Trump Casts a Shadow Over Arizona’s GOP

Democrats believe they have a realistic chance of winning the governorship, currently in Republican hands, and the majority in the Arizona Senate, or at least an even split. And an outside chance of picking off a Republican congressional seat, offsetting losses elsewhere.

Republicans ought to be winning easily. The GOP still has a 4-point advantage over Democrats in registration. In a midterm year, the advantage in actual turnout should be even higher. The backdrop for this election, in Arizona and elsewhere, is the sense that President Biden and his administration aren’t up to the job. National election trends tend to influence down-ballot races in Arizona.

Yet most of these contested races are regarded as tossups. The reason Republicans aren’t winning in a romp is another national trend: the Trump effect. The Journal has often editorialized about the strategic mistake

Donald Trump

has made in trying to make this election about him, which disfavors Republicans, rather than about the Biden administration’s record, which favors the GOP.

In probably no other state has Mr. Trump succeeded more in making the election about him than in Arizona. The Arizona Republican Party has been entirely remade into the party of Trump. Candidates he endorsed won every contested primary. The nominees for statewide office—Blake Masters for U.S. Senate,

Kari Lake

for governor,

Mark Finchem

for secretary of state and

Abe Hamadeh

for attorney general—all pledged fealty to Mr. Trump’s delusion that the 2020 presidential election and Arizona’s electoral votes were stolen from him.

Mr. Trump’s reach extended down to legislative primaries. The Republican caucuses in next year’s Legislature, whether in the majority or the minority, will be much more MAGA than before.