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Arizona candidate said McCain family’s announcement that he would stop cancer treatments was timed to be ‘negative to me’

Phoenix • Hours before Sen. John McCain died on Saturday, a Republican seeking Arizona’s other U.S. Senate seat suggested that his family’s earlier announcement that he was ending cancer treatment had been timed to hurt her campaign.

Former State Sen. Kelli Ward, who lost a primary to McCain running from the right in 2016 and is now trying to win the GOP nomination for retiring Sen. Jeff Flake's seat, made the suggestion in response to a Facebook post by a campaign aide.

According to screenshots of the conversation posted on Twitter by Arizona political reporters, the aide, Jonathan Williams, wondered if it was "just a coincidence" that the announcement of McCain ending medical treatment came the day Ward was launching a statewide bus tour, her big push before Tuesday's primary.