Blake Masters announces he’s running for Arizona House seat instead of Senate

Blake Masters, who lost his Senate bid in Arizona last cycle, announced he’s running to represent the state’s 8th Congressional District, located in Phoenix, ultimately deciding against another run for a U.S. Senate seat occupied by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ).

Masters will now compete for the seat, which is now open after Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-AZ) announced her decision to retire last week.

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“Biden has failed. We need Trump back. We need to stop inflation, Build the Wall, avoid WW3, and secure Arizona’s water future,” Masters wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “We need to fight for our families.”

In a social media video, Masters introduces his family and talks about his family history in the state.

“We need new leaders, people who haven’t spent their careers in politics. That’s why I’m running for Congress, to fight for Arizona’s 8th,” Masters says in the video.

Masters had previously contemplated running for the seat held by Sinema before Kari Lake announced her bid for the seat. Masters, who ran for Senate, and Lake, who ran for governor, last cycle both won their primaries with former President Donald Trump’s endorsement but lost in the general election.

Masters will first need to win a primary against Abe Hamadeh, last year’s attorney general nominee who ultimately lost his race but earned Trump’s support by spreading falsehoods about the 2020 election.

Anthony Kern, a member of the state Senate, told conservative radio host Seth Leibsohn on Oct. 23 that he was interested in running for Congress in the 8th District. Speaker of the Arizona House Ben Toma is also considering a run for the seat.

“I think the person to really watch for is Ben Toma, who is the current speaker of the Arizona House,” said Barrett Marson, an Arizona-based GOP strategist. “He already got the Debbie Lesko endorsement and he hasn’t even announced yet, and he’ll be able to access a substantial amount of money.”

Shortly after Masters announced his bid on Thursday, Hamadeh touted an endorsement from Kari Lake on social media. Hamadeh threw a veiled dig at Masters, saying, “While others catered to the establishment and hid after the election we continue to fight like hell for Arizona.”

Lake’s endorsement of Hamadeh comes after the last cycle when Lake and Masters often hit the trail together as a “unity ticket” and were promoting each other on social media. In the last couple weeks of the general election, Masters frequently appeared as an opening act for Lake at campaign rallies.

Another potential obstacle for Masters in this race is that he is not a resident of the 8th District in the Phoenix area, instead living in Tucson, according to records from the Federal Election Commission, over a two-hour drive away.

Hamadeh appears to already be going after Masters regarding his residency.

“It is sad to see the establishment tricking @bgmasters into driving up all the way from Tucson and getting in the race,” he said in a post on X. “They want the America First movement divided. Voters will remember who stood tall against the entrenched political class and who ran into their arms.”

However, Hamadeh also does not live in District 8. Instead, he resides in nearby Scottsdale, according to FEC filings. While his opponent is attempting to brand Masters as an establishment Republican, he has not been enthusiastically received by this group in the past. Last cycle, the McConnell-aligned Senate Leadership Fund canceled $9.6 million in television ads in the Arizona Senate race, and he later said “candidate quality” problems were to blame for the party’s losses in the midterm elections, specifically citing the race in Arizona.

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Marson believes Master’s previous comments during last year’s election about privatizing Social Security could come back to haunt him in this election.

“We learned during the Senate race that Blake had some issues with his social security messaging. And this district is full of retirees. So he is gonna have to spend some time explaining what he meant by his social security comments,” Marson explained.