Prescott Valley, Arizona — A midterm election skirmish that provides early signs of the Republican future, billed as a split-screen proxy war in the desert. Donald Trump vs Mike Pence.
It eventually became like the national team’s JV Scrimmage.
At least the Republican landscape in Arizona remains steeply tilted towards Trump. And those who came to see the story of the former president seemed to know it.
They gathered on Friday at the bunting arena in a “Still my President” T-shirt, demonstrating a fierce plot about the last election and confidence that Trump would win the next.
For them, Pence, and all the traces of the Republican’s old founding department, are a thing of the past.
“He was a good person,” said one attendee.
“I have no opinion [Pence]”. Another was eager to persuade Trump to “lead the federal liquidation” if elected.
He left the rally with his 11-year-old grandson and stopped by for a T-shirt that was too big for him, but he said he could squeeze in. Georgia Anna Bruso is in Pence.
Pence was certainly there — to support Karin Taylor Robson, who is running for Republican governor nomination against Trump-backed Kari Lake, which still falsely claims that Trump won the 2020 elections. Came to the state.
But even the stop setting emphasized how tilted this “proxy fight” was.
The former Vice President appeared with Robson in Maricopa County, where Trump supporters conducted an “audit” of the final election, which was ridiculed as a farce by honest observers.
Arizona’s largest county and home to Ron Watkins, a world celebrity in the QAnon conspiracy. Suspicion of QCandidate for Congress.
State Republicans earlier this week Arizona Republican Speaker of the House accuses Russell Bowers, For testifying to the Commission on January 6 about Trump’s efforts to overturn the election.Republican state legislator Walter Blackman recently running for parliament Headline for his proposal that abortion is linked to efforts to eradicate blacks..
In some parts of Arizona, Phoenix-based veteran Republican strategist Chuck Cofflin said, “You can say some crazy shit,” and it’s still feasible.
Or win a state-wide primary.
For Trump’s supporters, it doesn’t matter how much damage was done to the Parties during his tenure. The Republican Party lost two Senate seats and a presidential election for the first time since 1996.
What they were cheering for when they arrived was the prospect that he would run again. And even if his candidate for governor, Lake, loses Pence’s choice at the Primary on August 2, Trump’s supporters’ views on him will remain the same.
Some said she wouldn’t believe if she believed.The lake itself has She suggested she might not accept the outcome of her election — A line derived from the Trump Playbook.
For a Trump rally with the lake, Stan Barnes, a former Republican and long-time Republican consultant, said Trump and Pence’s appearance in Arizona was “like a lineup of celestial planets witnessing every millennium. I … I feel it. ” Like the ground in Arizona. “
What was happening was a slow-motion, real-time “Republican fabric tear”, he added. Donald Trump is doing him with his candidate … Republican voters in Arizona may not be aware of this yet, but they’re just picking candidates to represent the party in the general election. is not. They are choosing the actual direction of the party. “
But when asked if Trump could be a loser either way, Burns said, “No, I don’t think so.”
Robson, a wealthy real estate developer and former member of the state board, refused to say that the 2020 elections were stolen.But she agreed with Trump and she said She doesn’t think the election was fair.. She is an early front runner of the primary, not by criticizing her falsehood about the 2020 elections (the highlight of Lake’s campaign), but by portraying her as her non-genuine conservative. We are approaching the lake.
On Friday she criticized the lake Donation to Barack Obama“Arizona Republicans don’t need a governor in support of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton,” while Pence appeared beside her.
For the Republican Party’s most important division-between its pro-trump and pro-democratic wings-it’s not much of the Litmus test.
“Was it the full defense of the 2020 elections in Arizona?” Asked Bill Gates, Republican Maricopa County overseer. “No, that’s not what she did. I think she threw lean meat at people, but she deliberately didn’t go in and out of the deep end.”
Still, “it’s important because I think the majority of our party candidates have it,” he said.