Recent polls show Masters in a commanding position going into the primary. Four of five polls taken since mid-July show him leading self-funding Trump fan and solar-energy exec Jim Lamon by double digits (the fifth showed him up by eight points). Masters ascended into the lead after he received Trump’s endorsement in early June, and he has received enough money from Thiel to overcome Lamon’s big spending. Early front-runner Mark Brnovich, the state’s attorney general, has faded after he equivocated over Arizona’s notorious 2020 election “audit” ordered by an extremist faction in the state legislature and subsequently drew fire from Trump…

Trump’s earliest Arizona endorsee was gubernatorial candidate Lake, who, like Finchem, is a resolute 2020 election denier. She parleyed Trump’s endorsement and her decades in the public eye as a fixture in local news to take an early and steady lead until opposition to her began consolidating behind the deep pockets and Establishment support of university regent Karrin Taylor Robson. Robson got a big boost when former congressman Matt Salmon, who had been running third in many polls, dropped out and endorsed her. Another assist came when term-limited governor Doug Ducey backed Robson (a more recent endorsement from Mike Pence has been greatly exaggerated in significance by national media types trying to make this primary a mano a mano duel in the desert between the former veep and his former idol, Trump).