Many Arizona Republicans, including the prominent McCain family, are turning against Turning Point USA after Democrats swept the state in the midterm elections last week.
Meghan McCain, the daughter of the late Sen. John McCain, sharply criticized the conservative group after Tyler Bowyer, chief operating officer of Turning Point Action, took a swing at the Arizona political family on social media for having “awful” political takes.
“I wish you would join the fight and be helpful rather than playing the Daddy’s name fiddle every time a Republican loses. It’s loser stuff,” Bowyer posted on X in response to McCain, who subsequently fired back in a series of posts this week.
“Turning Point doesn’t get to disrespect and blame me, my Dad’s legacy, independents, moderates, and ‘McCain republicans’ for Arizonas history making losses [in the midterm elections] and then I’m somehow expected to work with everyone now?” she said in one of her posts. “They [don’t] value or respect our coalition of voters.”
In a prior post, McCain said she had declined to talk to the press about TPUSA’s role in the Arizona races this year “out of respect” for TPUSA CEO Erika Kirk and her deceased husband, Charlie Kirk. McCain decided to speak out on social media, saying TPUSA “wants to make an enemy of me and my family.” She defended her father, who has often been the target of Trump voters.
“My Dad was the last sitting Senator to easily win as a Republican and is still beloved in Arizona,” she said. “There are lessons from his legacy to be learned and you only further alienate the vital independents by disrespecting him.”
John McCain died in August 2018 at the age of 81. President Donald Trump continued disparaging the former senator after his death, and many of Trump’s supporters followed suit.
Jack McCain, the son of John McCain, also weighed in on Bowyer shifting blame for Republican losses nationwide this election cycle. He made his X account public to respond to Bowyer’s comments, but he later made it private again.
Gina Swoboda, former chairwoman of the Arizona Republican Party, was even more damning in her assessment of TPUSA’s influence on the midterm results in Arizona. She argued the activist organization should stay out of the state’s elections, especially Republican primaries, because it “killed” the party.
“Turning Point Action is a political organization who has made it its mission, its stated mission, to primary incumbent Republicans that they don’t like, that don’t meet their definition of what a Republican should be,” Swoboda said in an interview last week, adding that voters should get to define what a Republican should be.
One day after the election, the TPUSA chief executive urged her party to stop pointing fingers.
“The biggest mistake conservatives can make right now would be to allow this moment to become another exercise in finger-pointing, in-fighting, or trying to secure their own political preservation,” Erika Kirk said in a lengthy post-midterm statement. “That does not solve the problems the American people are demanding be solved.”
The Washington Examiner contacted Turning Point Action for comment.
BLUE WAVE SWAMPS STATE LEGISLATURES IN RED AND PURPLE STATES
Democrats overwhelmingly won the midterm races in Arizona, taking control of both state legislative chambers and the governor’s office for the first time since 1966. The Democratic trifecta will replace a divided government in Arizona next year. Republicans control the legislature until they hand over power, and Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ) was reelected for a second term.
At the federal level, Arizona voters elected five Democrats to represent nine of the state’s congressional districts. There were no Senate races in Arizona this year. Democrats retook both chambers of Congress.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
