Kelli Ward, chairwoman of the Arizona Republican Party, said in a fundraising email today that the GOP would stop Democratic Senate candidate Mark Kelly “dead in his tracks.”
Ward’s choice wording stands out not only because Kelly is an ardent gun control advocate, but because he took up the cause after his wife, former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, survived an assassination attempt in which a gunman killed six people and left Giffords with traumatic brain injuries.
“Support the Republican Party of Arizona today and, together, we’ll stop gun-grabber Mark Kelly dead in his tracks,” Ward wrote in an email obtained by The Washington Post. Bloomberg News first reported the email.
Ward, who is an ally of President Trump, is a twice-failed Senate candidate who lost Republican primary contests to John McCain in 2016 and Martha McSally in 2018.
“This dangerous rhetoric has absolutely no place in Arizona and is what’s wrong with our politics,” said Jacob Peters, communications director for the Kelly campaign. “Mark Kelly is running for Senate to overcome this type of nasty divisiveness that does nothing for Arizonans.”
Representative Gabrielle Giffords survived assassination attempt.
Kelly, a former astronaut, is running for the U.S. Senate on a gun control platform, looking to unseat McSally in a state that Democrats hope they can pick up in 2020.
Recent polling suggests McSally is trailing slightly in the race.
McSally was beaten by Democrat Kyrsten Sinema in 2018 but was then appointed to another open Senate seat left by the late Sen. McCain.
Giffords was shot in the head during a constituent meet-and-greet in 2011.
Two years later, the couple started Americans for Responsible Solutions, a political action committee that advocates for stricter gun-control laws.
Ward, in 2018, complained McCain’s announcement to halt medical treatment for brain cancer was timed to hurt her campaign.
Before his death she had recommended McCain resign so that she could be appointed to take his place.