JOHN MCCAIN/SENATE/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Senator John McCain’s death this weekend laid bare the long-simmering Republican tensions over who will be appointed to fill his Arizona seat, pitting the pragmatic wing of the party that Mr. McCain represented against the ascendant, hard-line forces loyal to President Trump — and hostile to the late senator. On Sunday [8-26-18], a day after the senator and former prisoner of war succumbed to brain cancer, Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona issued a statement through an aide indicating he will not appoint a successor to Mr. McCain until after what is expected to be nearly a weeklong series of services in his honor — in Arizona, Washington and Annapolis, Md…With Republicans clinging to a 50-49 Senate majority, hearings on the Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh looming and Mr. Trump under intensifying legal scrutiny, Gov. Ducey’s choice carries enormous implications in Washington. And it is coming at a moment, in Arizona and beyond, when the Republican Party has rallied to the sort of nationalist and at-times nativist politics that Mr. Trump embodies and Mr. McCain scorned. The governor’s appointee will represent the state through most of 2020, when there will be a special election to fill the rest of Mr. McCain’s term, and Republicans close to Mr. Ducey indicated he is likely to pick a replacement who intends to run again rather than a caretaker to temporarily fill the seat.”
–Jonathan Martin, “Arizona Governor Faces a Tough Choice: A Senator Made From McCain’s Mold or Trump’s,” The New York Times online, August 26, 2018