After Arizona Republicans lost every statewide office from governor to mine inspector, the party's consultant class has a convenient scapegoat: MAGA went too far. But the same operatives now blaming the America First movement are the ones who backed candidates who wore the hat without walking the walk — all while a grinding war in Iran with no exit strategy spiked fuel prices and drove independents away from anything with an R next to it.
The numbers are staggering. In 2016, Republicans held every lever of statewide power in Arizona. This November, Democrats swept every statewide office on the ballot and secured a governing trifecta unseen since 1966, according to The Guardian. A 19-year-old Arizona State University sophomore beat a tenured Republican to become Maricopa County's superior court clerk. Congressman Andy Biggs, a longtime MAGA ally, lost by more than 10 points to Democrat Katie Hobbs.
The establishment's answer? "Were we too Maga or not Maga enough?" asked Kirk Adams, former Arizona house speaker and chief of staff to the last Republican governor, in The Guardian.
But follow the candidates, not the narrative. Gina Swoboda, former chair of the Arizona Republican party, ran for secretary of state on a grassroots message. She lost the primary to Alexander Kolodin — a Trump acolyte whose main credential was involvement in efforts to overturn the 2020 results. Kolodin then got trounced by Democratic incumbent Adrian Fontes. That's not MAGA going too far. That's an opportunist who couldn't deliver.
Swoboda herself saw it coming. "We weren't talking to people, we weren't listening to people," she told The Guardian.
GOP pollster Whit Ayres told CNN the midterm repudiation is "totally and completely about Donald Trump." CNN's own data shows at least 80 percent of voters who disapproved of Trump's job performance voted against Republican candidates. But the data also points to a more specific culprit: the Iran war, now in its ninth month with no clear exit, has spiked domestic fuel prices and inflation. A Vance ally put it bluntly to CNN: "If they don't end the war in Iran, no Republican has a shot at 2028."
The Daily Beast reports top Republicans are calling the 2028 presidential race a "suicide mission." JD Vance is reportedly considering skipping it entirely. Meanwhile, the White House responded to the wipeout by appointing Stephen Miller as chief of staff, and House Republicans chose Jim Jordan as their new leader — doubling down rather than charting a new course.
The consultant class is already spinning. A national Republican consultant who worked on midterm races told The Hill, as reported by The Daily Beast: "We're gonna play, we're gonna spend a ton of money, and we're going to do better." Translation: the same people who got rich losing want another turn at the trough.
Arizona Republicans still hold a nearly 300,000 voter-registration advantage over Democrats. Independents make up the largest share of the electorate and they broke hard against the GOP this cycle.
The question isn't whether the movement went too far. It's whether the people wearing the label ever actually represented it — and whether the operatives now pointing fingers will ever be held to account for the losses they engineered.
