positives with moderates and independents. And as we know, those voters are key to winning this state.“

Stan Barnes, an Arizona Republican strategist, told the Washington Examiner in a phone interview that Biden’s nominations of McCain and Flake are not “accidental,” noting “everything is hyper-political, and everything is connected.”

The nominations are “in part, a political reward for Flake and Cindy McCain, but it is also in part a strategy by the operatives thinking about the 2024 election of how to win the center of Arizona for a democratic administration or a Democratic candidate,” Barnes said. “And so it makes sense from a strategic point of view, and it also makes sense from the give-and-take nature of national politics.”

Chuck Coughlin, the president and CEO of HighGround Inc., a conservative Arizona-based political consulting firm, told the Washington Examiner in a phone interview the move was “politically intelligent,” as it could give his campaign a “broader appeal.”

Coughlin emphasized Flake’s religion — he is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — and said, “A significant portion of the electorate out here that always would be traditionally Republican, but there’s been parts of that community, very vocal parts of that community that have left Trump and the Republican Party as currently constituted.”

There are more than 400,000 members of the faith in the state, according to the church’s website.

Biden won Arizona by more than 10,000 votes out of more than 3.3 million across the state. His lead was partly due to his advantage in Maricopa County, the most populous county in the state, where he scored nearly 45,000 more votes than former President Donald Trump.

Trump has repeatedly promoted a controversial audit in Maricopa County, despite criticism from local and state officials and the Justice Department, which has certified the election results and questioned the integrity of the company conducting the audits.

Last month, Maricopa County officials announced that voting machines subpoenaed for the audit would be removed from service after Arizona’s Democratic secretary of state, Katie Hobbs, threatened to decertify the equipment because of concerns with the methods of Cyber Ninjas, a Florida-based firm hired to lead the review.

Arizona state Senate President Karen Fann said the audit tally did not “match with“ Maricopa County’s initial count on Tuesday, though she didn’t provide specific details. Officials involved in the audit expect a report on its findings to be released later in the summer.

The former president, who maintains he won the election, and his acolytes have also called for similar audits to occur in various battleground states Biden won.

Biden, who traveled to Philadelphia on Tuesday where he gave a speech about voting rights, made the trek to the commonwealth “in a rush in order to stop the Forensic Audit” that is being spearheaded by one Republican state legislator, according to a Tuesday tweemail from Trump.

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The White House did not immediately respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.

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