McCain Rolls Over Hayworth In AZ-SEN Republican Primary

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)
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Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), the Republican Party’s nominee for president in 2008, has won his nomination for another term in the Senate by a landslide, against the right-wing challenge from former Rep. J.D. Hayworth.

With 11% of precincts reporting, McCain leads by 59%-30%, and has been projected as the winner by the Associated Press.

As we noted this morning, McCain was heavily favored to win going into today. To his credit, McCain recognized early on that there was a restive environment among the GOP base, shifted to the right, and refocused himself to not lose that crowd to the anti-illegal immigration champion Hayworth — and he also outspent Hayworth by a ratio of about 10-1.

In addition, Hayworth’s efforts to harness the anti-government spending Tea Party vote were heavily damaged by the fact that he appeared three years ago in an infomercial for a company offering shady seminars on how to receive “free money” from the government. Hayworth’s initial handling of the story, amazingly, was to quote the Latin proverb caveat emptor (“buyer beware”). He then apologized for the infomercial, but the damage was done in his efforts to present himself as an anti-government spending Tea Partier.

McCain is heavily favored to win re-election against Democratic former Tucson Councilman Rodney Glassman. The TPM Poll Average for that matchup shows McCain leading 52.3-29.3.

Full coverage of the race here.

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