ED MORRISSEY: Republicans’ Arizona debacle.

The loss in Arizona highlights their tenuous hold on the key states necessary to winning the Electoral College. The losses in the “blue wall” states show that normal or higher Democratic turnout will block Trump from that path to victory, unless Clinton tries running again. Without those states, Republicans can only get to 260 votes using the 2016 election results as a template. Republicans would have to make a big push in Virginia, or perhaps some combination of Colorado, Nevada, and New Hampshire in order to get the 10 electors necessary to win without the Midwestern flips that made Trump president.

If Sinema’s win means Arizona is in play — and Trump’s 49 percent in 2016 already suggested it might be — then there is almost no place to make up the loss of those 11 electors. On top of that, the close election in Georgia’s gubernatorial race also potentially puts that state in bubble status as well, with another 16 electors at risk in a state Trump won with only 51 percent of the vote. Suddenly, Trump has gone from 306 electors to just 249 or even 233.

Arizona turning purple should have Republicans wringing their hands for the next two years.

Given all the ticket-splitting in Arizona between the gubernatorial and senate candidates, I’m not yet certain there’s a larger lesson to draw here, as Ed has done. McSally wasn’t as strong on the campaign trail as she could or should have been, and Sinema ran a smart (if fundamentally dishonest) campaign, and enjoyed serious media tailwinds. So Arizona seems to me like less of a referendum on Trump, and more of a case of all politics being local. But we’ll see.