How Sinema's big switch could shake up the 2024 Senate map

Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema has always been idiosyncratic.

She is the first openly bisexual senator in U.S. history. She’s also the first to list her religion as “none.” When the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered salons, Sinema was the only D.C. legislator to hide her undyed hair beneath colorful wigs.

In Congress, no one else teaches cycling classes and completes Ironman triathlons on their days off. And certainly no one else has responded to critics in their own party by posting a photo of themselves sipping sangria in magenta eyeglasses and flashing a big golden ring that read “F*** Off” in gleeful cursive letters.

On Friday — just days after Democrats expanded their slim 50-50 Senate majority with Sen. Raphael Warnock’s victory in the Georgia runoff — Sinema, 46, seemingly added another bullet point to her quirkiness resume when she announced in an Arizona Republic op-ed that she is switching her party affiliation from Democratic to independent, becoming the first U.S. senator in more than a decade to make such a move.

“I have joined the growing numbers of Arizonans who reject party politics by declaring my independence from the broken partisan system in Washington,” Sinema wrote. “I have never fit perfectly in either national party. ”

But while Sinema’s shift undoubtedly satisfies her unique sense of self, it’s also a plainly political maneuver. At 16, Sinema graduated as valedictorian of her high school; at 18, she graduated from Brigham Young University. She doesn’t do anything without first calculating all of the angles.

And in this case, Sinema’s decision to leave the Democratic Party likely has less to do with how she will vote in the Senate — “Nothing will change about my values or my behavior,” she told Politico, adding that she doesn’t “anticipate that anything will change about the Senate structure” either — and more to do with how Arizona will vote in 2024.

That, of course, is when Sinema is up for reelection.

A proud centrist, Sinema has long angered progressives by refusing to stick with the Democratic program. Though she entered politics as a Ralph-Nader-supporting spokeswoman for the local Green Party who pushed against the death penalty, organized dozens of post-9/11 antiwar protests and described herself as “Prada socialist” — and though she eventually became “the most liberal member of the Arizona State Legislature,” in her own words — Sinema migrated to the middle long ago.

Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2012, Sinema was soon ranked the sixth-most-bipartisan member of the House, and the third-most-bipartisan Democrat. She was one of just half a dozen Democrats to vote for a GOP bill that would punish so-called sanctuary cities by withholding federal funds; one of just seven who voted to create a select committee to investigate the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya; and one of just three who voted to make permanent some of the cuts in President Donald Trump’s tax bill.

She even voted against Nancy Pelosi for House minority leader — twice.

In 2018, Sinema ran to replace retiring Republican Sen. Jeff Flake. During her campaign, Sinema insisted that Trump was “not a thing,” adding “it is never about party” with her. She intentionally omitted her political affiliation from her ads and pointedly refused to endorse her party’s candidate for governor; when asked if she was a “proud Democrat,” she couldn’t bring herself to answer yes.

She wound up winning more independents and more crossover voters than her Republican opponent, Martha McSally. It was enough for a 2-point victory, making her the first Democratic U.S. senator elected from Arizona in 30 years.

For Sinema, the lesson was obvious: In a purple state like Arizona, moderation is the only path to statewide success.

The problem, however, is that once Democrats won control of the White House and both chambers of Congress in 2020, party regulars expected Sinema to put President Biden’s agenda ahead of her own. She didn’t. With a puckish, performative thumbs-down, Sinema voted in March 2021 against raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, infuriating progressives who’d hoped for a leftward swerve under Biden.

She went on to kill efforts to reform the Senate’s filibuster rules — in turn, dooming federal voting-rights legislation — while refusing to accept tax increases on the wealthiest Americans (even as she played a pivotal role in bipartisan deals on infrastructure, gun safety and same-sex marriage).

As a result, Sinema’s popularity with Arizona Democrats has tanked. A September AARP poll found that just 37% of Arizona Democrats now view her favorably, compared to 57% who view her unfavorably. An earlier Data for Progress survey was even more ominous, showing that only 19% of likely Democratic primary voters — including 16% of Democrats and 29% of moderates — hold favorable views of their senior senator.

Pitted in the poll against progressive Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego, a Harvard-educated Iraq War veteran who has been openly critical of Sinema and threatened to run against her in 2024, Sinema was behind by a staggering 58 percentage points (16% to 74%).

Speaking to Politico, Sinema declined to discuss 2024. “It’s fair to say that I’m not talking about it right now,” she snapped. But given her anemic numbers in Arizona, it would be very surprising if she’s not thinking about her next election campaign. By running as an independent instead of a Democrat, Sinema would avoid a head-to-head primary contest with Gallego or another progressive, proceeding automatically to the general election.

It’s not hard to imagine Sinema’s strategy going forward. For the next two years, she uses her seat in the Senate — and whatever battles she picks with her former party — as a platform to rebrand herself not as a centrist Democrat but rather a “truly independent voice for Arizona” (as she put it on Friday in the Arizona Republic) — the real heir to “maverick” Arizona Sen. John McCain.

Eventually, Sinema announces an independent reelection campaign. That puts Arizona Democrats in a bind. Elsewhere, state Democratic parties don’t back challengers to independent Sens. Bernie Sanders (Vermont) and Angus King (Maine), who caucus with Democrats on Capitol Hill. But it may be difficult to dissuade Gallego or other progressives from taking aim at Sinema, a far less reliable — and far more maddening — vote.

Assuming Gallego (or someone like him) does run, and does end up winning the Democratic nomination, a chaotic three-way contest would follow. Sinema’s hope would be that the far-right Arizona GOP continues its self-defeating strategy of nominating divisive, radical candidates (such as losing 2022 Senate candidate Blake Masters) while Arizona Democrats veer too far left on issues like immigration, leaving her all alone to win over the bulk of voters who live somewhere in middle.

But there are no guarantees. The September AARP poll didn’t just discover that Sinema is unpopular with Democrats. Clear majorities of every imaginable demographic group in Arizona — from Latinos to women to Republicans to, yes, independents — also view her unfavorably by double-digit margins. If Sinema runs as an independent in 2024, she could conceivably split the Democratic vote instead, making it easier for an extreme Republican to get elected — and for Republicans to regain control of the Senate in what promises to be a very tough year for Democrats.

To avoid that outcome, Sinema now needs to raise her standing with non-Democrats in Arizona. So look for the senator to really lean in to her newfound “independence” in 2023 and beyond — likely in ways that will only further enrage her former party.

“If anyone previously supported me because they believed, contrary to my promise, that I would be a blindly loyal vote for a partisan agenda … then there are sure to be others vying for your support,” Sinema wrote in the Arizona Republic, previewing her most plausible reelection pitch. “I offer Arizonans something different.”