Arizona Republican Spends On Ads In New Jersey To Reach Trump

David M. Drucker, Washington Examiner

Jan.  2, 2021

 
Only one vote matters in the campaign for the Republican Senate nomination in Arizona, which explains wealthy businessman Jim Lamon's decision to advertise on cable television in New Jersey, where former President Donald Trump is summering.
Trump's endorsement could tip the scales in Arizona's 2022 GOP Senate primary. To gain the upper hand, Lamon is appealing directly to Trump with a 30-second spot touting his border security bona fides exclusively on Fox News in northern New Jersey. The former president is spending the summer on his private golf club in Bedminster, 43 miles west of New York City.
Lamon, flush enough to invest millions of dollars of his own money on his campaign, is spending $18,000 to run the ad for two weeks. "I don't think there are a lot of people from Arizona that summer in New Jersey," Jeff Roe, who is advising Lamon's Senate campaign, said Tuesday, confirming his candidate's blatant strategy to outflank his primary opponents.
"Chaos, crisis, children dropped alone in the desert," Lamon says in the spot, which uses stark black and white images and film clips purporting to show illegal immigrants entering the United States to criticize incumbent Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and other Democrats of fomenting a crisis at the Mexican border. "Join me. Together we'll stop drugs, gangs, and politicians."
Roe described Lamon as a "movement conservative." In addition to the money the Republican Senate contender is spending to reach Trump in New Jersey, per current ad purchases, he will have invested just under $1 million from when his campaign launched May 1 through the end of June to introduce himself to voters in Arizona. Lamon is advertising statewide on cable television with a slick 30-second biographical spot.
Last November, Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly won a special election to complete the final third of the six-year term won by Republican Sen. John McCain, who died in August 2018.
President Joe Biden also won Arizona, becoming the first Democratic nominee to finish on top there since 1996. But Republicans are lining up to challenge Kelly, encouraged by Democrats' thin majority and historical trends. The GOP needs to flip one seat to recapture the Senate majority, and the party that occupies the White House usually loses multiple seats in Congress in midterm elections.
Lamon is among the first Republicans to announce his campaign.
The 65-year-old Army veteran is the CEO of DEPCOM Power in Scottsdale, Arizona, a solar engineering corporation. He is a longtime donor to Republican candidates, GOP causes, and nonpolitical charities. According to his campaign website, Lamon recently contributed $2 million to an effort to register more Republican voters in Arizona — even though he is not a regular on the major donor circuit that, for instance, writes seven-figure checks to GOP super PACs.
"I spent my career bringing power to the people," Lamon said in his introduction ad. "But there's another kind of power. Political elites use it to divide, distract and sell out our children's future. But we have the power to take their power away."
Other potential candidates include Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich; Michael McGuire, the former adjutant general of the Arizona National Guard; and Blake Masters, who works for venture capitalist Peter Thiel, a GOP megadonor. Should Masters run, Thiel is expected to back him financially with a super PAC that could spend possibly tens of millions of dollars on his behalf.

 

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