Kirsten Sinema won the Democrats a US Senate seat from Arizona for the first time in a generation, thanks in no small part to unity in her party and the divide between 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 swept the top three state offices.
But that winning formula is in jeopardy ahead of the 2024 election because of Sinema’s infighting and subsequent divorce from the Democratic Party, which could complicate President Joe Biden’s path to reelection and the party’s hopes of retaining control of the Senate. Is. She registered as an independent shortly after last year’s midterm elections.
Democrats are already expressing fears that a three-way race with Sinema taking votes from both Democrats and independents could hand the seat to Republicans like Kari Lake, an unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate and one of the nation’s most prominent pollsters. Is.
“If he once had a time to listen to his constituents, it would be now,” said Alex Gomez, executive director of the Latino organizing group Living United for Change in Arizona. “She needs to step aside. Kari Lake’s potential candidacy 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 there is already a Democratic candidate in the race 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 main opponents.
Gallego says he raised more than $1 million on his first day in the race, capitalizing on the anger among Democrats with Sinema in mind.
The Senate race isn’t the only new sign of Democratic division in the state. The Arizona Democratic Party held its first election for the chair in 12 years last month, pitting a candidate endorsed by Gov. Katie Hobbs against a candidate endorsed by the state’s other elected Democrats.
The party elected longtime union leader Yolanda Bejarano, who was appointed as the U.S. President. Sen. Mark Kelly, Gallego and others supported it, carrying on a tradition of declining a Democratic gubernatorial preference. Hobbs said Thursday that he had not spoken to Bejarano for about a week after the election.
The party discord in Arizona extends beyond the state.
Next year, Democrats, who hold a 51-49 Senate majority, are defending seats in 23 states — including seven where Donald Trump won at least once. This includes Arizona, where Trump won in 2016 but where Biden became the first Democratic presidential nominee to carry the state in more than two decades.
Sinema’s political career began with roots in the progressive left and the anti-war movement. She first ran for office as a Green Party candidate and was soundly defeated, later winning a state legislative seat as a Democrat. He introduced himself to the U.S. Rebuilt as a moderate in the House and parlayed that reputation into a Senate victory.
Her 2018 Senate victory was influenced by several factors, including the state’s changing demographics, contempt for Trump among suburban women, and Sinema’s spending advantage over Republican Martha McSally.
But McSally’s 2018 campaign strategists placed some of the blame for her loss on the Democratic unity behind Sinema and Republican infighting. With Democrats in lockstep, Sinema made a major head start in swinging voters while McSally focused on holding the GOP together to win their primary, campaign officials wrote in a memo released after the election. circulated widely.
When Sinema was sworn into office in 2019, Trump was in the White House, Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress and Democrats unified in opposition.
But his relationship with the party frayed during Biden’s presidency as he teamed up with fellow moderate Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and became a roadblock to the president’s agenda and many progressive priorities.
He is one of the Senate’s most vocal defenders of the filibuster rule, which requires 60 out of 100 votes to pass most legislation, and which many Democrats say empowers Republicans to override the will of the Democratic majority. Is.
Sinema says she is focused on crafting bipartisan deals that could eliminate any one party’s control of Congress and points to victories, including a massive infrastructure bill and same-sex Security for marriage is included.
Her transformation from liberal rabble-rouser to Democratic irritant left the base feeling outraged and betrayed just four years after her victory, leaving Arizona Democrats out cold.
“As long as Sinema is off the team, that’s what matters,” said Dave Kroes, a 67-year-old retired mechanical engineer from Sun City who voted for Sinema in 2018 but has grown disillusioned with him. “It’s a bad thing to say, but he screwed everyone in the kingdom, so payback is his hell.”
For Democrats, long locked out of the halls of power, winning was enough to paper over the ideological divide, but now they’ve shown they can win and it wasn’t a fluke.
“When you have the power, everyone wants a piece and really has something to fight for,” said Barrett Marson, a Republican political consultant in Phoenix aligned with the party’s establishment wing.
Democrats have one thing going for them: Republicans are unlikely to be any less divided than they have been since Trump took over the party in 2016.
Gallego drama has raised some uncomfortable questions as Democrats in Arizona and Washington try to choose sides.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y, said after Gallego’s announcement that it was “too early to decide” about the 2024 race.
Kelly also declined to delve too deeply into the dynamics of a potential three-way race, saying there is “plenty of time” to sort it out.
“I am not going any further than Sen Sinema in this matter,” he told reporters at the Capitol. “I’m going to work with both of them.”
Notably, however, Hobbs subtly suggested that she would not support her old friend Sinema. Hobbs and Sinema are both former activists who campaigned together for the state legislature a decade earlier, with Sinema elected to the Senate and Hobbs to the House.
Congratulating the new leadership team of the Arizona Democratic Party on Twitter, Hobbs wrote that he looked forward to helping the party “win back our US House and Senate seats.”