Libertarian drops out of Arizona Senate race

Libertarian Marc Victor dropped out of Arizona’s senate race Tuesday and endorsed Republican nominee Blake Masters. Now, Masters is only up against incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly in a close race. Victor said Masters will support a libertarian worldview as much as he can and posted a Zoom recording on his website of Masters convincing Victor to endorse him. 

How will this affect Arizona’s race? Some Republican strategists had thought Victor could pull some votes from Masters by picking up right-leaning voters who would have voted for Masters otherwise. But the late timing of Victor’s dropout may blunt its benefit to Masters. More than 500,000 people had already voted by Oct. 25 and millions more had mail ballots in hand. Victor’s name will still appear on the Arizona ballot. 

Dig deeper: Read Carolina Lumetta and Leo Briceno’s Arizona election guide in The Stew.