Arizona Republicans are poised to censure three of their own party’s most high-profile members in the state: Gov. Doug Ducey, former Sen. Jeff Flake and Cindy McCain, the widow of former Sen. John McCain.
Though largely symbolic, the political scolding expected during a meeting of the state GOP on Saturday underscores a widening rift in Arizona between party officials who have made clear that their loyalty lies with former President Donald Trump and those in the party who refused to support him or his effort to overturn the election results in Arizona, which President Joe Biden won.
Both Flake and Cindy McCain endorsed Biden leading up to the November election. Though Ducey made it clear he backed Trump, he drew ire by defending the state’s election process, rather than support efforts to challenge the November results in court.
John McCain was censured by the state party in 2015 over his voting record, which some Republican officials there perceived as not sufficiently conservative.
The vote to censure comes 2½ months after Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry Arizona in more than two decades, and only the second Democrat in 50 years.
McCain has responded to the threat of censure with a sense of both annoyance and amusement, joking that she was in “good company” with her husband.
Flake wrote on Twitter that he, too, was unconcerned with the censure.