“I’m sorry that he’s sick. It’s a horrible thing. But that doesn’t mean that his policies suddenly became good. They didn’t,” Republican Senate candidate Kelli Ward said of Sen. John McCain. | Ross D. Franklin/AP Photo Ward keeps up criticism of McCain after health announcement

PHOENIX — Arizona Republican Kelli Ward continued her criticism of Sen. John McCain on the campaign trail on Friday — hours after McCain’s family announced that he was discontinuing his medical treatment for brain cancer.

“We have a choice. Are we going to elect another senator cut from the same cloth as Jeff Flake and John McCain?” Ward said at two separate campaign events Friday afternoon. Both times, the crowds responded: “No!”


McCain’s family announced Friday that the senator, who was diagnosed last summer with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, was halting his medical treatment, signaling his battle with the disease was in its final stages.

Ward, who challenged McCain in a 2016 primary, is one of three Republicans on the ballot for Tuesday’s primary to be the Republican nominee to replace Flake, who is retiring. On her campaign bus between the two events, Ward told reporters McCain’s situation was “very, very sad.”

“We have to keep him and the family in our prayers. It’s just a sad thing,” she said. But she didn’t back away from her criticisms of the senator.

“I’m sorry that he’s sick. It’s a horrible thing. But that doesn’t mean that his policies suddenly became good. They didn’t,” she said.

“There’s Sen. McCain the person, and I feel very bad for him and his family, but there’s also Sen. McCain the politician who has let down Arizona again and again and again,” Ward told reporters. “I can separate the two, and I hope you all can, too.”

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Ward took just under 40 percent of the vote against McCain in the 2016 Republican Senate primary. Ward attacked McCain’s age during that primary, saying at the time he might not live to finish his term in office.

Earlier this week, Ward tweeted that the immigration policies of McCain, Flake and Rep. Martha McSally, one of her opponents in Tuesday’s Senate primary, contributed to the death of Iowa college student Mollie Tibbetts. Tibbetts’ death became a national issue this week when the authorities announced that the suspect charged in her murder was an undocumented immigrant.

Ward continued that critique Friday.

“He’s been there since he promised Ronald Reagan that he would secure the border if amnesty was granted all the way back to 1986,” she said of McCain. “It didn’t happen then, and unfortunately we are still seeing these tragedies again and again and again.”