WASHINGTON — Cindy McCain, the widow of Senator John McCain of Arizona, formally endorsed Joseph R. Biden Jr. for president on Tuesday, praising th
WASHINGTON — Cindy McCain, the widow of Senator John McCain of Arizona, formally endorsed Joseph R. Biden Jr. for president on Tuesday, praising the “character and integrity” of her late husband’s longtime pal and colleague whereas voicing her unease with President Trump.
Ms. McCain, who spoke in a video on the Democratic conference final month, mentioned in a phone interview that she had been unsure about how public a job she would play on this 12 months’s marketing campaign. However after studying stories this month that described Mr. Trump denigrating members of the navy, she mentioned, she turned “increasingly pissed off” with the president.
“An important factor that moved me a terrific deal was speaking about troops’ being ‘losers,’” Ms. McCain mentioned, referring to an article in The Atlantic. “You already know now we have kids within the navy, as did the Bidens.”
She added, “I need my president to have my again, and I don’t imagine that’s the case proper now.”
The McCains’ two sons, Jack and James, each served within the armed forces, and Mr. Biden’s son Beau served within the Nationwide Guard, together with a tour of obligation in Iraq. Beau Biden died of mind most cancers in 2015.
Ms. McCain mentioned she was planning to actively assist Mr. Biden and would take part in digital marketing campaign occasions and be part of him when he seems in Arizona, which is seen as a swing state this 12 months.
Her help for the previous vice chairman, who she recalled launched her to Mr. McCain on a congressional delegation journey over 40 years in the past, was not stunning, given her husband’s frequent clashes with Mr. Trump. Nonetheless, Ms. McCain’s full-throated endorsement and her willingness to stump on Mr. Biden’s behalf illustrated how a lot the articles about Mr. Trump’s disregard for veterans, which he denies, stung navy households.
A few of these stories, together with the unique revelations in The Atlantic, additionally detailed Mr. Trump’s contempt for Mr. McCain. After Mr. McCain’s loss of life in 2018, the journal reported citing unidentified individuals, Mr. Trump grew offended seeing that flags had been at half-staff, saying, “We’re not going to help that loser’s funeral.”
Requested whether or not she had thought-about Mr. Trump’s response to her endorsement of Mr. Biden, Ms. McCain mentioned she would simply “snicker it off” if the president attacked her in one among his “5 within the morning” tweets.
She might have probably the most affect in her native Arizona, the place her household has lengthy owned a beer distributorship and which Mr. McCain represented in Congress for 35 years.
Mr. Biden has been competing extra aggressively within the state than another latest Democratic presidential nominee and has led in each respected ballot of the state, which has not backed a Democratic candidate for president since 1996. The previous vice chairman now enjoys the general public help of an array of outstanding present and former Arizona Republicans, together with former Senator Jeff Flake and former Consultant Jim Kolbe, who lengthy represented the state in Congress, and the onetime state lawyer normal Grant Woods.
If Arizona flips this 12 months, it will enormously complicate Mr. Trump’s electoral map, given his present difficulties within the industrial Midwestern states he narrowly carried 4 years in the past.
Democrats may additionally decide up the Senate seat in Arizona that Mr. McCain lengthy held and is now held by Senator Martha McSally, who was appointed to switch him.
Ms. McSally has sought to straddle the extra reasonable McCain wing of the Arizona Republican Occasion and the hard-line supporters of Mr. Trump. However her refusal to defend Mr. McCain extra vociferously within the face of Mr. Trump’s assaults, which he has saved up even in latest weeks, has angered the McCain household.
Ms. McCain, requested whether or not she would help Ms. McSally, who has constantly trailed within the polls behind Mark Kelly, the Democratic challenger, flatly mentioned no. “I’ve no real interest in it,” she mentioned.