As U.S. Sen. John McCain readies his official announcement of a bid for a sixth term, national "tea party" organizations are stepping up their efforts to find a viable conservative opponent to challenge him in Arizona's 2016 Republican primary.
McCain, who will turn 80 before Election Day, has universal name recognition as a former GOP presidential nominee. But while he would have the advantages of incumbency, including an influential perch as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, he also would have to convince the electorate that after more than 30 years on Capitol Hill he has not overstayed his welcome.
Over the years, McCain has taken positions that many tea-party conservatives oppose: most notably his support of comprehensive immigration reform, which critics say would provide "amnesty" to illegal immigrants, and of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which they viewed as a big-government bailout.
Besides being a top target of big spending by out-of-state groups, McCain also must manage a long rocky relationship with his local conservative base. Since Arizona Republican Party activists formally censured him as too liberal in January 2014, McCain and his establishment allies have made progress in moderating the state GOP's internal politics by encouraging like-minded Republicans to run for party posts.
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Appearing at this year's state GOP meeting on Jan. 24, McCain was greeted by a noisy mix of boos and cheers. About a dozen people stood with their backs to McCain while he spoke.
"The grass roots in Arizona want McCain to retire or be replaced by a conservative in the primary next year," said Ken Cuccinelli, the former Virginia attorney general who now is president of the Senate Conservatives Fund.
The tea-party-aligned group last year unsuccessfully tried to oust now-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and veteran Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi in their primaries.
"If a strong, viable conservative runs, SCF is ready and willing to support them," Cuccinelli said. "Arizona voters deserve to have senators who share their values."
For their part, McCain and his allies maintain he will be prepared for whatever might confront him in the primary.
"There has been no stronger opponent of President (Barack) Obama's feckless and failed foreign policy than Senator John McCain," McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said. "He's proud of his conservative record of small government, low taxes and a strong national defense, and would match that record against anyone's."
Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who already has endorsed McCain for re-election in advance of his announcement, pointed out that McCain in 2010 was able to smash a conservative primary challenge from former Rep. J.D. Hayworth.
"He'll run as if everybody is running against him — he runs hard — but I think he'll be fine because, overall, he has a very conservative record," Flake said. "We saw what happened last time: All the polls that showed him vulnerable, but in the end, he won big in the primary and he won big in the general election. He knows how to run campaigns."
In addition to the Senate Conservatives Fund, other national groups told The Arizona Republic that they are following developments in Arizona and might intervene against McCain under certain circumstances — namely if the right conservative challenger steps up.
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Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., who represents a conservative East Valley district, appears to be these groups' top choice, but Salmon has not publicly made any move to suggest he would seriously consider taking on McCain. Most political watchers in Arizona are not expecting him to run.
State Sen. Kelli Ward, R-Lake Havasu City, has said she is contemplating a U.S. Senate campaign, and supporters have started a PAC to encourage her to run. However, national groups have yet to embrace her.
"We're watching the race," said Doug Sachtleben, spokesman for the fiscally conservative Club for Growth, which for years has been at odds with McCain over various issues.
Adam Brandon, CEO of the conservative organization FreedomWorks, said McCain's record makes him "ripe for a challenge, potentially," and the group plans to send an operative to Arizona in the next several weeks to learn more from the state's grass-roots conservatives.
"We try to pick our challenges very, very carefully," Brandon said. "When you challenge an incumbent, number one, you've got to have an opponent, and that opponent needs to have a proven track record that we look at as a significant upgrade. Then you've got to look at it and see if that candidate is going to have a path to victory."
FreedomWorks has not built a full profile of Ward yet, but Brandon said some aspects of her record make him "a little nervous," including her 76 percent score on Americans for Prosperity-Arizona's 2014 legislative scorecard, which tracks tax, spending and regulation-related votes. State Reps. Justin Olson, R-Mesa, and Darin Mitchell, R-Litchfield Park, scored the highest with 84 percent.
Ward, an osteopathic physician, also presided over a 2014 air-quality hearing that delved into "chemtrails," the conspiracy theory that airplane emissions inject dangerous chemicals into the air.
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Last month, Ward told The Republic she was responding to constituent concerns and merely arranged the forum to allow them to ask questions of state environmental experts, adding that she doesn't "have any opinions about chemtrails one way or the other."
Still, "there's a big question mark next to that," Brandon said, referring specifically to the chemtrails hearing.
"Matt Salmon has not been definitive one way or the other, but if Matt Salmon got into the race, it would be pretty much next to impossible for us not to get into that," Brandon said. "... If I was Matt Salmon, I'd take a nice, long look at this thing and get into this race on his timetable, not on FreedomWorks' or anybody else's."
Salmon has not signaled any interest.
"Mr. Salmon has been humbled by the overwhelming support from people throughout his district, Arizona, and the nation who have urged him to run for higher office," said Tristan Daedalus, a Salmon campaign spokesman. "He continues to enjoy every second representing Arizona's 5th Congressional District and is 100 percent focused on his current job of serving his constituents, not on his plans to run for re-election or any other office."
Mary Vought, a Senate Conservatives Fund spokeswoman, said her group is far from settled on a McCain rival to back.
"We have spoken with a number of people in Arizona about the race, including numerous potential candidates," she said. "However, we are not at the point where we have formally interviewed anyone for the purpose of considering an endorsement."
Jon Kyl, the former Senate Republican whip who served three Senate terms alongside his ally McCain, said he doesn't expect a candidate of Salmon's stature to get into the race.
Even without announcing he's running, McCain has been raising money and is not taking his re-election for granted, "and so he'll be fine," Kyl predicted.
As of the end of 2014, McCain's campaign had $2 million on hand, according to Federal Election Commission records, and he has continued to solicit contributions in the first three months of 2015. Those first-quarter details will be available later this month. In 2012, Flake spent $9.5 million to win the retiring Kyl's vacant Senate seat.
"He fully expects to have a primary — he's preparing for that — and I think that's one of the things that will ensure that he doesn't have much of one," Kyl said. "But I suspect somebody will end up running."
One national political analyst said the challenge for any McCain opponent would be to expand his or her support in the Republican primary beyond "a built-in anti-McCain vote" that he estimated as around 30 percent.
"You're going to be able to find people who don't like what he's done or what he's said," said Nathan Gonzales, editor and publisher of the nonpartisan Rothenberg & Gonzales Political Report in Washington, D.C. "But it's another thing to keep him below 50 percent."
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