PHOENIX -- Sen. Jon Kyl is resigning from the seat he was appointed to less than four months ago after the death of John McCain, Gov. Doug Ducey announced Friday, a development which gives Ducey a second opportunity to fill the position.
Kyl, 76, had said he was only committed to serving through the end of the year, although Ducey said he had hoped to persuade him to serve through 2020. His resignation is effective Dec. 31 and forces a pivotal decision by the state's Republican governor.
That's because voters in 2020 will get to decide who fills McCain's seat for the final two years of its six-year term. Democrats picked up Arizona's other Senate seat in November and are already targeting the state in 2020 as part of their possible path to retaking control of the Senate, increasing the pressure on Ducey to select someone who can hold the seat for the GOP.
Ducey said he will pick a replacement "in the near future." His office has been typically tight-lipped about who might fill the seat, leading to speculation in Arizona and Washington.
There may be pressure on Ducey to select a woman, because the three most prominent possible Democratic challengers are men. U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego; former astronaut and current gun-control advocate Mark Kelly; and former state Attorney General Grant Woods, who left the GOP to become a Democrat this year, have all mulled running for the seat in 2020.
Under state law, the governor must appoint a Republican because McCain was elected as a member of the GOP.
The most prominent Republican politician whose name has been floated is Rep. Martha McSally, who lost a race for the state's other Senate seat to Democrat Kyrsten Sinema last month. A former Air Force colonel who was mentored by Kyl, McSally has drawn criticism from some Republicans for running a campaign that focused on her closeness to President Donald Trump and tried to portray Sinema as a radical liberal.
Still, McSally only lost the race by 2 percentage points in a bad year for Republicans, and she's long been seen within the party as a possible senator. Other Republican women whose names have been floated do not have her experience running in competitive elections, especially statewide.
They include Eileen Klein, a former health care executive appointed state treasurer by Ducey last year. She did not run for re-election. Some Republicans have also speculated about an appointment for Barbara Barrett, a former ambassador to Finland and business executive who unsuccessfully ran in a GOP gubernatorial primary in 1994.
Some Republicans have urged the appointment of McCain's widow, Cindy, to the seat. Notably, Ducey did not select her in the weeks after the senator's death, and there remains widespread animosity toward the McCain family from the GOP's conservative base.
One of the most often-mentioned names is Ducey's chief of staff, Kirk Adams, a onetime state lawmaker who resigned from the governor's office on Nov. 26 and whose last day working for Ducey was Friday. Other names that have surfaced include Bill Montgomery, who leads the top prosecutorial office in Maricopa County, the state's largest, and former Rep. Matt Salmon.
Information for this article was contributed by Paul Davenport of The Associated Press.
A Section on 12/15/2018