Blake Masters is surging in Senate primary. Why do Republican voters seem discomforted?

Political newcomer and venture capitalist Blake Masters is now leading the pack of Republicans vying to take on Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly.

But does it really matter who actually pulls it off? This is the pivotal question voters casting their ballots for the Aug. 2 primary should be asking.

It can’t be a coincidence that while Masters has surged in recent weeks, a whopping 35% of likely Republican voters remain undecided, according to the most recent OH Predictive Insights’ poll.

It suggests a sizable portion of GOP voters find none of the candidates worthy of backing.

Businessman Jim Lamon is in second place while Attorney General Mark Brnovich has faded to third. Arizona Corporation Commissioner Justin Olson and Michael "Mick" McGuire, the former commanding general of the Arizona National Guard, are barely registering at 2% and 6%, respectively.

The 35-year-old Masters now has the wind at his back primarily due to the blessing of former President Donald Trump. That’s huge, no doubt, energizing “America First” voters but then again, Masters’ closest rivals are also playing to the same crowd with campaigns that are fodder for comedians.

One lampoon that best summed up the craziness in the race came courtesy of John Oliver, who ridiculed Brnovich's ads playing up his martial arts skills – “You want more chucks? You got more chucks” – and Lamon's cartoonish "shootout" ad, which closes with the standard "and I approve this ad" line.

“Well you shouldn’t have approved it, Jim, because your ad is terrible,” Oliver said, noting one of the foes in the ad, Mark Kelly, is married to former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords, a gunshot victim.

Giffords, shot in the head, survived the 2011 assassination attempt. Six others were killed that day and another dozen people were wounded.

And Oliver’s take on Masters? He took down Masters for singling out African-Americans for the country’s outsize gun violence. “OK, blaming Black people for gun violence in America is just outrageously uncreatively racist.”

Laugh at or with the comedian.

What’s unfunny, however, is the script each of these three Republicans are exploiting to win over the “America First” voters.

The rest of their rhetoric isn’t any more encouraging.

Masters, Lamon and Brnovich talk tough on border security, advocate strict bans on abortion and cast doubt – or outright promoted lies – over the 2020 election results.

There are important, if subtle, differences among them. Lamon, for instance, not only promoted false claims that the election was stolen from Trump, he also was among the 11 Arizona Republicans who signed a document falsely claiming they were authorized to cast the state’s electoral votes for Trump.

Trump, nonetheless, anointed Masters as his pick. Masters also has the backing of billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel, for whom Masters worked.

Masters’ meteoric rise to front-runner status is not just due to the millions spent supporting him but also his populist views that appeal to the partisan core of the Arizona Republican Party. He touts militarizing the border and accuses Democrats of trying to flood the nation with millions of immigrants "to change the demographics of our country.”

Neither he nor Lamon have political experience to speak of.

On that front, Brnovich has a leg up. But it is a checkered record, especially since he jumped into the race last summer. Instead of resigning to run, he has transformed the Attorney General's Office into his campaign headquarters and used it to further his candidacy.

Brnovich said following the 2020 elections that Biden won the presidency and that there was no evidence to change that outcome. Yet a few months later, he launched a civil investigation, not a criminal one, into the election, then issued an unusual "interim report" warning about "serious vulnerabilities" to the system without foundation.

More disturbingly, he chose to not defend Arizona, his office's very client, against Republican lawsuits, including one that asserts that early voting used by an overwhelming percentage of Arizonans for years is unconstitutional. His abandonment of the office's responsibility is breathtaking.

So, if character and adherence to the truth and the law matters, where does that leave Republican voters (and independents who cast a Republican primary ballot)?

The two other GOP candidates, Michael "Mick" McGuire and Justin Olson, have struggled to get their voice above the din.

McGuire, 57, became a familiar face during the COVID-19 outbreak as the head of Arizona’s emergency management agency. He appeared alongside Gov. Doug Ducey and Dr. Cara Christ of Arizona Department of Health Services at regular press briefings to discuss the state's response to the crisis.

McGuire espouses party principles of gun rights, abortion restrictions and border security, the latter of which he has experience, overseeing the deployment of Guardsmen to the southern border. Unlike Masters, Lamon and the late turn by Brnovich, he has no problem acknowledging Biden is the rightfully installed president, and he has avoided personal attacks the other candidates easily resort to.

His best line at a debate this week presumes a victory in the primary that would pit him against Kelly. "We both graduated from a service academy. We both flew in the First Gulf War. He's an astronaut. I'm commanding general of the largest mobilization since 1942, and in uniform, he's got to salute me. So we've got that going for us."

Yet he's also not above partisan cheap shots to garner support. As President Biden's Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson was undergoing confirmation hearings, McGuire told Fox Business in an interview that the judge was part of the "radical left" and has "a weak record — defund police, abolish ICE and now a completely open border policy."

The claim, researched and debunked by PolitFact, earned him a "pants on fire" rating.

Olson, a former state lawmaker who also served on the utility-regulating Arizona Corporation Commission, has a solid record on forwarding conservative causes. He has backed gun rights, fiscal spending and free enterprise — most notably in his opposition to clean energy mandates during his stint on the Corporation Commission.

He is staunchly anti-abortion, sponsoring legislation to stop the flow of funding to abortion-providing facilities such as Planned Parenthood. Before the U.S. Supreme Court's Dobbs ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and gave states the power to regulate abortion, Olson said he would, as U.S. senator, introduce a "heartbeat bill" that bans abortions nationwide after six weeks.

Olson and McGuire, however, trail badly in polling as voting is underway.

Each of us should vote for a candidate who best represents our personal values but without setting aside the collective good. That makes this Senate Republican primary particularly challenging.

Is winning at any cost worth it?

Arizona would be best served if we reflect about the kind of country we want for each other and our children – and vote accordingly.

This is an opinion of The Arizona Republic’s editorial board. What do you think? Send us a letter to the editor to weigh in.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Trump's pick Blake Masters leads primary. Why that's trouble for GOP