Sen. John McCain is in the doghouse on his home turf over immigration reform and is no longer a lock to carry Arizona in the Republican presidential primary, the state’s GOP leader said yesterday.
“It’s a fight to the end. I don’t think it’s a given that McCain will win [Arizona],” state GOP chairman Randy Pullen told The Post during a New York visit.
Asked whether he could see Rudy Giuliani or another challenger pulling an upset, Pullen said, “It could happen.”
McCain infuriated fellow Arizona Republicans by backing a bill that they see as granting what would amount to amnesty to 12 million illegal aliens and failing to secure the nation’s borders. E-mails and phone calls to the Arizona GOP ran 30 to 1 against the measure.
“[He] is wrong on this issue,” Pullen said of McCain, who’s defended the bill as an improvement over the status quo.
As a result, Pullen said, Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson could make a run at McCain in his back yard.
“[He] has given them an opening,” Pullen said.
But the senator said he expects Arizona voters to support him as they have in previous elections.
Pullen, meanwhile, praised Giuliani as a proven “leader” with a “more practical approach” to immigration, one that emphasizes controlling the borders and tracking foreigners.