This Group Wants You to Believe That McSally Is a McFraud

A new ad featuring flip-flop burgers and disingenuous fries is coming to Phoenix airwaves.

A Flagstaff-based Super PAC launched an attack ad on Sen. Martha McSally on Monday, challenging her voting record. It joins at least seven other outside groups pouring money into what is expected to be one of the most expensive races of the 2020 elections.

The newly-created Super Pac Middle Class Fighting to Restore Arizona’s Unity and Decency, or McFraud, takes aim at McSally’s back-and-forth position on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program; highlights an Arizona Republic editorial critical of the senator, and denounces her statement to Politico regarding the impeachment of President Donald Trump.

In an interview with Roll Call, Frank Hawk, vice president of the Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters said that “Arizonans rejected flip-flopper Martha McSally’s brand of anti-worker politics in 2018, and we are confident they will again in 2020.”

Hawk’s organization is one of the groups funding the Super PAC, which claims to be spending five figures to place the ad on CNN and Fox News.

McFraud is one of many outside groups spending big in Arizona. End Citizens United, an organization focused on campaign finance reform, has invested the largest amount so far in the 2020 race, spending $78,000 to support McSally’s Democratic challenger, Mark Kelly. Trailing in second for big spending is the Republican-led Senate Leadership Fund, which has spent $53,000 in support of McSally. In total, outside groups spent $148,000; only seven other states have seen more outside money coming in.

Previously, the 2018 Senate race between McSally and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema received the fourth-largest amount of outside spending of any other state, totaling nearly $70 million by the final reporting period. McSally lost the 2018 election but joined Sinema in the Senate after Gov. Doug Ducey appointed her to fill the seat of the late Sen. John McCain.

Arizona’s Senate race is seen as one of the tightest in the 2020 election cycle. Though incumbents generally have an advantage, McSally, who has been in Congress since 2015, is polling three points behind Kelly, a first-time candidate and former astronaut.

Voting for this election will take place on Nov. 3, 2020. Early voting in Arizona begins Oct. 7.