Nineteen months ago, Donald Trump’s fixation on unproven allegations of election fraud played a major role in the Republicans’ loss of two U.S. Senate seats in Georgia and, with them, their Senate majority.
Now, the former president appears to be handicapping the GOP’s effort to regain that majority. He has helped nominate several conservative political neophytes with questionable general election prospects in the closely contested states that decided the 2020 presidential election.
That dynamic was on display Tuesday when Arizona Republicans chose Blake Masters, a self-styled culture war fighter who has adopted Trump’s combative style, to run against freshman Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, one of the more vulnerable 2022 Democrats. Masters, with Trump’s backing, defeated businessman Jim Lamon and state Attorney General Mark Brnovich.
