Laura Ingraham and Steve Bannon flew into Arizona on Tuesday night to rally voters to the side of a Republican taking on incumbent U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.).

Former state Sen. Kelli Ward, a Republican, is challenging Flake in the primary.

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The primary election isn’t until August 2018, but Ward is wasting no time. She’s leading Flake, a first-term senator whose poll numbers and approval ratings are the most anemic among any U.S. senator running for re-election in 2018.

“It’s time to melt the snowflake,” Ingraham told the audience, joking about Flake’s name. “Jeff Flake could not even write a book with an original title.”

Ingraham was mocking Flake for his recent book, “Conscience of a Conservative: A Rejection of Destructive Politics and a Return to Principle.” The book lifted part of the title from Arizona’s late great conservative, Sen. Barry Goldwater, who wrote “Conscience of a Conservative” in 1960, helping to define conservatism.

In the book, Flake thrashed President Donald Trump, using unusually harsh language to criticize the commander-in-chief. Ingraham reminded the crowd that Flake voted for an independent candidate over Trump in the 2016 presidential election.

“Jeff Flake stands on almost every issue diametrically opposed to President Trump,” said Ingraham. “So at this point, we are very fortunate to have a woman who is a courageous, female conservative, entrepreneur, physician, military wife.”

Ward and Bannon both touted Ingraham’s new book, “Billionaire at the Barricades: The Populist Revolution from Reagan to Trump,” which documents the populist revolt in the Republican Party. Ingraham and Bannon were eager to talk about the movement, which includes border security and fair trade deals for American workers.

Ward kicked her campaign off in style at the Hilton Scottsdale Resort outside of Phoenix. Bannon walked out to an enthusiastic crowd and warned that the Republican Establishment would try to halt populist conservatism.

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Bannon said Senate Majority Leader McConnell and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) “are trying to destroy him every day,” according to the Associated Press.

Yet their attempts to quell the anger people feel are only fueling the energy, Bannon said.

“It’s an open revolt and it should be,” said Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist. “These people hold you in total contempt. When they attack a Donald Trump and Dr. Kelli Ward, it’s not Donald Trump and Kelli Ward they’re trying to shut up, it’s you they’re trying to shut up.”

Bannon’s line about how the GOP Senate elites hold their own supporters in “total contempt” is a powerful line he has used before. Bannon’s last-minute appearance and rally arguably helped unseat U.S. Sen. Luther Strange (R-Ala.), who was appointed earlier this year to take the seat of Jeff Sessions, who became Trump’s U.S. attorney general.

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Strange had been a popular state attorney general, easily re-elected in 2014. But when he faced conservative firebrand Roy Moore, a former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice, his numbers wilted, in part because of the failure of the Senate GOP to repeal the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.

Moore won on September 26 and faces Democrat Doug Jones on December 12. McConnell has said he needs “winners” and not “losers” as Senate GOP nominees, and is fighting Bannon on who gets Senate GOP nominations in 2018.

Bannon taunted McConnell on his Rose Garden appearance on Monday with Trump, noting two GOP senators have already been removed.

“The last couple of days Mitch has been saying, ‘Hey, you got to win. Winners make policy, losers go home,'” said Bannon. “Note to self, Mitch: Big Luther Strange and little Bobby Corker are both going home. The people of Alabama and the people of Tennessee have spoken.”

(photo credit, homepage images: White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, CC BY 2.0, by Michael Vadon / Kelli Ward, CC BY-SA 2.0, by Gage Skidmore; Steve Bannon, cut out, CC BY-SA 2.0, by Gage Skidmore / Kelli WardCC BY-SA 2.0, by Gage Skidmore / Jeff FlakeCC BY-SA 2.0, by Gage Skidmore)