Arizona state GOP moves to censure Cindy McCain, Jeff Flake

Source: The Hill | January 14, 2021 | Jordan Williams

The Arizona GOP is expected to vote to censure Cindy McCain, the widow of the late Sen. John McCain (R), and former Sen. Jeff Flake (R) after both supported President-elect Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.

The party first disclosed its “Censure McCain” resolution last Sunday after it was mistakenly reported that the Maricopa County Republican Party voted to censure her. The county-level party only discussed censuring McCain but did vote to censure Flake. 

The effort to censure the two big names in Arizona GOP politics is the latest in a long-standing rift between the grassroots wing of the Arizona GOP and other Republicans. John McCain himself was censured by the state party in 2014 for what the state party saw as an insufficiently conservative voting record.

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Barrett Marson, who worked for Defend Arizona — a political action committee that fundraised for McSally — called the censures a “massive distraction to what the state party ought to be focused on.” 

“The state party has really much more pressing issues to deal with, like, how do we win back the [Senate] seats? And how do we turn the state back into a reliably GOP column or a reliably Republican state?” Marson said. Flake and Cindy McCain both publicly supported Biden in the last presidential race, and McCain now serves on Biden’s transition advisory board.

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Cindy McCain told the Arizona Republic that she wasn’t surprised by the censure efforts, but ripped Arizona GOP Chairwoman Kelli Ward for her attacks on her family and accused her of contributing to GOP losses over the last two election cycles.

“As Chairman of the AZGOP she managed to turn Arizona blue in November for the first time since 1996,” she told the newspaper. “Maybe she should be reminded that my husband never lost an Arizona election since his first win in 1982; he and Gov. [Doug] Ducey are the last two Republicans to win statewide races in Arizona.” 

Flake said on Twitter that he wasn’t worried about being censured either.

“If condoning the president’s behavior is required to stay in the Party’s good graces, I’m just fine being on the outs,” he said. 

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