Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly has won reelection in Arizona, edging out Republican Blake Masters in what was after viewed as a robust pickup possibility for the GOP.

Keeping on to Kelly’s seat marks a key victory for Democrats in their quest to retain manage of the Senate.

Kelly, a previous astronaut and husband of Gabby Giffords, arrived to Washington in 2020 just after winning a exclusive election to provide out the remaining time period of the late Sen. John McCain (R). For months he led in the polls, but the race tightened significantly in the last days right before Election Day.

Masters, a 36-calendar year-outdated enterprise capitalist who put in most of his vocation working for billionaire Peter Thiel, ran an insurgent campaign with a concentration on subject areas well known among the much right, which includes bashing crucial race theory and Large Tech. An endorsement by previous President Donald Trump served Masters eke out a acquire in the GOP primary amid a crowded discipline of candidates.

But Masters’ libertarian-leaning report and considerably-proper positions have been seen as a drag on his marketing campaign. Though some Republicans selected a much more calculated route, Masters declared his guidance for a countrywide abortion ban in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of federal abortion legal rights this summer season. And he ongoing to echo Trump’s wrong promises that Joe Biden lost the 2020 presidential election.

Nonetheless, Masters obtained traction with voters concerned with higher inflation and crime, which have been some of the major themes in GOP advertisements this election cycle.

Kelly sought to blunt attacks above rising inflation and the significant cost of living by touting his help of Democratic legislation decreasing the expense of prescription medicines and highlighting his opponent’s earlier assistance for privatizing Social Protection. He also put some daylight among himself and the leadership of the Democratic Celebration on the very hot-button difficulty of immigration, calling the circumstance on the southern border a “mess” and “a chaos.”

Late in the race, Kelly was joined at a marketing campaign event by a number of members of McCain’s family, underscoring his appeals to independent and Republican voters alike.

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Nonetheless, Kelly was hardly ever a thorn in the side of his bash as a great deal as fellow Arizona Democratic senator Kyrsten Sinema, who isn’t up for reelection right until 2024. He embraced progressive priorities that Sinema opposed, like proposals that would have lifted the minimal wage to $15 and reformed the Senate filibuster policies.

Kelly was just one of the most well-known Democratic Senate candidates this year ― at least when it arrives to fundraising. He went into Oct with nearly six periods the total of hard cash on hand as Masters, and he lifted more than $52 million in complete up right up until that place, while Masters experienced brought in just below $5 million. As a outcome, outdoors GOP groups have been pressured to move in and support bail out Masters.

This posting originally appeared on HuffPost and has been current.

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