By
Arizona is home to two of the marquee races this cycle, and the spate of developments Monday helped show why.
New polling shows the Trump-backed former TV news anchor Kari Lake with a slight edge, but the establishment-backed Karrin Taylor Robson has surged in recent months, thanks to the establishment coalescing around her enough to make Lake’s lead within the margin of error.
Then there’s the Senate race, where a massive surge of ad spending from businessman Jim Lamon has helped to keep him competitive against the Trump-backed Blake Masters. Masters just dropped a new ad calling to finish the border wall to stop an “invasion,” or else “we’re not gonna have a country.”
It’s against that backdrop that Trump announced Monday he’s traveling to the state to rally for both Lake and Masters, two of his most prominent, and controversial, endorsed candidates.
Elsewhere on the campaign trail:
Florida Senate: Democratic Rep. Val Demings' campaign says she raised $12.2 million last quarter, per NBC's Marc Caputo.
Georgia Senate: New video highlighted by Georgia Public Broadcasting’s Stephen Fowler shows Republican Herschel Walkertrying to criticize the Green New Deal by arguing that America’s “good air” will “float over to China” because “we don’t control the air.”
NBC’s Henry Gomez reports that Walker’s campaign is bringing on some new campaign veterans to shore up what’s expected to be a top-flight race.
Missouri Senate: National Journal reports Democrat Lucas Kunce raised $1.1 million in the second quarter of 2022.
The pro-Greitens Missouri First Action PAC is booking $820,000 in radio and TV ad time over the next three weeks, per AdImpact.
And state Attorney General Eric Schmitt is up with a new spot mixing culture war issues and baseball.
Wisconsin Senate: Milwaukee Bucks executive Alex Lasry booked another $1 million over the next month as he continues to significantly outpace the crowded field of Democratic Senate hopefuls in ad spending.
Vermont-At Large: Ice cream barons Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield (of Ben & Jerry’s) are endorsing Democratic state Sen. Becca Balint’s congressional bid.