Jeffrey Caplan
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Arizona Republican Congresswoman Martha McSally launched her bid for the U.S. Senate Friday morning and immediately took a shot at establishment Republicans in Washington.
“Like our president, I’m tired of PC politicians and their BS excuses,” McSally said during an interview on Fox News. “I’m a fighter pilot, and I talk like one.
“That’s why I told Washington Republicans to grow a pair of ovaries and get the job done. Now, I am running for the Senate to fight the fights that must be won — on national security, economic security and border security.”
McSally is joining the race to replace GOP Sen. Jeff Flake, who has announced his retirement and has become an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump. McSally, conversely, is embracing President Trump’s agenda.
The senate race in Arizona, a border state with one of the nation’s largest immigrant population, is headed toward a showdown between establishment Republicans and its rising hardline immigration wing that includes the 51-year-old McSally.
However, in 2016, McSally refused to endorse Trump for president.
“That’s just not how leaders carry themselves,” she said at the time.
But since Trump’s election, she has moved farther to the right and has positioned herself as a Trump Republican heading into the 2018 election.
RELATED: Rand Paul endorses Kelli Ward in Arizona Senate race
In her announcement video, McSally talks about her military service, and she makes references to Sharia law, a reference to when she fought against a military policy that required female soldiers in some Muslim-majority countries to wear robes over their service uniforms.
“I absolutely refused to bow down to Sharia law,” McSally said. “After eight years of fighting, I won my battle for the religious freedom of American servicewomen.”
She continued, “After taking on terrorists in combat, the liberals in the Senate won’t scare me one bit.”
One candidate who will take on McSally, and is also a staunch immigration hardliner, is former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was pardoned by Trump several months ago.
“When he goes into those rural communities, he is just mobbed, and in a positive way,” former state GOP chair Robert Graham said. “They really embrace him.”
One thing is certain, as the Republican senate race heats up in Arizona, it won’t be for the faint of heart.
