Steve Kornacki: Kyrsten Sinema Is in the Best Position a Dem Has Been in 30 Years in Arizona
EXCERPT:
KORNACKI: "I think one of the other stories that's emerging here is, there was some mystery around the question of why was Joe Arpaio in his race in the first place? At 86 years old, he just got pardoned last year — you can see it's 47-48 percent right there if you add it up right now, still a considerable amount to come in. There are some indications right now that one of the reasons Arpaio might have gotten in this race is there might have been some folks around him who were on that Trump side of the party who were disgruntled with Kelli Ward. So what you basically did, you saw a perfect split almost right down the middle of the Trump wing of the party right there that allows McSally to come up and win. It is. It’s a 24-point margin over Ward, but if you break that in another way, the Trump wing versus the non-Trump wing, you are almost at 50/50 right there. The biggest factor, I think, in this race for McSally might have been that Arpaio got in this race, split that Trump vote very well. And I've got to say, looking ahead to the general election, Arizona, look, it's been 30 years since they elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate. The most recent poll that we have up there, take it for what it's worth, Kyrsten Sinema up 4 points over McSally. So maybe walking into that general election there, it's certainly the best position a Democrat’s been in 30 years."