Arizona’s republican nominee for U.S. Senate, Blake Masters, appeared on Breitbart News Saturday and told host Matthew Boyle that the momentum behind his campaign against Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) is “undeniable” as election day rapidly approaches.
Masters, endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump, is surging in the polls against Kelly in one of the most competitive races in this year’s midterm elections.
“The momentum here on the ground is undeniable, and I’m not surprised to see that reflected in the polls,” said Masters. “You know, we’ve got the winning message. Mark Kelly’s got nothing but lies to run on; he’s got to lie about me with vicious attack ads that are fake, and he’s got to lie about his own record. All of a sudden, he’s pretending to be a center-right Republican; well, no, that’s Campaign Kelly. D.C. Mark Kelly votes in lockstep for Joe Biden’s failed agenda.”
“We in Arizona bear the brunt of the border crisis; we bear the brunt of the inflation crisis — I know inflation is bad everywhere, but it’s the worst in the country in Maricopa County in the greater Phoenix metro,” he added. “So I’m getting out there every day and hammering Mark Kelly — not attacking his character, maybe he’s a nice guy — but his voting record. His voting record is far left, to the left of Bernie Sanders.”
A Democrat party canvasser holds up campaign material for Joe Biden and Mark Kelly while knocking on doors in the suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona, October 15, 2020 to encourage people to vote in the November 3 presidential and congressional elections. (ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)
“He is directly responsible for a wide open border and our crushing inflation, and so when we let voters know that, they want to make a change; they want to send Joe Biden packing,” he said. “They’re tired of this failed administration, and when we get out there, and we tell people, ‘Hey, I’m the change, I’ll actually work for you, work for Arizona families,’ well then they’re going to vote Republican in droves. We’re starting to see everybody come online and come awake right now, and we’re just going to — I think we’ve caught Mark Kelly — soon we’re gonna pass him and never look back.”
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While the Democrat presents himself as a moderate, FiveThirtyEight noted that he has voted in line with the Biden administration 94 percent of the time. Masters dubbed Kelly “a puppet for Joe Biden’s failed agenda,” who Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) “owns” and contrasted his opponent with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), who has bucked Democrats on key Biden agenda legislation.
Arizona Democrat Sen. Mark Kelly, left, and his Republican challenger Blake Masters, right, pause on stage prior to a televised debate in Phoenix, Thursday, October 6, 2022. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
“Look, I think Sinema is too left wing, I’d rather have two conservative Republicans in Arizona, but if you have to have a Democrat, you want it to be Sinema because she’s shown some independence, and I respect that,” Masters explained. “She knows how to tell Schumer to go pound sand: on Build Back Better; she protected the filibuster. Mark Kelly, you never have to wonder which way he’s going to vote because he’ll do whatever Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer tell him to.”
“Literally, he’s voted in lockstep for Biden’s trillion-plus spending agenda that caused this inflation,” Masters added. “He’s voted for Biden’s insane America last energy policies; they’ve surrendered our energy independence. They took gas from $2 to $6. And he’s voted in lockstep for Biden’s open borders policies, which are hurting families, killing kids with this fentanyl in Arizona. So Mark Kelly is a rubber stamp vote for the most left wing, dysfunctional agenda that we’ve seen in recent American history.”
Boyle highlighted a debate between the candidates earlier this month, where Masters torched Kelly for voting against hiring 18,000 more border patrol agents but for 87,000 more IRS agents in the inflation Reduction Act boondoggle. Contrary to its name, the spending bonanza does not actually reduce inflation. Masters said he enjoyed putting Kelly “on the ropes.”
“You know, I don’t know if that was his best or if he just was lazy and didn’t prepare. Either way, I thought he was in poor form, but you know, again, he had to lie,” said Masters. “He’s got to get up there and defend some indefensible, left-wing voting record. All I had to do was tell the truth. And so they asked him about inflation, and he says, ‘blah, blah, blah, well, the greedy corporations are price gouging,’ made no sense at all. So then I went through, and I said, ‘No, here’s how they caused inflation, it’s so dishonest. They surrendered our energy independence, and they printed trillions of dollars that caused inflation; then they gave us the Inflation Reduction Act, which is a $700 billion tax and spending bill. It’s not going to reduce inflation. … On the contrary, it’s a downpayment on the Green New Deal.'”
“But then you’re right, Matt, the cherry on top for the Democrats in the Inflation Reduction Act was 87,000 IRS agents, but to vote for those 87,000 new IRS agents, Mark Kelly first had to reject an amendment that doubled the size of our border patrol,” Masters continued. “He said no to hiring 18,000 new border patrol agents, who we badly need … but yes to 87,000 new IRS agents. And so I just wasn’t going to let him sit there on stage and get away with lying to people. He could do that on a TV commercial, I’m not there to fight back, but he can’t do it one-on-one live on stage.”
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