Once McCain's party, Arizona GOP returns to far-right roots

PHOENIX (AP) — Simmering discontent among a segment of Arizona Republicans over John McCain's famous penchant for bucking his party boiled over in the winter of 2014 with the censure of the longtime U.S. senator.

McCain's allies responded with an all-out push to reassert control over the Arizona Republican Party. Censure proponents were ousted or diminished, and McCain went on to defeat his far-right challenger in a blowout during the 2016 primary.

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Less than a decade later, the right-wing forces that McCain marginalized within the Arizona GOP are now in full control, with profound implications for one of the nation’s most closely matched battlegrounds. Arizona Republicans have traded McCain for Donald Trump.

“We drove a stake in the heart of the McCain machine,” Kari Lake, making a dramatic stabbing gesture, said in a speech days after she won the Republican primary for governor in early August.

Lake, a well-known former television news anchor, has delighted segments of the state's GOP base that have long been at odds with their party’s establishment and want their leaders to confront Democrats, not compromise with them.

She draws large, enthusiastic crowds that are unusually energized for a midterm election. Her fans erupt in rapturous applause when she takes a shot at the media or pledges to repel the “invasion” at the southern border.

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