TUCSON, Ariz. - Arizona’s Senate race has been hard fought and high dollar, as Republican Martha McSally tries to stay in the Senate and Democrat Mark Kelly works to replace her and maybe help Democrats gain majority control of the Senate.
KGUN9 On Your Side’s Craig Smith had a look at what Kelly has been doing in the final hours before the polls close.
You can see KGUN9's coverage of Martha McSally's last minute campaigning at this link.
At a Democratic Party campaign office you could see volunteers preparing for what a lot of campaigns call the ground game--going out through the neighborhoods searching for those last votes.
On this last day before election day, Democratic Senate candidate Mark Kelly met with supporters ready to find anyone who hasn’t voted early and urge them to get to the polls for election day or take their ballot to an official drop box.
COVID precautions accelerated the trend to vote by mail. Kelly estimates about eighty percent of voters have already cast their ballots.
He says, “If 99% of the votes were already in, we still would do everything we possibly can to reach out to voters who haven't turned their ballot in to encourage them to do that because it's so important for a functioning democracy to have a lot of people vote.”
Kelly says he’s campaigned for about a year and a half --- long enough for the campaign to reflect the life people lived before and after COVID.
“And our focus---Our number one priority has been public health but it hasn't been running the most effective campaign. “We want to make sure that we're not responsible for getting somebody and getting their family member sick so we're trying to run the best campaign we can under the circumstances putting public health first.”
Kelly says he will be meeting voters in Tucson and Phoenix as the time ticks away to the polls closing but at a suitable distance and without shaking hands.
