Blake Masters announces House bid in Arizona, forgoing another run for Senate

Former Republican Senate candidate Blake Masters announced Thursday that he would run for an open congressional seat in the Phoenix suburbs, changing course from a planned second run for Senate in 2024.

“I’m running for Congress, to fight for Arizona’s 8th,” Masters tweeted Thursday, along with a video featuring his family. “Biden has failed. We need Trump back. We need to stop inflation, Build the Wall, avoid WW3, and secure Arizona’s water future. We need to fight for our families.”

Masters, who ran against Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) in a marquee Senate race in the 2022 midterm elections and lost by nearly 5 percentage points, had been hailed by conservative figures like Tucker Carlson as the “future of the Republican Party.” He has also received financial support from tech billionaire Peter Thiel.

Masters received considerable attention during the 2022 campaign for his views on abortion and his flirtations with “the great replacement,” a racist conspiracy theory promoted by white nationalists that contends elites — and in some cases Jews and Democrats — plan to use nonwhite immigrants to radically change the country’s demographics.

He had previously planned to make another run for Senate, this time against incumbent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.). Masters’ entry could have kicked off a tough and expensive primary against Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb and former gubernatorial candidate and television reporter Kari Lake.

The safely Republican district, which encompasses many of the northern and western suburbs of Phoenix, went for former President Donald Trump by 13 points in 2020 and has been represented by outgoing Rep. Debbie Lesko, a Republican, since 2018.

Lesko announced earlier this month that she would retire in 2024, saying in a statement that “I want to spend more time with my husband, my 94-year-old mother, my three children, and my five grandchildren.”

Masters, who lives 120 miles away from the district in Tucson, will face off against Abraham Hamadeh, a former prosecutor and candidate for Arizona attorney general in 2022, in the Republican primary. Hamadeh, who lives just outside the district, has been endorsed by Lake and other prominent Republicans. Both Lake and Hamadeh unsuccessfully challenged their 2022 losses in court.

“All the way from Tucson, Blake Masters apparently has crawled out from under the rock he was hiding under after his terrible performance last November and now wants to run for a district hours away,” Erica Knight, a spokesperson for the Hamadeh campaign, told POLITICO.

“The key endorsements for Abe Hamadeh so far, including Kari Lake, Ric Grenell, Kash Patel and Bernie Kerik, tell you everything you need to know about who the true America First fighter is in this race,” Knight added.