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By JONATHAN J. COOPER Associated Press
PHOENIX – Arizona Republicans voted on Saturday to censor Cindy McCain and two senior GOP officials who found themselves on cross with former President Donald Trump.
The censures of the widow of Senator John McCain, former Senator Jeff Flake and Governor Doug Ducey are only symbolic. But they show the party’s infantrymen are focused on building loyalty to Trump, even in the wake of an election that saw Arizona drift away from its staunchly Republican roots.
Party activists also re-elected controversial President Kelli Ward, who has been one of Trump’s most staunch supporters and one of the most prolific promoters of his baseless allegations of electoral fraud.
Arizona’s combative GOP focus has delighted most staunch Trump supporters and worried Republican insiders who have seen the party lose ground in the suburbs as the influence of its traditional conservative establishment wanes in favor of Trump. A growing electorate of young Latinos and newcomers bringing their more liberal policies from home has further hurt the GOP.
“Now is the time to choose Republicans. Are we going to be the Conservative Party? Said Kirk Adams, former president of State House and chief of staff to Ducey. “Or is it a party … true to one person?”
It’s a question of Republican identity faced by party officials and activists across the country after Trump’s defeat in 2020, and especially after a crowd of his supporters besieged the U.S. Capitol on the 6th. January.
Nowhere is the issue more acute than Arizona, where the state’s unwavering GOP loyalty to Trump stands out even in a party that has been remade everywhere in the image of the former president.
Ward relentlessly – but unsuccessfully – took legal action to overturn the election results. The party has used its social media accounts to urge its supporters to fight and possibly even die to support Trump’s false declarations of victory. Two of the state’s four Republican congressmen are accused of playing a role in organizing the January 6 rally, which turned violent.
After dominating Arizona politics for decades, Republicans now find themselves on their heels in the top positions of state. President Joe Biden narrowly scored a victory here, becoming just the second Democrat in more than five decades to win the state. Back-to-back victories in 2018 and 2020 gave Democrats control of both seats in the US Senate for the first time in nearly 70 years.
Ward, a doctor and former state lawmaker who lost two Republican primaries for the US Senate, beat three challengers to win a second term.
In a brief interview, Ward acknowledged “her disappointment at the top of the ticket,” but said she and many other Republicans still questioned the results showing the victories of Biden and Democratic Senator Mark Kelly. Judges dismissed eight lawsuits challenging the Arizona election results.
Ward highlighted the GOP’s successes on the ballot, noting that Republicans have defied expectations in local races.
Ward said she was a “Trump Republican” who “will always put America first, who believes in faith, family and freedom.” The way forward for the GOP, she said, is to keep Trump’s 74 million voters engaged.
“Yeah, I’ll be radical on these things because these are the things that keep this country great,” Ward said. “The people who are complaining are the ones who put us in this place where we are in Arizona, the people who have been mamby pamby, lay down and let the Democrats walk everywhere.”
Censors target some of Arizona’s most prominent Republicans,
Cindy McCain endorsed Biden and became a powerful deputy for the Democrat after years of Trump’s attacks on her husband.
“Maybe (Ward) should remember that my husband has never lost an election in Arizona since his first victory in 1982,” McCain said in a statement before the vote.
Flake was one of the few Republicans in Congress to openly criticize Trump for not embracing conservative values. He refused to run for office in 2018 and endorsed Biden in last year’s election.
“If it is necessary to forgive the behavior of the president to stay in the good graces of the Party, I am very well on the sidelines,” Flake wrote on Twitter before the vote.
Ducey is being targeted for his restrictions on individuals and businesses to contain the spread of COVID-19. While not mentioned in the proposed censorship, he had a high-profile rift with the president when he signed Biden’s certification of victory.
“These resolutions are of no consequence and the people who support them have lost what little moral authority they once had,” said Sara Mueller, political director of Ducey.
Many mainstream conservatives are concerned that Ward’s censorship and combative style is turning off swing voters and ticket splitters who handed Democrats their recent wins. But they say the party’s decisions will only reflect the views of about 1,500 committed activists.
John McCain was censored by the state’s GOP in 2014 and comfortably won a Republican primary over Ward and a general election. The self-proclaimed maverick, best known for his drive to overthrow his party, had strained relations with the state party for much of his career, but was regularly re-elected at wide margins.
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Associated Press writer Paul Davenport in Phoenix contributed.
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