Sen. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) is shaking up her campaign team ahead of her 2020 race, turning the page on her disappointing loss last year as she tries to protect a critical battleground Senate seat.
Terry Nelson, a veteran strategist and managing partner at FP1 Strategies, will take on the role of general consultant to McSally’s campaign, according to multiple people familiar with the hire.
Nelson was previously national political director on President George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign and a political director at the National Republican Congressional Committee. Nelson’s firm was part of McSally’s campaign team last year.Nelson is replacing Jeff Roe as the senator's top consultant. Roe led McSally’s operation last year and also ran her numerous congressional campaigns, and will remain as an adviser to the senator. Nelson was brought on by McSally last week and is expected to take a thorough look at her campaign team in the coming weeks and months, according to people familiar with the campaign.
Nelson and a McSally spokesperson declined to comment.
McSally lost to Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema last fall, but she was appointed several weeks later to fill late Sen. John McCain’s former seat. She is running next year to complete the final two years of that term and already faces a high-profile Democratic challenger, former astronaut Mark Kelly, in what will likely be one of the most expensive and closely watched campaigns of the cycle in an emerging presidential battleground state.
There was frustration about Roe’s continued presence leading the campaign team in some Republican circles — including the National Republican Senatorial Committee, allies of Senate leadership and some party donors — according to multiple Republican officials.
Some of these Republicans were eager for different leadership on McSally’s campaign this cycle after disagreements over the campaign's operation last year in a race McSally lost by 2 percentage points.Multiple Republicans emphasized, however, that outside calls for a leadership change did not pressure McSally into the decision. She faced similar pressure immediately following the 2018 loss and prior to her appointment, but kept her team then.
“Anyone who knows Martha McSally knows that she calls the shots and is the commander of her team. Martha believes Terry puts her in the best position to win,” said a person familiar with the campaign who requested anonymity to discuss internal matters. “Martha has empowered him to evaluate all roles and responsibilities for the entire team.”
Roe said in a statement that after working closely with McSally for six years, he was “so proud of her victories and mournful of my losses.” Roe said his top objective is to keep McSally in the Senate and said he told her last month he thought she should bring on another lead strategist, and he should move to role as a senior adviser. He called Nelson the “right person at the right time” for the coming race.
“Being the [general consultant] at the highest levels of politics means you want the ball in your hand when it matters. It also means you know when to put others in charge,” Roe said.
In addition to changing her top consultant, McSally also brought on several additional hires recently: Dillon Lefler will be deputy campaign manager and Hunter Mullins will be political director, according to two people familiar with the hires. Lefler previously worked in Arizona for campaigns for McCain and former Sen. Jeff Flake, and Mullins was most recently at the Republican Governors Association.
The new hires underscore McSally’s effort to approach her reelection as an incumbent differently than her first campaign for Senate. McSally had been under pressure from Republicans at multiple levels of the party, both in Arizona and Washington, to make changes after the 2018 loss. There were some Republicans frustrated by her campaign's operation last year who were equally vexed by a memo published after the election that largely blamed the loss on external factors.
Allies of Senate leadership are supportive of the new campaign structure, according to multiple Republican strategists, and believe McSally’s new team puts her in a better position to defend the seat against Kelly, the top Democratic recruit this cycle.
Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine