Political newcomer Blake Masters on Tuesday won Arizona’s Republican Senate nomination, setting up a November battle between the well-funded venture capitalist and his Democratic challenger, ex-astronaut Sen. Mark Kelly.
Masters edged out four other opponents: Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, businessman Jim Lamon, Michael McGuire, and Justin Olson.
At different times, Masters, Brnovich, and Lamon had led in polling, fundraising, and media attention leading up to the Republican primary.
All three listed border security as their top priority.
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Brnovich highlighted his tenure as attorney general, during which he challenged border policies such as the 100-day pause on deportations. Lamon said he would end sanctuary cities and called the border a “breeding ground for trafficking of illegal drugs, sex trafficking, and even some known terrorists.”
Masters said he wanted to increase the size of the border wall and implement high-tech surveillance. He also claimed that an influx of “illegal aliens” from Mexico would carry over enough drugs each month to “kill every American twice over.” While stating policy objectives is normal during an election, Masters’s comments fly in the face of opinions he apparently held years ago, reportedly arguing as a Stanford undergraduate that “unrestricted immigration is the only choice” for America and describing U.S. service members who had participated in a drug trafficking ring as “heroes.”
Masters’s campaign was largely bankrolled by his onetime professor-turned-guru, tech billionaire Peter Thiel, who shelled out $15 million of his own money to help his protege secure his first-ever nomination.
During his primary campaign, Masters emerged as a provocative and polarizing candidate, proudly citing former President Donald Trump as his political inspiration in both style and substance. Masters has taken hits in the media over his lack of experience, embrace of the far Right, and penchant for courting controversy. He’s also been accused of being the perfect puppet for Thiel, helping the billionaire popularize his views.
As a law student at Stanford University, Masters was so blown away by Thiel that he would blog his notes on a class Thiel taught on startups. Those notes helped shape Thiel’s bestselling book Zero to One, which is credited to Thiel and Masters. In 2015, Thiel hired Masters to be president of the Thiel Foundation. Three years later, Masters was bumped up to chief operating officer at the investment firm Thiel Capital, a position he held from 2018 to 2022.
Masters surged in the polls not only with the help of Thiel’s super PAC money but also with a full-throated endorsement by Trump, who at a recent rally called Blake a candidate who “brings exactly the kind of toughness, courage, and intellectual firepower we need in the Senate to take our country to the next level.”
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During an election year in which both chambers of Congress are up for grabs, Blake didn’t paint himself as a candidate who championed common Republican causes such as battling inflation and soaring crime rates. Instead, he became a well-dressed Trump who was sick of a “woke world” and ready to go to war to save the soul of the nation.
Masters has come under fire for a string of controversial comments he made, including sympathizing with white nationalists and maintaining Trump was the true victor of the 2020 elections.
His former friends, including the best man at his wedding, told Mother Jones the 35-year-old Senate candidate is not a man they recognize. His former college roommate told the publication that Masters “was not a s***ty, hateful person” in school but instead “a misinformed, libertarian white 20-year-old” who was “a dime a dozen at Stanford.”
Collin Wedel, a man Masters met in middle school and who would go on to be the best man at his wedding, also said Masters had changed with time. The outlet, which interviewed several of Masters’s friends, claimed much of that change was due to his mentor, Thiel.
For Wedel, the breaking point in their friendship came after Masters sent a tweet referring to the COVID-19 vaccine mandate as pure evil.
Wedel replied to the tweet, telling his former friend, “Shame on you. I’m so utterly disappointed in what you’ve done with yourself. People will get sick, and die, because of your reckless rhetoric. As someone who loves and used to respect you: What happened to you?”
Masters snapped back, telling his friend: “The most deadly virus we face is progressivism, it rots both brains and nations. I wish Collin well — but freedom is worth losing friends over.”
Brnovich and Lamon have also criticized Masters for his relationship with Thiel and Big Tech.
Masters said his knowledge of the tech industry and his proximity to it would allow him to confront those in power better.
“I know how it works,” Masters said, but Brnovich begged to differ.
“I know that the answer to Big Tech is not having someone that’s financed by Big Tech and made all their money in Big Tech,” Brnovich said.
In June, an ad released by a political action committee affiliated with Thiel raked Lamon’s solar company over the coals for importing supplies from China and tried to link the company to “forced slave labor.”
Lamon responded by saying that everyone in the energy industry uses Chinese parts. His campaign added: “This ad paid for by Blake Masters’ big tech super PAC is ridiculous and comically hypocritical given Masters’ extremely recent and proactive business dealings with China.”
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Masters will go head to head in November against Kelly, a freshman senator and one of the most vulnerable Democrats on the ballot this year.
Arizona, once reliably red, has become a key battleground state in recent years. Kelly is one of the Republicans’ top targets as they try to take control of the 50-50 Senate.
