talk about every day. whether the president is energizing democratic voters to the point it makes a difference on the ground and republicans frankly lose ground with voters that previously they were able to win over if they had a particularly strong candidate. of course, that does, again, presume that mcsally pullings this out because i think there s a lot of republicans believe if arpaio or ward would win this race they would have a tough time against the democrat in the fall. thank you. fascinating stuff. it s going to be a long day for you. joining me now to talk about it, caitlyn huey burns for real clear politics. former governor bill richardson is back with me. let s talk, can we, just about the weight that this president holds in these primaries. he has. there s no doubt about it. he s bragged about it. he s been right about it. he clearly has influenced so many of the outcomes of earlier races. he hasn t endorsed anybody here yet. it is very telling. remember when jeff flak
anything bad about her. the president realize that most of his supporters actually support kelly ward. the closest aligned to the president in all the beliefs. martha mcsally, she won t even come on my radio show and we ve invited her for years and she won t talk. leland: we keep hearing she s difficult can to track down. time magazine tried to track her down and phillip elliott wrote, arizona is the the state g.o.p. censured john mccain by working on a bipartisan issue about this race coming up. it brings an important question up though, does republicans run the risk of arpaio or ward becoming something like a roy moore? no. you know, again, that s the media and that s the establishment narrative trying to sheriff joe, really, isn t roy moore? no, i m not
mcsally stands. so to answer your overall question, it would be an extraordinary shock if she didn t. i would say and it would throw this entire race into turmoil. it s already going to be a close race, even if mcsally wins. but if arpaio or ward were to win, there s definitely a feeling that that would throw the general election of the democrats. we should note here, in this case, you ve got sort of one kind of one candidate sort of favored to the establishment, two challengers, more associated with trumpism. that was sort of the opposite in alabama, right, where you had the one established you had the sort of two different establishment characters in roy moore. so the path mere works in mcsally s favor. but to give a sense of just how intensely extreme the fidelity to donald trump has been in the primary, i want to play the little clip, the interview you had with joe arpaio today about the passing of john mccain. take a listen. do you think john mccain was a patriot? yes.