Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday left some Republicans perplexed after he offered effusive praise for lightning rod former Sheriff Joe Arpaio during a fundraising swing through Arizona.
Arpaio is running for the Republican nomination for Senate in the state’s late August primary, and GOP insiders worry the party would lose the seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., in the midterm if the polarizing ex-Phoenix area lawman advances. Top Republicans are rooting for Rep. Martha McSally in the three-way contest.
But those concerns, nor signals from the White House that President Trump would stay neutral, stopped Pence from calling Arpaio “a great friend” of the commander in chief and “a tireless champion for strong borders and the rule of law” during an event for America First Policies, a political nonprofit aligned with the administration.
“The vice president’s remarks about sheriff Joe is a Joe Biden style gaffe,” Dan Eberhart, a Republican donor in Arizona, told the Washington Examiner. “Pence had mostly stayed out of local politics at these America First events until he landed in Arizona.”
Biden, the vice president under President Barack Obama, has a history of speaking in-artfully on occasion.
Pence was in Arizona to raise money for Republican Gov. Doug Ducey and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Senate GOP campaign arm.
After exalting Arpaio at an event to promote the tax reform law, the vice president headlined the NRSC fundraiser, where McSally was the only Republican Senate candidate present. She was the toast of the crowd, sources say. (McSally, successful in close races in her competitive Southern Arizona district, is the only Republican viewed as capable of defeating Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema in a fall election shaping up as challenging for the GOP.)
The NRSC dinner fundraiser, billed as “an evening with Mike Pence,” requested $2,500 per person to attend. Contributors who wanted a picture with the vice president were asked to give $10,000; for $20,000 donors received the picture plus preferred seating, according to a copy of the invitation.
The Republican Party is in a pickle in Arizona. McSally, an Air Force veteran, is clearly the best general election candidate of the three, but the party is hesitant to intervene on her behalf, worried the effort could boomerang.
Arpaio and Kelli Ward, the third candidate in the Senate race, are more appealing to the GOP grassroots. Both are positioning themselves as Trump-style outsiders, arguing that they can be counted on to faithfully support the president’s agenda. That’s why some Republicans were peeved with with Pence’s public praise of Arpaio — especially on local turf.
It could be that the vice president simply performing double-duty, stroking the president’s loyal base by day while helping to raise money for the NRSC, and, unofficially, a hoped-for McSally candidacy by night. But there’s no guarantee that she wins the nomination, and GOP insiders are sensitive to any perceived tipping of the scales.
In part, that’s because Arpaio, know for his provocative approach to combating illegal immigration, is a close ally of Trump. The president pardoned the 85-year-old former sheriff last summer, sparing him from serving time in jail after he was convicted of ignoring a federal court order in a racial profiling case.
In mid-April, one poll showed McSally leading the three-way race, another gave the edge to Ward.
