Sinema split puts Dems on hot seat
Fears of losing Senate seat on rise in Arizona
PHOENIX — Kyrsten Sinema won Democrats a U.S. Senate seat from Arizona for the first time in a generation thanks in no small part to unity in her party and division among Republicans.
That Democratic unity of 2018 was on display again in the next two election cycles as the party picked up Arizona’s other Senate seat and won the top three state offices.
But that winning formula is in jeopardy ahead of the 2024 election because of Sinema’s estrangement and subsequent divorce from the Democratic Party, which could complicate President Joe Biden’s path to re-election and the party’s hopes for maintaining control of the Senate. She registered as an independent shortly after last year’s midterm elections.
Democrats are already voicing fears that a three-way race with Sinema picking up votes from Democrats and independents could hand the seat to a Republican such as Kari Lake, the failed gubernatorial candidate and one of the country’s most prominent election deniers.
“If there were ever a time for her to listen to her constituents for once, it’d be now,” said Alex Gomez, executive director of the Latino organizing group Living United for Change in Arizona, which has tangled with Sinema for years. “She needs to step aside. The potential candidacy of a Kari Lake presents a clear and present danger to our democracy.”
Sinema has not said whether she will seek re-election, and Lake has not announced a Senate campaign. But the race already has a Democratic candidate in U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego, a Latino military veteran who kicked off his campaign last month after spending years as one of Sinema’s chief antagonists.
Gallego says he raised more than $1 million on his first day in the race, capitalizing on pent-up anger with Sinema among Democrats.
Next year, Democrats, who have a narrow 51-49 Senate majority, are defending seats in 23 states — including seven where Donald Trump won at least once. That includes Arizona, where Trump won in 2016 but where Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state in more than two decades.
Sinema’s 2018 Senate win was fueled by a number of factors, including the state’s changing demographics, contempt for Trump among suburban women and Sinema’s spending advantage over Republican Martha Mcsally.
When Sinema was sworn into office in 2019, Trump was in the White House, Republicans were in control of both chambers of Congress and Democrats were unified in opposition.
But her relationship with the party ruptured during Biden’s presidency as she teamed up with fellow moderate Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and became a roadblock for parts of the president’s agenda and many progressive priorities.
Her transformation from liberal rabble-rouser into Democratic irritant has left the base feeling angry and betrayed just four years after her victory brought Arizona Democrats in from the cold.
“As long as Sinema’s off the team, that’s all that matters,” said Dave Crose, a 67-year-old retired mechanical engineer from Sun City who voted for Sinema in 2018 but has grown disillusioned with her. “That’s a bad thing to say, but she screwed everyone in the state, so payback’s her hell.”