MIAMI, Ariz. — Ann Kirkpatrick earned the title of John McCain’s toughest Democratic opponent ever through 15 months of preparation, eight years of grueling House races and a lot of luck with Donald Trump at the top of the Republican ticket.

But she’ll need all that and much, much more to pull off a stunner and unseat McCain.


With McCain victorious in his Tuesday primary, he now turns to face Kirkpatrick — a battle-tested, three-term House lawmaker. But though her centrist-leaning brand of politics is a good fit for a red state, her future will likely be decided by more sweeping forces. Namely, whether an anti-Trump wave materializes and Hillary Clinton wins a state that a Democrat hasn’t won since 1996.

With that in mind, Kirkpatrick repeatedly linked McCain to Trump in an interview with POLITICO after visiting a senior center in this hardscrabble mining town dotted with boarded-up storefronts.

“The biggest vulnerability I hear about John McCain is that he didn’t stand up to Trump when Trump insulted him. People are just saying: ‘If he doesn’t stand up for himself, he won’t stand up for us',” Kirkpatrick says. “People just say ‘it’s time. It’s time.’”

Her opponent's tenuous dance with Trump is the most powerful ammunition Kirkpatrick has against McCain, whose prominent bipartisan reputation includes rewriting campaign finance laws, championing immigration reform and supporting expanded background checks on gun purchases. Kirkpatrick was the first Senate candidate to explicitly link her opponent to Trump and it’s unlikely she’d be within striking distance without him.

Her path to denying McCain a sixth term was less clear when Kirkpatrick entered the race last May, as Trump toyed with a run. But Kirkpatrick says she found enough voter apathy toward McCain over weeks of research to see a viable path to the Senate, even without Trump. And in some ways it’s a sensible path for Kirkpatrick, whose battleground House district meant she’d be in a perpetual political fight if she stayed put.

“I looked at this race for a couple of months, I did a lot of study. You know, I think Arizona’s been trending toward turning blue for the last 20 years,” Kirkpatrick says. “It’s just an issue of bringing people out to vote.”

On that front, Arizona is indeed drifting to the left -- but maybe not fast enough for someone like the deal-seeking McCain to lose, at least this election cycle. Since the beginning of the year, Democrats have outpaced Republicans in registering new voters every quarter since mid-2015, according to statistics compiled by Democratic officials here.

But there are still about 1.2 million registered Republicans in Arizona and just a hair more than 1 million Democrats. The campaign to narrow the gap is in plain view: Later during a ride last week on Phoenix’s light rail, two young Latina activists paced the train looking for new voters.

One Arizona, a nonpartisan coalition of groups established in 2010, is aiming to register 75,000 Latinos, women and young voters this year. And with Trump on the ballot the organization is on pace to surpass that number, stoked by opposition to Trump and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, said spokeswoman Pita Juarez.

“In Arizona we’ve had a Trump for a really long. So just to add another person with that type of malicious rhetoric to a certain community has fired up people,” Juarez said, referring to Arpaio.

How that cuts against McCain isn’t clear. Despite his history of leading on the issue, McCain is not running explicitly as an immigration reformer right now.

“He’s been one of the [immigration] leads there for numerous years. But when he’s ran for election you see this shift to the hard right and border security,” said Francisco Heredia, the national field director for Mi Familia Vota, which urges Latinos to seek citizenship in order to gain voting rights. “Everybody understands when a candidate promises one thing and does another.”

Of the public polls this cycle, most have shown McCain with significant leads, though a survey conducted by Public Policy Polling on Thursday showed the race tied. Still, rolling averages show McCain with a clear edge, which has kept most outside Democratic groups from spending on Kirkpatrick’s behalf and the state is not considered a must-win for Democrats to regain the majority.

“Seems like she should have gotten more traction at this point. It’s a long time to be out there,” said Phoenix City Councilman Jim Waring, a former McCain aide and GOP state senator. Still he added, “Anybody with a bat in their hand can get a hit.”

Indeed, Arizona remains a reach state for national Democrats.

“I’m not going to sit here and tell you that we’re counting on Arizona to add to our majority,” said one Democratic strategist working on Senate races.

Sen. John McCain could be facing his toughest general election challenger yet in Ann Kirkpatrick. | AP Photo

Kirkpatrick has been boosted significantly by the national mood, with Clinton’s campaign investing six-figures in the state and putting dozens more people on the ground, Arizona Democrats said. And in a major boon for Kirkpatrick, Clinton is launching a six-figure ad buy in the state backing featuring some of Trump's most divisive quotes -- which helps Kirkpatrick lay the groundwork against McCain.

Arizona Democrats maintain the race is winnable for Kirkpatrick but are urging Clinton to put it over the top with Trump barely leading. Arizona also has competitive House races and a closely divided state Senate, so anything national Democrats do here can be a force multiplier, state Democrats say.

“I’m not overly concerned. Our numbers are on track with voter registration and targeted outreach. It’s a much bigger campaign than we were running in 2012,” said Arizona Democratic Party Chairman Alexis Tameron, who ran Richard Carmona’s close Senate race against eventual winner Jeff Flake. “I want more investment in the early vote effort and voter outreach.”

Clinton also hasn’t campaigned in Arizona yet and ballots begin going out on Oct. 12, a significant date in this early-voting state. Kirkpatrick said she is encouraging Clinton to come — but insists it’s not for overtly political reasons.

“I’d like Hillary to come here for one reason. And that is to go to the VA hospital with me,” Kirkpatrick said. “If she is president that’s something she really needs to address.”

Kirkpatrick is steady and on-message in an interview, hammering McCain as an absentee senator more concerned with the national limelight while touting her relentless focus on the economy to help places like "hurting" Miami. But Kirkpatrick shows her political acumen several times during an interview. She answers a question about whether Clinton is trustworthy directly (“Yes, I do”) and readily tosses out a critique of Clinton’s trade position.

“I’m opposed to the TPP and I think she’s waffled a little bit on that,” Kirkpatrick said. “We’re watching that carefully.”

Kirkpatrick touts that she was not recruited by national Senate Democrats but takes a firm position on whether she will support New York Sen. Chuck Schumer as Democratic leader: “I’ll support him as leader, absolutely.”

McCain is looking to sink Kirkpatrick as a "good person" who will be a "rubber-stamp" for Clinton, he said in a general election video released Wednesday. But his real political weapon is Obamacare, zeroing in on booming Pinal County being left with zero insurers on its health care exchange.

“My opponent not only voted for it but said it was her proudest vote. A lot of people in Arizona are going to know about that,” McCain said in an interview.

Added a national Republican strategist: “It’s going to be the last place you’re going to see Obamacare ads.”

Kirkpatrick admitted in the interview she’s “really concerned” about Obamacare's coverage in the county, ticking off all she’s done to try and right the situation there: Requesting a team from the Department of Health and Human Services to come to Arizona to speak to insurance providers and personally imploring Blue Cross and Blue Shield to provide coverage on the exchange. But she says Obamacare is losing its political potency.

“I’ve won two tough elections on that issue since then,” Kirkpatrick says of losing her seat in 2010.

To win a third one, Kirkpatrick has two distinct paths. Either newly registered Latino voters and the state's existing base of Democrats outperform Republicans apathetic about Trump, or she’s able to lure enough moderate and independent voters her way and even get some support from Trump voters sick of McCain.

“People voted for me and they voted for Mitt Romney. It’s possible,” Kirkpatrick said. “Who knows in this election?”

Nearly 48 percent of the state’s GOP primary voters opposed McCain on Tuesday, leaving him with significant work to do on party unity. But McCain said that Kirkpatrick’s name appearing next to his will mean GOP voters come back his way.

“They usually do,” he said.