Trump's endorsement of Blake Masters didn't doom Mark Brnovich. He did that on his own
Opinion: Mark Brnovich was probably the Republican Party's best hope to knock off Sen. Mark Kelly. That is, until he was sabotaged both by Donald Trump and his own actions.
Laurie Roberts
Once upon a time, Mark Brnovich was the Republican Party’s best hope of knocking off Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly.
He probably still is. Only don’t look for that to happen, what with Donald Trump’s Thursday endorsement of Blake Masters and Brnovich’s moves to sabotage his own chances.
Attorney General Brnovich was (and is) the best known candidate in a crowded Republican field. He’s a saavy conservative who seemed smart enough not to repeat the mistakes of Republican Sen. Martha McSally – the appointed senator who managed to lose, twice, because she tied herself too tightly to Trump.
Brnovich was that rare breed of Republican who early on was willing to tell the truth about the 2020 election, risking the wrath of the party’s base by acknowledging that there was no grand conspiracy to defeat Trump in Arizona.
“It came down to: People split their ticket,” a matter-of-fact Brnovich told Fox Business’ Neil Cavuto on Nov. 11, 2020, as Arizona politicians all around him were diving for cover. “People voted for Republicans down ballot, and they didn’t vote for President Trump or Martha McSally. So, that’s the reality.”
After Trump, Brnovich became a different candidate
Six months later, Trump called out Arizona’s “lackluster” attorney general for the sin of refusing to buy into the delusion that he really won Arizona and the squeeze was on. Brnovich became a different man after that.
Or a different candidate anyway.
Where once he defended Arizona’s election, suddenly he was silent.
Where once he acted like a principled conservative, suddenly he was shamelessly chasing Trump’s approval and implying that something nefarious was afoot in Arizona’s 2020 election – the one he certified as being true and accurate.
Roberts:Brnovich should resign if he won't do his job
In April, Brnovich released an interim report, claiming there are “serious vulnerabilities” in Arizona’s electoral process that raise questions about the 2020 election. This, despite any actual evidence of widespread fraud.
“It is frustrating. It’s frustrating to all of us," he said a day or so later, on Steve Bannon’s podcast. “Because I think we all know what happened in 2020.”
He straddled the line and lost independents
It was inevitable that Brnovich was never going to win Trump’s approval given that he couldn’t fulfill the most important (read: only) qualification needed to earn that support: Fealty to Trump.
Brnovich couldn’t arrest anyone for widespread election conspiracy or deliver the “perp walks” craved by the Trump crowd because an attorney general has to have actual evidence of a crime.
That, at least, was a line that Brnovich has been unwilling to cross.
So, instead, he straddled it and wound up losing both Trump voters and establishment voters. Oh, and also losing any hope of winning over independent voters in November (if, by some miracle, he gets that far) – the ones who along with moderate Republicans put Democrats Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly in the Senate.
Voters who might have gone for the old Brnovich but aren’t likely to warm to McSa … I mean, Masters.
He'll keep fighting, all right. But for what?
Oh, Brnovich isn’t giving up. But it’s too late now to run a campaign a la Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who trounced his Trump-endorsed opponent by standing tall and defending his state’s elections.
Brnovich, willingly, gave up the high ground. To take it these days requires courage that he simply did not possess. Now he's simply one of the pack of Trump candidates whose pandering didn't pay off.
Brnovich’s campaign put out a – dare I say it? – lackluster response to Trump’s endorsement of Blake.
“Brnovich intends to fight and win this Primary Election and we look forward to working with President Trump to defeat Mark Kelly this fall,” Brandon Urness, his campaign manager, said.
Brnovich was, presumably, off swinging his nunchucks and pondering how things might have been different had Donald Trump been interested in trying to recapture a Senate seat in 2022.
As opposed to recapturing his pride after 2020.
Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LaurieRoberts.
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