NEW CHANCE FOR MARTHA? – AT 11:52 A.M. ET:  Arizona just held a special Senate election to fill the seat being vacated by the terminally obnoxious Jeff Flake.  Sadly, ultra-liberal Kyrsten Sinema, posing as a moderate, defeated Air Force heroine Martha McSally, who ran a poor campaign.

However, there's new hope for Martha.  Former Senator Jon Kyl has been temporarily filling the seat made vacant by the death of John McCain.  He's now announced his resignation, and the word in Arizona is that the Republican governor may appoint McSally to fill out McCain's term.  It would be a good move.  From CNN:

Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl will step down from the US Senate at the end of this year, a few months after being appointed to fill the late Sen. John McCain's seat.

Kyl wrote in a letter Wednesday to Arizona Gov. Doug Doucey that he will resign from the US Senate effective December 31, 2018.

Ducey, a Republican who was just re-elected to a second term, will now pick a replacement to serve until 2020, when there will be an election to fill the remaining two years of McCain's term.

"When I accepted your appointment, I agreed to complete the work of the 115th Congress and reevaluate continuing to serve," Kyl wrote in his letter to Ducey, released by the governor's office Friday. . "I have concluded that it would be best if I resign so that your new appointee can begin the new term with all other Senators in January 2019 and can serve a full two (potentially four) years."

In September, Ducey tapped Kyl to temporarily replace McCain, who died in August -- just two years into his sixth Senate term. At the time, Kyl committed to serving through at least this year and said from the start that he would not run for re-election in 2020.

And...

The governor's office said a replacement to the seat will be announced in the near future. Arizona law requires Ducey to pick an appointee that is the "same political party as the person vacating the office."

A month ago, before Kyl's decision was announced, Rep. Martha McSally emerged as one of several possible replacements after losing a Senate race to fill outgoing Sen. Jeff Flake's seat to Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been leveraging his political power to try to convince Ducey to choose McSally, several Republican sources told CNN.

COMMENT:  I'd be very disappointed, and so will many Republicans, if the governor does not pick Martha.  True, she ran a mediocre campaign, but she still came within a hair of winning.  And she's an outstanding person, the first American woman to fly in combat.

December 14,  2018