Former Congressman J.D. Hayworth made it official today that he will run against Senator John McCain in a Republican primary for the U.S. Senate.
Flanked by Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Minutemen co-founder Chris Simcox, Hayworth made his announcement from his Phoenix campaign headquarters.
Hayworth kicked off his campaign with the announcement and will be spend the next three days touring the state trying to drum up support as he attempts to knock McCain off of the GOP ticket this November.
Simcox had also said he would be challenging McCain, but he abandoned his campaign today to get behind Hayworth.
Meanwhile, in a move some are calling political brinksmanship, McCain was holding a campaign event and a news conference of his own in Tempe at roughly the same time Hayworth was making his announcement.
Many are saying this could be the toughest fight of McCain's long political life, but the polls say otherwise.
A November Rasmussen poll had the two Repubs in a statistical dead heat, but a more recent poll conducted in late January by the Republican political affairs research firm Public Opinion Strategies, gave McCain a 29 percent lead over the ultra-conservative Hayworth.
Check the POS poll out here.
Regardless of poll numbers, watching two Republican bigshots beat the political crap out of each other for the next few months will certainly be fun to watch.
