Arizona Senate Primary Results: John McCain Defeats Kelli Ward

In what can be seen as a defeat for Donald Trump, Arizona Senator John McCain has defeated Kelli Ward in his primary battle.

As of 8:30 p.m., McCain was leading Ward 55 percent to 35 percent.

McCain has held his seat since 1987 and hasn't faced much re-election competition, either within his own party or from a Democratic challenger, since. His races have been little more than formalities, and he has become a mainstay of GOP politics in the years that followed.

There was a thought that that might change Tuesday. The age of Trump has not been kind to McCain, who has made several runs at the White House himself. In one of Trump's first major gasp-inducing moments on the campaign trail, he said that McCain, a Vietnam vet and POW, was "not a war hero" because he was captured.

“He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured," Trump said.

Trump has not apologized for the remarks. He did not endorse McCain in this primary election.

Polls in Arizona closed at 7 p.m. Check back with Patch as soon as polls close for live election results.

Still, McCain has offered tepid support for Trump during the general election. In March, he told CNN, "You have to listen to people that have chosen the nominee of our Republican Party. I think it would be foolish to ignore them."

He hasn't been hesitant to criticize Trump, either. Most notably, he issued a lengthy statement condemning Trump's feud with the Muslim family of an American soldier killed in Iraq.

"I cannot emphasize enough how deeply I disagree with Mr. Trump's statement," McCain said in his statement. "I hope Americans understand that the remarks do not represent the views of our Republican Party, its officers, or candidates."

But McCain, who was thought to need Trump's voters to put him over the top in the state's primary election, hasn't withdrawn his endorsement of Trump.

“I have no plans for that,” he told the Washington Post, adding, “My response to some of the things that Trump does, I don’t hesitate to speak up.”

Ward, his opponent, ran a much more Trump-ian campaign, attending the GOP nominee's rallies and taking hard-line stances on immigration and deportation.

She was elected to Arizona's state senate in January 2013 and retired in December 2015 to pursue her U.S. Senate election campaign.

A CNN/ORC survey of 413 likely Republican primary voters taken between Aug. 18 and 23 has McCain up 55 to 29 percent over Ward. That poll had a 5 percentage points margin of error.