Primary Fight Divides Arizona GOP Effort to Unseat Mark Kelly

Mr. Brnovich is operating on his report as an elected official whereas Messrs. Masters and Lamon have positioned themselves as provocative outsiders. All three males have tried to solid various levels of doubt on the outcomes of the 2020 presidential election—a subject that has ripped aside the state GOP since Mr. Trump misplaced the state to

Joe Biden

by about 10,000 votes. Mr. Trump has refused to acknowledge his loss in that election.

Whoever emerges from the sector will face Mr. Kelly, who doesn’t have a major problem within the Democratic race. Arizona, as soon as a dependable Republican stronghold, has change into a key battleground lately, and Mr. Kelly is one in all Republicans’s prime targets within the November midterm elections as they search to wrestle management of the 50-50 Senate. His marketing campaign declined to remark for this text.

Mr. Masters is seen because the slender front-runner for the GOP nod after Mr. Trump endorsed him final month. On the time, Mr. Trump mentioned Mr. Masters was “a terrific modern-day thinker” and cited his views on immigration and settlement with Mr. Trump’s false claims of election fraud as causes to again him.

Mr. Lamon, a businessman who says he’s the true “America First man,” is operating on the same platform to Mr. Masters. He has aligned himself carefully with the previous president, even with out Mr. Trump’s endorsement.

In an interview with The Wall Avenue Journal, Mr. Lamon, who was most not too long ago the founding father of a photo voltaic firm, mentioned his expertise as a enterprise proprietor and veteran make him finest geared up to tackle Mr. Kelly. Being a senator “is one massive job and I simply assume you want {qualifications} of how this nation works and operates,” he mentioned.

Mr. Lamon mentioned unlawful immigration was the highest difficulty for GOP voters and that the 2020 election was rating decrease for voters now that the Arizona legislature was passing payments that added new necessities for voting.

Nonetheless, Mr. Lamon has embraced false claims of a stolen election. He mentioned he supplied funding for the partisan audit of probably the most populous county’s election outcomes—the audit discovered Mr. Biden gained the election—and signed as much as symbolize the state as an elector for Mr. Trump regardless of President Biden’s win. Mr. Lamon mentioned that he was providing his title in case the election outcomes had been invalidated.

Mr. Masters declined an interview request however via his marketing campaign supervisor mentioned: “President Trump endorsed me as a result of I’m the one America First candidate on this race. Sights set on beating Mark Kelly in November.”

Claims that he didn’t do sufficient to combat election fraud have tainted Mr. Brnovich with some Trump voters. Mr. Brnovich initially mentioned that there wasn’t any proof to vary Mr. Biden’s victory within the state however has since mentioned he has issues concerning the outcomes of the election. As lawyer normal he mentioned earlier this 12 months that he was persevering with to analyze the election. The workplace of the lawyer normal didn’t reply to a request for an replace on the investigation.

In an interview, Mr. Brnovich mentioned he was the candidate with probably the most expertise and the one one who has gained statewide. He dismissed the significance of Mr. Trump’s endorsement of Mr. Masters

“I’ll let you know precisely what I advised President Trump. ‘In the event you care about border safety, for those who care about power independence, low taxes, low regulation then I’m your man,’ ’’ he mentioned.

For some voters, the 2020 election is a key issue of their vote.

Millie Kerber, a 64-year-old retiree from Solar Metropolis, mentioned she is voting for Mr. Masters. She dominated out Mr. Brnovich as a result of he didn’t facet with Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the election outcomes.

“He ought to have been doing his job,” she mentioned.

For different Republicans, Mr. Trump’s backing was a nonfactor or perhaps a unfavorable.

Ward Triplett, 78, a retiree from Glendale, mentioned he was deciding between Mr. Lamon and Main Basic Michael T. McGuire, the previous adjutant normal of the Arizona Nationwide Guard who can also be operating. Mr. Triplett mentioned although he “love[s] the heck out of President Trump” he has to interrupt with the previous president as a result of he doesn’t assume “Masters has the spine to be the senator.”

Mr. Trump’s “endorsement means completely zero to me, in truth I virtually see it as a unfavorable for that individual,” mentioned Greg Tate, 70, a retiree from Tempe who plans to assist Mr. Lamon. Mr. Tate mentioned he most popular Mr. Brnovich however worries concerning the lawyer normal’s potential to beat Mr. Kelly.

Whereas exterior teams are already spending to spice up their most popular candidate, there’s a large gulf between Democratic and GOP candidate fundraising, which might show a problem for the Republican nominee. In response to information from the Federal Election Fee as of July 21, Mr. Kelly had raised practically $56 million.

In the meantime, Mr. Masters had raised practically $5 million, which incorporates roughly $450,000 from the candidate. Mr. Lamon had raised greater than $15 million, which incorporates $14 million from the candidate. Mr. Brnovich had introduced in simply over $3 million.

Mr. Thiel—who additionally spent closely to assist J.D. Vance’s profitable bid for the GOP Senate nomination in Ohio—has put $15 million into a brilliant PAC aimed toward boosting Mr. Masters’s candidacy.

A ballot launched early this month from the Phoenix-based nonpartisan OH Predictive Insights has Mr. Masters gaining 16 proportion factors from April to July, after Mr. Trump’s endorsement in June, for a 25% share of possible GOP major voters. Mr. Lamon has moved up 2 proportion factors to 18% and Mr. Brnovich dropped 7 proportion factors to 14%. Two different candidates are polling within the single digits, and 35% of voters had been undecided.

Mike Noble, chief of analysis at OHPI, mentioned it was clear that Mr. Masters had the momentum however that wasn’t essentially an excellent factor for Republican prospects in a normal election.

“From incumbent Democrat Mark Kelly’s perspective, his worst concern can be to go in opposition to Mark Brnovich,” Mr. Noble mentioned. Mr. Brnovich is seen as a extra conventional Republican than Mr. Masters or Mr. Lamon and has much less fodder for marketing campaign adverts, Mr. Noble mentioned.

Democrats already are focusing on each Mr. Masters and Mr. Lamon, who they are saying have views, together with on abortion, which can be too far to the fitting in a state the place unbiased voters make up a 3rd of the citizens.

Mr. Masters additionally has drawn criticism for a number of controversial statements, together with when he mentioned in April that gun violence was attributable to “Black folks, frankly,” on the Jeff Oravits Present podcast.

“Folks need authenticity. They don’t need their elected officers to make use of canned political speech,” mentioned Katie Miller, an adviser to Mr. Masters. As rationalization for his touch upon gun violence, Ms. Miller pointed to 2019 Federal Bureau of Investigation information exhibiting extra murders had been dedicated that 12 months by Black folks than white folks. The information appears solely at homicides involving a single offender and a single sufferer.

His writings as a university pupil, together with saying he opposed U.S. involvement in each World Wars and quoting a Nazi conflict prison, as reported by the New York Instances, even have drawn unfavorable consideration.

Ms. Miller pointed The Wall Avenue Journal to Mr. Masters’s previous protection of his feedback, by which he mentioned that quoting somebody “doesn’t imply I endorse any of his views.” He mentioned that his antiwar statements got here from opposition to the Iraq conflict however that “I went too far and said that no latest American wars have been simply.”

—Alicia A. Caldwell, Alexa Corse and Tarini Parti contributed to this text.

Write to Eliza Collins at eliza.collins+1@wsj.com.