By Scottsdale Pinetop
It seems these days Dr. Kelli Ward spends her days running to the next open political seat. And every time she’s left without a chair. Twice Ward has run for the U.S. Senate seat and both times she has never made it past the primary. Now she’s focusing her attention on becoming the next chair of the Grand Ol’ Party – as if the Arizona Republic Party didn’t have enough to worry about.
Ward began her political career in 2012 after replacing District 5 Republican State Senator Ron Gould. In November 2014, Ward was re-elected after running unopposed in both the primary and general election. In 2015, ready for bigger and better things, Ward resigned from her State Senate seat and announced she would be entering the race for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate against incumbent and former presidential candidate, Senator John McCain. To little surprise, she was defeated in the primary election.
Then just one year later, Ward would seek to run a second time for the U.S. Senate. After Flake announced on October 2018 that he would not be seeking re-election, the door opened for a number Republicans to jump into the race including U.S. Representative Martha McSally and Sherriff Joe Arpaio. And once again, she lost.
Now, not even three weeks after the 2018 midterm elections, Ward announced she would be running to be Arizona’s next Republican Party Chair.
In an interview with The Republic’s Yvonne Wingettt Sanchez, Ward said, “in this new era of Arizona Republican politics, it is time to finally unite our party.” This is the same candidate that has spent years chastising politicians from her own political party such as John McCain, Jeff Flake and Martha McSally and has attacked major news outlets, including the Arizona Republic.
Her decision comes on the heels of the 2018 midterm elections where the Arizona Republican Party lost the U.S. Senate seat to Democrat Krysten Sinema and came within one seat of losing the State House.
There’s no question that the Arizona Republican Party is in a bit of a disarray as they look to make up lost ground in the 2020 election. And while the Grand-Ol party does need to re-evaluate its political strategy, the answer is not Dr. Kelli Ward.
The election of the AZ GOP Chairman will take place on January 26 and will be voted on by elected State Committeemen. But don’t be surprised if Ward announces her candidacy for 2020. As Albert Einstein said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”