EXCLUSIVE — Arizona Senate candidate Jim Lamon is airing a new ad suggesting Republican Blake Masters is a “fake” on border security following reports that he once spoke favorably of “unrestricted” immigration.
The Lamon campaign will spend six figures on the commercial, part of a barrage of attacks by the businessman in the final days of Arizona’s Republican primary for Senate. Masters, who earned the endorsement of former President Donald Trump last month, leads the GOP field, while Lamon trails by 7 percentage points in the latest polling.
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Each of the candidates, Masters included, has vowed to take a strict stance against illegal immigration if elected to Congress. Masters released an ad Friday calling the influx of illegal migrants to the United States an “invasion” and promised to help “lock down” the border.
But Lamon in recent weeks has painted Masters as a flip-flopper on the issue, citing a June 7 report from Jewish Insider that uncovered a 2005 blog post in which Masters, as a 19-year-old undergraduate at Stanford University, apparently said “unrestricted” immigration “is the only choice.” Masters, who appears to have held libertarian beliefs as a young adult, has not said whether he wrote the blog post, which was published under a pseudonym.
Lamon’s campaign released an ad last month labeling him an “open borders liberal.” He repeated the accusation during Wednesday’s GOP debate between Masters, Lamon, and retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Michael McGuire.
The Masters campaign did not provide comment to the Washington Examiner by press time.
The new ad, which opens by counting the days since Masters was “exposed” by the Jewish Insider report, implores him to explain “why he supported open borders” and plays a clip of Lamon from the debate.
“Blake Masters has written a lot about open borders. He was for it before he was against it, and the border guys know a fake when they see it,” said Lamon, who has the backing of several ex-border agency chiefs.
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The solar energy executive has spent months targeting Masters, a protege of tech billionaire Peter Thiel, who has poured more than $13 million into the race on Masters’s behalf. To secure the nomination in the Aug. 2 GOP primary, Masters will not only have to fend off Lamon, but also Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who is polling in second or third place depending on the survey.
The winner of the Republican primary will compete in the November general election against incumbent Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ).
