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Flake photographed walking to the Senate floor to vote on Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination on October 5, 2018.
By Mark Wilson/Getty Images.
Jeff Flake was dominating the national news. His elevator epiphany—confronted by two victims of sexual assault, Flake suddenly called for a renewed F.B.I. background investigation of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh—made him the center of the political universe. Except, strangely enough, back in the state that the Republican senator actually represents. Arizona voters gave up on Flake a long time ago: polls show his most recent job-approval rating at a dismal 30 percent—and that’s up from a truly awful 18 percent in 2017.
Which is a large part of why Flake is retiring after just one term, and why, despite his prominence on the national stage, he is a non-factor in the race to fill his senate seat. Yet even though Flake is departing, the problem that sunk him remains at the vexing center of the dead-heat campaign to replace him: how, in a politically pale-purple state, do you deal with President Donald Trump?
Flake’s approach was tortured and maddening. He made a show of criticizing Trump—for sucking up to Vladimir Putin, for the Muslim travel ban, for reactionary trade and immigration policies—then voted in line with Trump’s position more than 80 percent of the time. The combination left Flake looking like an ineffectual grandstander, and it made him a prime target of Trump’s scorn. When congresswoman Martha McSally won the Republican Senate primary, Trump mockingly tweeted that she had turned down Flake’s endorsement—something Flake has denied but McSally has not bothered to clarify.
The general election race is proving a stark contrast in personalities, if not policies. McSally, 52, is a stolid, retired Air Force colonel who flew combat missions over Iraq. Kyrsten Sinema, 42, is an openly bisexual former Green Party member who protested the Iraq War. McSally represents a Tucson district that borders Mexico; Sinema represents a mostly suburban Phoenix congressional district that includes Tempe, the state’s liberal stronghold. Sinema’s political and personal lives have gone through dramatic transformations over the years. She grew up starkly poor; at one point her family lived in an abandoned Florida gas station. Raised Mormon, she left the church before attending law school and becoming a social worker who campaigned for Ralph Nader in the 2000 presidential election.
Both women, however, are trying to run to the center in their Senate campaigns, and with good reason. Democrats have narrowed the voter-registration gap with Republicans, but third parties and independents account for more than one-third of Arizona’s electorate. “It’s a play for the middle,” says Jeremy Duda, a veteran political reporter at the Arizona Mirror. “Everyone expects a heightened Democratic turnout, but they are both trying to persuade undecided moderates and independents. Sinema downplays that she’s a Democrat. Her ads say, ‘She’s independent, just like Arizona.’” The contest is most likely to be decided in the white, affluent suburbs of Phoenix and Tucson. Earlier this week, in the wake of the Kavanaugh confirmation fight, an Arizona Republican strategist met with a group of 60 such women and saw a distinct opening for the Democrats. “The average age was about 55. And man, it was palpable in the room—women feeling insulted by this guy, Trump,” Chuck Coughlin, a Republican consultant, says. “They are looking for answers on who can represent them. McSally has to get Republican women to stay with the party, and Sinema has to win over enough of them, because you can’t win a statewide office in Arizona if you’re a Democrat without getting Republican votes. Suburban women—that’s where the war is.”
McSally has been trying to paint Sinema as a closet hard-core lefty and a selfish opportunist. Sinema has parried with a TV ad that included her brother wearing a “Blue Lives Matter” T-shirt, and by pledging to vote against Chuck Schumer as majority leader should the Democrats regain the upper hand in the Senate. She has also been emphasizing McSally’s vote to repeal Obamacare as part of a wider Republican threat to Social Security and Medicare—issues that play well with the state’s large population of retirees. “We see those concerns quite prominently in the polling data in Arizona,” a national Democratic Senate strategist says. “We’re cautiously optimistic.”
While Arizona has been edging slightly leftward over the years, largely because of a growing Latino population, the state has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since Dennis DeConcini won in 1988. Early voting began Wednesday; the only debate in the race, next Monday, could prove a late turning point—as could a Trump rally. Both candidates have wrestled with how to deal with the president’s fiercely loyal base. According to an early October poll by Data Orbital, Trump’s approval rating with Arizona Republicans is 78 percent. Sinema has tried to defuse the Trump factor by saying she’d vote with the president if he does something good for the state. McSally embraced Trump in order to win the Republican primary, but has kept him at arm’s length since then. “If Trump came out and they could keep him talking about the trade deal and the economy, that would be a huge win,” says Coughlin, the Republican consultant. “But I don’t think the McSally folks trust him to stay message disciplined, so they’ve been hinky about getting him out here again.” Jeff Flake can tell his would-be successors all about Trump making people jittery.
Dara Khosrowshahi, C.E.O. of Uber and Nick Bilton, special correspondent for Vanity Fair. What was Khosrowshahi most scared of when he took over the C.E.O. role amid months of tumult for the company? “The public profile of the job.”
Photograph by Chris George.
Jeffrey Katzenberg, founder and chairman of the board, NewTV, Meg Whitman, C.E.O. of NewTV and David Solomon, C.E.O. of Goldman Sachs.
Photograph by Chris George.
Hannah Gadsby, award-winning stand-up comedian and creator of Nanette and Monica Lewinsky, social activist and contributing editor for Vanity Fair. “I was shamed by a world that didn’t see me. . . . Your shame was public property,” Gadsby told Lewinsky.
Photograph by Chris George.
Lisa Borders, president and C.E.O. of Time’s Up, America Ferrera, actress, producer, director and activist and Katie Couric, journalist, author, and founder of Katie Couric Media.
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Attorney Michael Avenatti and Emily Jane Fox, Hive.
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Nicolle Wallace, NBC News political analyst and host of MSNBC’s Deadline: White House, Mark McKinnon, executive producer and host of Showtime’s The Circus and Steve Schmidt, political analyst and contributor for MSNBC.
Photograph by Chris George.
Joanna Coles, Chief Content Officer for Hearst Magazines.
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Jason Blum, founder and C.E.O. of Blumhouse Productions and Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon Studios.
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Dara Khosrowshahi and Sydney Shapiro.
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Novelist Megan Abbott.
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“Do you have to be bald to be run Goldman Sachs?” Couric asked Goldman C.E.O. David Solomon.
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Jon Kelly, editor, Hive and Kristen Scholer, senior anchor, Cheddar with Matthew Carnahan, creator, director, and executive producer of Valley of the Boom.
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Nick Jones, founder and C.E.O. of Soho House, Audrey Gelman, co-founder and C.E.O. of The Wing, Daniel Gendelman, founder and C.E.O. of Raya and Priya Parker, author of The Art of Gathering. “It’s the brutal screws of capitalism,“ Gelman said of running The Wing. “We try to think about, yes, it’s a business. But how do we treat our employees?”
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Radhika Jones, editor, Vanity Fair.
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Disney’s Bob Iger said he rises at 4:15 A.M.—and doesn’t rush to his phone. “I create a firewall with technology,” he said. “I like being alone with my own thoughts.”
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Julia Boorstin, senior media and entertainment reporter for CNBC.
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Mayor of Los Angeles Eric Garcetti.
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Ty Stiklorius, found and C.E.O. of Friends at Work, Alanis Morissette and Diablo Cody, creators of Jagged Little Pill: The Musical.
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Joanna Coles, Ted Sarandos, chief content officer of Netflix and Lisa Nishimura, vice president, original documentary and comedy at Netflix. Sarandos revealed that his executives have “unprecedented greenlight authority,” which allows Netflix to handle so much original content.
Photograph by Chris George.
John Stankey, C.E.O. of WarnerMedia and Andrew Ross Sorkin.
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Richard Plepler, C.E.O. of HBO.
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Caryn Seidman-Becker, chairman and C.E.O. at CLEAR and Swami Sivasubramanian, V.P at Amazon Machine Learning, AWS.
Photograph by Chris George.
A.G. Sulzberger, publisher for The New York Times and Richard Stengel, former Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. Sulzberger identified three “existential threats” to the media: the collapse of the business model, the “intermediation of the platforms” between publishers and their audiences, and the crisis in trust.
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David Greenbaum, from Fox Searchlight Pictures.
Photograph by Chris George.
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Kirsten Green, founder and managing partner of Forerunner Ventures.
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Radhika Jones and Richard Plepler
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Actress Betty Gabriel.
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Nick Bilton
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Daniel Gendelman, founder and C.E.O. of Raya.
Photograph by Chris George.
Alanis Morissette and Diablo Cody.
Photograph by Chris George.
Nancy Dubuc, C.E.O. of Vice and Emily Chang, host, Bloomberg, and author of Brotopia: Breaking Up The Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley.
Photograph by Chris George.
Sam Dolnick, assistant managing editor of The New York Times.
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Andrew Ross Sorkin, columnist for The New York Times and anchor for CNBC.
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Katie Couric and Bethany McLean, contributing editor, Vanity Fair.
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Moj Mahdara, founder and C.E.O. of Beautycon Media.
Photograph by Chris George.
Arlan Hamilton, founder and C.E.O. of Backstage Capital and Lydia Polgreen, editor-in-chief of HuffPost. “If we take those that have had so little and give them enough to put them on a level playing field—imagine what can happen,” Hamilton said.
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Travis Vanderzanden, founder and C.E.O. of Bird and Julia Boorstin, senior media entertainment reporter for CNBC. Vanderzanden said his interest in transportation was sparked by his mother, who drove a bus—and later drove for Uber.
Photograph by Chris George.
From left, Chase Carey, chairman and C.E.O. of Formula 1, George Pyne, founder and C.E.O of Bruin Sports Capital and Host of Reliable Sources and Brian Stelter, host of Reliable Sources and Senior Media Correspondent for CNN.
Photograph by Chris George.
Elise Jordan, political analyst for NBC.
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The Wallis Annenberg Center.
Photograph by Chris George.
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