Sinema bows out of Arizona Senate race
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, the Democrat turned independent who cut bipartisan deals that cemented parts of President Joe Biden’s agenda but also stymied some of her former party’s highest priorities, said Tuesday that she would not seek reelection.
Her announcement ended a year of speculation about her future in a politically competitive state. It cleared the field for a traditional matchup in the high-stakes battle for control of the Senate, between a more conventional Democrat, Rep. Ruben Gallego, and the eventual Republican nominee.
“Because I choose civility, understanding, listening, working together to get stuff done, I will leave the Senate at the end of this year,” she said in a video announcement.
Sinema, a first-term senator who left the Democratic Party in 2022, faced potentially long odds in a three-way race for reelection as Democrats fight to maintain control of the Senate. Recent polling found her trailing both Gallego and Kari Lake, the favorite for the Republican nomination who is an acolyte of former President Donald Trump and has championed his baseless election fraud claims.
Her decision to bow out now sets up a more direct showdown, likely between Gallego and Lake — though Mark Lamb, a sheriff, is also seeking the Republican nomination.
Sen. Steve Daines of Montana, who heads Republicans’ Senate campaign committee, argued that Sinema’s decision not
PHOENIX >> to run would boost Lake, who is endorsed by his National Republican Senatorial Committee.
“With recent polling showing Kyrsten Sinema pulling far more Republican voters than Democrat voters, her decision to retire improves Kari Lake’s opportunity to flip this seat,” Daines said in a statement.
But Stan Barnes, a former Republican legislator and lobbyist for Copper State Consulting Group, a Phoenix-based firm, said the advantage would go to the Democrats, whose votes might otherwise have been split between Sinema and Gallego.
“When it comes to the U.S. Senate in Arizona, Democrats are mostly unified and Republicans are decidedly fractured,” Barnes said. “This means: advantage Gallego.”
In a statement, Gallego kept his focus on criticizing Lake, while thanking Sinema for her service to Arizona.
“Democrats, independents and Republicans alike are coming together and rejecting Kari Lake and her dangerous positions,” he said.
Lake, in a statement, tried to contrast Sinema favorably with Gallego. She praised the senator’s “courage to stand tall against the far left in defense of the filibuster — despite the overwhelming pressure from the radicals in her party like Ruben Gallego, who called on her to burn it all down.”
Sinema continued to align with Democrats after leaving the party, maintaining her committee seats and providing decisive votes for key parts of Biden’s agenda. She stood by Democrats on most social policies and supported Biden’s judicial nominees. But she also angered leaders of her former party by opposing major Democratic priorities, including efforts to raise taxes on corporations and attempts to weaken the filibuster to push through major voting legislation, among other policies.
In a statement Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Sinema had “blazed a trail of accomplishments in the Senate,” citing her work on Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, his major infrastructure law and a law mandating federal recognition for same-sex marriages.
Sinema took pride in her relationships with centrist Republicans. She played a critical role in brokering a breakthrough bipartisan package earlier this year to clamp down on migration across the United States border with Mexico while providing fresh aid to Ukraine and other U.S. allies — a bill that Republicans demanded and then quickly tanked.
In the wake of its demise, Sinema appeared disillusioned and angry, having watched some of the Republicans she had worked closely with in cutting the deal swiftly turn against it.