Arizona: Masters prevails in GOP Senate primary

Blake Masters will be the Arizona Republican party’s candidate in its bid to take back the U.S. Senate.

As of Wednesday morning, Masters held 39% of the vote. Jim Lamon, veteran and founder of DEPCOM solar, trailed at 29%, with Mark Brnovich, current Arizona Attorney General, behind at 18%. The remaining votes, many of which are mail-in ballots that were turned in directly on election day, will be tallied Wednesday.

Masters, a Tuscon native that moved to California and later returned, received major financial support from PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel as well as a late endorsement from former president Donald Trump. Thiel donated more than $15 million to the campaign. Lamon’s campaign was largely self-funded.

The primary winner is a Stanford law school graduate, as well as a published author of startup books. Described as an American venture capitalist, he soon became Chief Operating Officer of Thiel Capital.

Masters is one of eight successful non-incumbent Senate candidates endorsed by Trump.

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich failed to receive the former president’s approval after denying Trump and his supporters any arrests over what they call a rigged 2020 General Election.

“Mark Brnovich is such a disappointment to me. He is the current Arizona Attorney General, and while he understands what took place in the 2020 Presidential Election, and that it was Rigged and Stolen, he only views it as something he would like not to see happen again,” said Trump. “Blake knows that the ‘Crime of the Century’ took place, he will expose it and also, never let it happen again.”

Trump presented his endorsement back in the start of June.

Masters will face off against incumbent Democrat Mark Kelly this November 8th in the general election. Kelly won a special election in 2020 over Republican Martha McSally to finish out the remaining years of John McCain’s final term in office after he died in 2018.