In an interview Monday on CNN with host Wolf Blitzer, Dr. Kelli Ward, a challenger of incumbent Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) for her party’s nod in the upcoming Arizona senatorial election, brushed off an endorsement from Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump for McCain and declared that she and Trump would be a “unstoppable” force together in Washington, DC if both elected.
In her interview with Blitzer, Ward referred to a recent Breitbart/Gravis poll released Monday showing Ward in a razor-thin race going into tomorrow’s primary.
“There’s a new Breitbart poll out right now from Gravis showing that this is a razor-thin margin, 37-33 with a 3.5 percent margin of error,” she said. “And the late breakers are going for Ward. So I think we can see a big upset tomorrow. ”
The Republican Arizona U.S. Senate hopeful went on to criticize her opponent for avoiding a debate with her.
“I’m not surprised that Senator McCain wouldn’t come and be side-by-side with me because he’s done all he can to avoid being in the same room,” she said. “He’s been afraid to debate. He’s definitely not standing on his own record. He’s done his fair share, $7 million worth of attacks against me. But things look great.”
As for Trump endorsement of McCain, Ward said she is not holding that against Trump.
“I know that the people in Arizona know that Donald Trump and Kelli Ward will be an unstoppable force in Washington, D.C., because President Trump is going to need a policy expert like me – because when I was in the state senate I was very effective getting 19 bills signed into law in 2015 alone,” she said. “And so we need somebody who’s going to be able to put forward that policy to secure the border and to fix the VA, and to rev up the economy and – and to put America first in trade.”
Ward also took a jab at McCain, who turned 80 years old on Monday and said to commemorate that occasion, she was looking to give him the “gift of retirement.”
“I do want to give him the best 80th birthday present ever, the gift of retirement tomorrow,” Ward said. “And I think back in 2008 you actually were interviewing then-candidate Barack Obama who brought up that Senator McCain was, let’s see, lost his bearing, and John Kerry said he was confused. And Susan Rice also, on the Democrats’ side, had concerns.
Blitzer challenged Ward on remarks she made to MSNBC last week, which she said that McCain was “too old and weak”.
Ward responded, “And so all the way back eight years ago, CNN and other liberal outlets and other liberal politicians were bringing John McCain’s age into this election. Now we’re eight years later. I think it’s something the voters need to know, do we want to send an 80-year- old man back to Washington, or do we want to have something different, a 47-year-old vibrant physician with a lot of real-life experience to put this country on the right track? ”
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