Right wing Tech billionaire, Peter Thiel, had a big win in Ohio after Trump endorsed his chosen candidate, J.D. Vance (R. OH), in the Ohio Republican U.S. Senate Primary. Thiel has another Republican candidate running for the U.S. Senate and here’s what he’s running on:
Blake Masters, a GOP Senate candidate running on an anti-abortion platform in Arizona, is also taking aim at the case that established the right to access birth control on his campaign website.
"I am 100% pro-life. Roe v. Wade was a horrible decision. It was wrong the day it was decided in 1973, it's wrong today, and it must be reversed. But the fight doesn't stop there," Master's campaign website reads. It goes on to pledge the candidate will "vote only for federal judges who understand that Roe and Griswold and Casey were wrongly decided, and that there is no constitutional right to abortion."
Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey established and protected the right to an abortion in 1973 and 1992, respectively. But the Griswold case, decided in 1965, overturned a statewide ban on birth control and protected citizen's rights to privacy against state restrictions on contraceptives.
Masters identifies himself as a Catholic father of three on his campaign site. The Catholic Church has had an official ban on any "artificial" birth control methods, including condoms and diaphragms, since 1930. Since birth control pills were invented in 1960, the church has maintained its stance that the medication should only be used for non-contraceptive reasons.
Thiel has also spent $10 million on a super-PAC supporting the Arizona Senate candidacy of his former chief operating officer, Blake Masters. Unlike Vance, Masters was an early Trump supporter and worked on his 2016 transition team. It’s hard to imagine Trump endorsing Vance, but not Masters. Neither of them would have stood a chance without Thiel’s money and connections to Trump.What Thiel hopes this will get him over the long term is a far more complicated question. For years, the billionaire has been happy to work from behind the scenes while only hinting at what he may be trying to accomplish. But one thing that has long been clear is that he holds democracy in low regard. As Thiel put it in a 2009 essay, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”
There’s now a good chance that the man who holds that view will soon have two of his former employees serving in the Senate. It may end up costing him less than one of his many houses. Freedom isn’t free for Thiel, but it’s not that expensive either.
And Masters is certainly banking on getting Trump’s endorsement:
So is Masters the next candidate to get a bounce from a Trump endorsement?
Masters is certainly counting on it. On Tuesday night, he retweeted a message from far-right Human Events host Jack Posobiec touting Vance’s win and declaring that “The biggest question now is: Who should Trump endorse in AZ primary?” A few hours later, Masters retweeted a poll posted by Arizona GOP Chair Kelli Ward, herself a former U.S. Senate candidate. “Who do you want President Trump to endorse in the AZ Senate primary?” Ward asked. Nearly 90% of the 3,000-plus respondents picked Masters.
There are signs that Trump — who said last month that he “will be making an [Arizona] endorsement in the not too distant future”— is leaning toward Masters, who Donald Trump Jr. also reportedly favors. Last Saturday the former president dialed into a Masters “election integrity” rally to praise the candidate for echoing his false claims of widespread 2020 election fraud — and to trash Brnovich for overseeing several investigations of the election but refusing to overturn the results.
“He found all sorts of things, but he didn’t want to do anything about it,” said Trump, who previously accused Brnovich of being too “politically correct” to “go after the people [who] committed these election crimes.”
“I heard Blake was the person that showed up,” Trump added. “And I want to thank Blake.”
Let’s take a quick look at the status of Masters other two Republican opponents he needs to do first. First up, Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R. AZ):
The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors issued a blistering response to Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich regarding his letter about the 2020 interim election report. The Board of Supervisors along with the County Recorder signed off on a letter responding to the Attorney General’s office saying that Brnovich’s report “omitted pertinent information, misrepresented facts, and cited distorted data to sow doubt in county election processes, equipment, and staff.”
“The Attorney General’s April 6 ‘interim report’ (as if that’s a normal prosecutorial thing) and his subsequent remarks on Steve Bannon’s program are remarkable departures for the man who eight days after the election said on Fox News that the election obviously wasn’t stolen, the man who chose not to file a lawsuit in the aftermath of the election, and the man who said the issue with Sharpies was ‘overblown,’” said County Recorder Stephen Richer. “If he wants to play politics and lie about the 2020 election, fine, he’ll join a long list of other candidates who lie in public and then in private mock the stolen election theory. But he shouldn’t do this with the powers of the state, especially the prosecutorial power. That’s wrong on so many levels” continued Richer.
The county’s response also explains that in February 2021, officials invited Brnovich to attend and watch audits conducted by Pro V&V and SLI Compliance to ensure election integrity. Both companies are accredited by the Election Assistance Commission as Voting System Laboratories. But the county says Brnovich declined to attend. Audits from both companies found that the county’s tabulation equipment was using certified software, had no malware installed, was not connected to the internet, and had not been hacked thus debunking often popular claims used by conspiracy theorists online. County officials also found the claims by Brnovich to be inconsistent with his previous statement made on Nov. 11, 2020, where he said, “What really happened [is that] people split their ticket. That’s the reality. Just because that happened doesn’t mean it’s fraud.”
Next up, wealthy solar power executive, Jim Lamon (R. AZ):
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich has fallen out of first place in the state’s Republican Senate primary, a slide that corresponds with aggressive advertising spending by his opponents — and Donald Trump’s ire.
For nearly a year, Brnovich held a steady lead in the primary to take on Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, a key race as the GOP seeks to take back the Senate majority.
But walking the fine line between his responsibilities as attorney general and Republican Senate hopeful has proved challenging in a state where Trump allies have unsuccessfully sought to challenge the 2020 presidential election results.
While struggling to articulate a clear position on the election, Brnovich has lost his commanding lead, according to four separate public and internal polls conducted in the past month. He’s been surpassed by wealthy solar power executive Jim Lamon, a self-funder who has spent $3.8 million on advertisements ahead of the Aug. 2 primary.
An internal Lamon poll obtained by POLITICO shows him with a three-point lead over Brnovich, putting Lamon at 25 percent, Brnovich at 22 percent, Blake Masters at 16 percent and Mick McGuire at 6 percent, while 31 percent remain undecided.
The poll, conducted April 21 through 24 by McLaughlin & Associates, is consistent with other surveys done since April 1 by The Trafalgar Group, Remington Research Group and Data Orbital.
By the way, this isn’t the only Republican Primary in Arizona that’s gone bat shit crazy:
Kari Lake has a strategy to get elected in 2022.
Keep talking about 2020.
Minutes into her pitch at the Cochise County Republican headquarters in the suburbs of southern Arizona, Ms. Lake zeroed in on the presidential election 18 months ago, calling it “crooked” and “corrupt.” She claimed nearly a dozen times in a single hour that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald J. Trump, a falsehood that the audience — some of whom wore red hats reading “Trump Won”— was eager to hear. Ms. Lake, a former local Fox anchor who won Mr. Trump’s endorsement as she campaigns to become Arizona’s next governor, calls the 2020 election a key motivation in her decision to enter the race.
“We need some people with a backbone to stand up for this country — we had our election stolen,” Ms. Lake said in an interview after the Cochise County event in March, adding, “I don’t know if it’s a winning issue, but it’s a winning issue when it comes to saving this country.”
Republicans in many states have grown increasingly tired of the Stop the Steal movement and the push by Mr. Trump to reward election deniers and punish those who accept President Biden’s victory. At a time when Mr. Biden’s approval ratings are sinking, leaders in the party are urging candidates to focus instead on the economy, inflation and other kitchen-table issues.
FYI:
The Primary is August 2nd and the last day to register to vote is July 5th. Click here to check or change your voter registration information.