Democrat Mark Kelly is Arizona’s senator-elect, defeating the incumbent Republican Martha McSally, who was appointed to the late-Sen. John McCain’s seat after losing the 2018 Senate election.
Washington Post exit polls from 2018 and 2020 showed that health care may have been the common denominator in McSally’s losses.
In both elections, a large number of voters who cast ballots for McSally’s opponents said health care was the most important issue to them.
In 2018, McSally performed 60 points worse than Kysten Sinema on health care. This year, she performed 65 points worse than Kelly, according to Washington Post exit polling. Niles Harris with the progressive group Honest Arizona, says her record speaks for itself.
“The skinny repeal of the affordable care act, and also not being able to push back against the administration that was pushing forward a lawsuit to the Supreme Court to repeal the ACA (Affordable Care Act) as well,” Harris said.
The exit polling data points to health care as a major — if not the most important — issue for Arizonans when voting, Harris said.
"What we’ve seen time and time gain, when it was either with Martha McSally talking about her repeal of the ACA, or even Attorney General Mark Brnovich when it comes to his support of the ACA lawsuit ... Arizonans care about this issue, and they’re listening to their elected representatives on this issue, and they will probably continue to pay attention and stay actively engaged on it,” he said.
Other key issues the 2020 exit polls found were the coronavirus and racial justice — and Mark Kelly outperformed McSally by more than 90 points on each.
