Political Campaigns
See also: United States Senate election in Arizona, 2006, United States Senate election in Arizona, 2000, and United States Senate election in Arizona, 1994Kyl was first elected to the Senate in 1994, defeating Samuel G. Coppersmith (D), then a member of the House of Representatives, 54% to 40%. Libertarian Party candidate Scott Grainger got 6% of the votes.
Kyl was reelected in 2000 without major-party opposition, with 79.3% of the vote. Independent William Toel got 7.8%; Green Party candidate Vance Hansen also got 7.8%; and Barry Hess of the Libertarian Party got 5.1%.
On November 7, 2006, Kyl defeated real estate developer and former Arizona Democratic Party chairman Jim Pederson to win his third term in the Senate. Kyl won with 53.3% of the vote; Pederson received 43.5%; and Libertarian Party candidate Richard Mack received 3.2%. The race was one of the most expensive in Arizona history, with Kyl raising more than $15 million and Pederson raising just shy of that amount.
A major issue in the campaign was illegal immigration. While in the Senate, Kyl cosponsored legislation that would give illegal immigrants up to five years to leave the country. Once there, they could apply for permanent residence or be guest workers. Since fellow Arizona Senator John McCain opposed this legislation, Pederson tried to use the issue as a way of allying with McCain and dividing the Republicans in Arizona. Controversy also arose when each candidate accused the other of supporting the amnesty provisions in a 1986 immigration bill, although both candidates deny ever supporting those provisions.
Kyl appeared in the U.S. national news near the end of the campaign as an example of a case where some bloggers were attempting to influence search engine results for searches on Kyl's name, using Google bombs.
Read more about this topic: Jon Kyl
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