Arizona Republicans voted Saturday to censor Cindy McCain and two prominent Republican Party members who have met across former President Donald Trump.
The censorship of the widow of Senator John McCain, former Senator Jeff Flake and Gov. Doug Ducey are merely symbolic. But they show that the party’s standing soldiers are focused on loyalty to Mr. Trump, even in the wake of the election that saw Arizona not far from its firm Republican roots.
Party activists also re-elected controversial President Kelli Ward, who has been one of Trump’s staunchest supporters and one of the most prolific proponents of his unfounded allegations of election fraud.
The Arizona Republican Party’s combative approach has delighted Mr. Trump’s staunchest supporters and restless Republicans who have seen the party lose ground in the suburbs as the influence of its traditional conservative establishment has faded. in favor of Mr. Trump. A growing electorate of young Latinos and newcomers who carry out their more liberal politics from home have further hurt the Republican Party.
“This is a time to choose Republicans. Will we be the Conservative Party?” said Kirk Adams, former president of the state House and chief of staff to Ducey. “Or is this a party … that is loyal to one person?”
It is a Republican identity faced by party officials and activists across the country after the loss of Mr. Trump in 2020, and particularly after a crowd of supporters put it down. siege of the United States Capitol on January 6th.
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI
Nowhere is the issue more acute than Arizona, where the state Republican Party’s firm loyalty to Mr. Trump stands out even in a party rebuilt everywhere in the image of the former president.
Ward has demanded relentlessly, but without success, to annul the election results. The party has used its social media accounts to urge supporters to fight and even die in support of Trump’s false claims of victory. Two of the state’s four Republican congressmen are accused of playing a role in organizing the Jan. 6 rally that turned violent.
Having dominated Arizona politics for decades, Republicans are now on their heels in the highest offices in the state. President Joe Biden narrowly won a victory, becoming the second Democrat in more than five decades to win the state. Consecutive victories in 2018 and 2020 gave Democrats control of the two U.S. Senate seats for the first time in nearly 70 years.
Ward, a doctor and former state lawmaker who lost two Republican primaries to the U.S. Senate, defeated three challengers to win a second term.
In a brief interview, Ward acknowledged the “disappointment over the top of the bill,” but said she and many other Republicans still question the results showing the victories of Mr. Biden and Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly. Judges have dismissed eight lawsuits challenging Arizona’s election results.
Ward noted the Republican Party’s successes during the vote, noting that Republicans defied expectations in local races.
Ward said she is a “Trump Republican” who “will always put the United States first, who believes in faith, family, and freedom.” The way forward for the Republican Party, he said, is to keep Mr. Trump’s 74 million voters engaged.
“Yes, I will be radical in these things because they are the things that keep this country fantastic,” Ward said. “The people who complain are the people who really put us in this place where we’re in Arizona, people who have been mamby pamby, they fall over and allow Democrats to go through them.”
The censorship is aimed at some of Arizona’s most prominent Republicans,
Cindy McCain supported Biden and became a powerful Democrat replacement after years of Mr. Trump’s attacks on her husband. After the vote, he wrote on Twitter that “it’s a great honor to be included in a group of Arizona people who have served our state and our nation so well.”
“I will wear this as a badge of honor,” he wrote.
Also after the vote, Flake he tweeted a photo of him with McCain and Ducey at the Biden opening and he wrote, “Good company.”
Flake was one of the few Republicans in Congress who openly criticized Mr. Trump for failing to live up to conservative values. He refused to run for re-election in 2018 and supported Mr. Biden in last year’s election.
“If support for the president’s behavior is required to stay in good graces for the party, I’m fine with leaving,” Flake wrote in Twitter before and after the vote.
Ducey is being targeted by its restrictions on individuals and companies to contain the spread of COVID-19. Although not mentioned in the proposed censorship, he had a breakup with the president when he signed the certification of Mr. Biden’s victory.
“These resolutions have no consequences whatsoever and the people behind them have lost the little moral authority they would have had,” said Sara Mueller, Ducey’s political director.
Many traditional conservatives worry that Ward’s censorship and combative style will turn off voters and ticket dealers who handed Democrats their recent victories. But they say the party’s decisions will reflect only the views of some 1,500 committed activists.
John McCain was censored by the State Republican Party in 2014 and comfortably won a Republican primary over Ward and a general election. The unknown self-described, best known for his willingness to fight his party, had maintained relations with the state party for much of his career, but was constantly re-elected by wide margins.