A leaked recording shakes up the Republican Party in Arizona

“WE’D LIKEAZGOPTV to share with you that we have a brand-new chair, Jeff DeWit,” said the recorded greeting on the voicemail of the Arizona Republican Party. “He is wonderful to work for, and I know you will be happy getting to know him.” But the recording, still playing on January 25th, was doubly outdated. Mr DeWit was hardly “brand-new”: he had taken over as party chair a year before (with Donald Trump’s backing), promising to unite the party’s feuding factions. More important, he had resigned the previous day, after what amounted to a coup orchestrated by the party’s likely candidate for Senate, Kari Lake—amid drama worthy of reality .Arizona will be a critical state in the elections in November. “There’s no path to the White House that doesn’t run through Arizona,” says Caroline Wren, an adviser to Ms Lake. “And Arizona might well be the 51st Senate seat,” determining whether or not Republicans can wrest back control.