Heavy hitters join Senate campaign for Arizona’s Kelli Ward
Aug 11, 2017, 2:01 PM
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PHOENIX — The Senate campaign for Arizona’s Kelli Ward has gotten a serious injection of power, adding two political strategists who raised big money for President Donald Trump.
Eric Beach and Brent Lowder, whose Great America PAC was said to have raised close to $30 million for Trump’s campaign, have joined Ward’s run to dislodge incumbent Republican Jeff Flake.
Ward’s campaign made the announcement Thursday.
“Eric and Brent are highly accomplished political operatives with strong track records of success,” Ward says in a statement published by political news site The Hill.
“They played an important role in the election of President Trump and are now committed to helping me to send Jeff Flake into retirement next year.”
Just one day before, another Trump supporter, billionaire Robert Mercer gave the super PAC $300,000.
Beach co-chairs Great America PAC, while Lowder is executive director.
It was the latest move from Trump supporters committed to ousting Flake. The junior senator took office in 2013, after stints in the state Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives.
The PAC is part of an anti-Flake alliance that includes a group backed by White House strategist Steve Bannon, America First.
Flake’s critical outspokeness during Trump’s candidacy and presidency have put him in the sights of many party supporters.
Flake went even further in a recently published book, “The Conscience of a Conservative” that bashes the GOP for letting Trump pull the party away from traditional conservatism.
“Senator Jeff Flake has continually failed Arizona and is more interested in selling his new book by attacking the President than actually serving his constituents and getting things done,” Beach said in a statement to The Hill.
Last month, Ward said it wasn’t likely that cancer-stricken U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) would be able to do his job going forward.
“That can’t stand,” she said. “We can’t have, until the 2018 election, waiting around to accomplish the Trump agenda.”
McCain was diagnosed with brain cancer two days before Ward’s comment. He returned to Washington to vote on the GOP health bill, then left to begin treatment at a Phoenix hospital.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
