Report: Peter Thiel Throws $3.5M More Behind Blake Masters Following Boost in Polls
Venture capitalist and GOP megadonor Peter Thiel put an additional $3.5 million into the super PAC supporting Blake Masters for his run in Arizona’s competitive Republican Senate primary, according to the Washington Post.
The additional $3.5 million into the super PAC supporting Masters, Saving Arizona, would bring his total to $13.5 million invested in the race for the Republican candidate. Thiel initially gave Saving Arizona $10 million over a year ago when it started to support Masters, a friend and former employee of the mega-donor.
The Post report of Thiel’s cash injection occurs as Breitbart News exclusively reported that Masters took a clear lead in the polls for the U.S. Senate primary, edging past Attorney General Mark Brnovich and businessman Jim Lamon.
The poll was conducted for Saving Arizona, the same super PAC that reportedly received Thiel’s extra $3.5 million. The poll showed Masters with a four-point lead ahead of his two opponents. Masters showed 22 percent in the survey against Brnovich and Lamon, who both showed 18 percent. The poll had a 3.46 percent margin of error and showed other candidates, Mick McGuire, with seven percent, and Justin Olson with two percent — 34 percent were undecided.
The Venture capitalist reportedly increased his initial seed money for the super PAC after J.D. Vance’s May 3 primary victory in the Ohio Republican Senate primary.
Thiel similarly funded a super PAC supporting Vance with $10 million, which received an additional $3.5 million after securing an endorsement from former President Donald Trump — an endorsement Masters is also vying for — and another $1.5 million in the final days of the primary. Vance, like Masters, is also a friend and former employee of Thiel.
Following Vance’s win, Thiel and Trump spoke on the phone about the win, according to a person who talked to the Post under the condition of anonymity. In his time helping his friends and former employees, Thiel has been able to accompany both candidates during their respective meetings with the former president.
“People close to Masters say the money helps make him viable, and provides a symbolic boost, but is nowhere near as consequential as what Trump decides to do,” the Post stated. The winner of the Republican primary would go on to face Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) in November.
Thiel, the first major investor in Facebook, which has since rebranded as “Meta,” recently stepped down from the board of directors for the social media giant to focus on supporting Republican political candidates in 2022 midterms, such as Vance and Masters.
Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.
Exclusive — Poll: Blake Masters Takes Lead in Arizona GOP Senate Primary
Blake Masters has taken a clear lead in Arizona’s Republican U.S. Senate primary, edging past Attorney General Mark Brnovich and businessman Jim Lamon, a new poll provided exclusively to Breitbart News ahead of its public release shows.
The poll, conducted for the pro-Masters Super PAC Saving Arizona PAC, shows Masters with a four-point lead over both Brnovich and Lamon. Masters, at 22 percent, leads both Brnovich and Lamon — both of whom are at 18 percent — by more than the poll’s 3.46 percent margin of error. Another candidate, Mick McGuire, is down at seven percent and Justin Olson is at two percent, while 34 percent are undecided.
The poll, conducted by the highly respected Fabrizio, Lee, and Associates, from May 17 to May 18, surveyed 800 likely voters ahead of the forthcoming August 2 primary. The polling firm is highly respected in that it accurately captured several other major races this cycle, including most notably accurately portraying the Ohio GOP U.S. Senate primary in the lead-up to J.D. Vance’s victory there earlier in May. The firm has also conducted polls for former President Donald Trump.
5-22 AZ Senate GOP Primary Memo – Final by Breitbart News on Scribd
“We found that Blake Masters is quite popular with RPV [Republican primary voters] in as far as he is known and continues to lead in the GOP primary for U.S. Senate, buoyed by those who are aware of recent ads about him, underlying the efficacy of pro-Masters communications being delivered to the RPV electorate,” pollsters Tony Fabrizio, David Lee, and Travis Tunis wrote in the polling memo provided to Breitbart News.
This poll comes on the heels of a previous survey from March that also showed Masters in the lead but inside the margin of error back then. Now, his lead is convincing and just outside of the margin of error — meaning Masters has now emerged as the undisputed frontrunner in the lead-up to Memorial Day weekend in the final two months of the campaign.
The poll also found that Blake Masters has high favorability ratings, with 42 percent viewing him favorably with only 18 percent viewing him unfavorably — a number that rises even higher among those who have recently seen pro-Masters advertisements. Among those who have seen the ads, his favorability rises to 57 percent and his unfavorable rating only rises to 26 percent.
Among those who have seen Masters’s ads, too, he takes an even more convincing lead over Brnovich and Lamon. In that sub-group, Masters leads the field even more so at 31 percent, with Lamon in a distant second place down at 21 percent and Brnovich at just 19 percent.
The survey also found that Trump remains incredibly popular among Arizona Republicans, with an approval rating of 88 percent — and just 11 percent who disapprove — basically unchanged from the earlier survey in March.
Arizona businessman Jim Lamon, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, speaks to supporters as he accepts an endorsement from law enforcement groups in Phoenix on Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021. (AP Photo/Jonathan J. Cooper)
This reputable poll’s release also comes as, Breitbart News has learned, Lamon’s team intends to release a not-so-reputable push poll to try to counter the narrative that Masters is taking off. Screenshots of the online poll — which is reportedly being done by Lamon’s team under the banner of “Remington Research Group” in the same manner in which Lamon has previously released such polls and other failing candidates like Ohio’s Josh Mandel and Missouri’s Eric Schmitt and others have done — shows them testing several attacks against Masters.
These polls, however, are incredibly unreliable as evidenced by one late Ohio poll that showed Mandel leading before the Trump endorsement of Ohio’s J.D. Vance and claiming that Trump backing Vance would only boost the now-Republican nominee by just a few percent. Obviously, that turned out to be inaccurate. One of the attacks being tested against Masters directly mirrors a Lamon campaign television ad that claims Masters is a “puppet” of Big Tech because of his ties to Peter Thiel, one of his biggest benefactors. That pro-Lamon push poll is expected to be released in the coming days.
Large Migrant Group Apprehended in AZ Desert Mountains near Border
Tucson Sector Border Patrol agents apprehended a large group of migrants attempting to sneak into the U.S. interior after crossing the Mexican border into Arizona. Due to the rugged terrain of the mountainous region, a CBP Air and Marine Operations helicopter crew provided transportation into the area for the agents.
Tucson Sector Chief Patrol Agent John R. Modlin tweeted images of a group of migrants being apprehended by agents near Nogales, Arizona. A CBP AMO helicopter aircrew airlifted Border Search, Trauma, and Rescue (BORSTAR) agents along with Border Patrol Tactical (BORTAC) agents into the mountainous region located west of Nogales in response to multiple 911 calls.
The agents located the 23 migrants and took them into custody. The photos showed the migrants wearing camouflage to avoid detection and apprehension.
During the month of April, the most recent information available from CBP, Tucson Sector agents apprehended 25,237 migrants. This represents an increase of nearly 25 percent over the previous April, according to the April Southwest Land Border Encounters Report. This raised made Tucson the third busiest of the nine southwest border sectors.
The 25,000 plus apprehensions raised the sector’s year-to-date total to 147,860 migrants — an increase of 47.2 percent over the same period last year.
So far this year, Border Patrol agents apprehended more than 1.2 million migrants along the southwest border with Mexico. The record-setting total is a near 68 percent jump over the same period in FY21.
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior news contributor for the Breitbart Texas-Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s What’s Your Point? Sunday-morning talk show. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Face
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