Sen. Kyrsten Sinema rails on Republicans, then turns to GOP fundraisers for help

Fresh off the defeat of her border security bill that she blamed on Republicans, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema was scheduled to hold a campaign fundraiser Friday with a Phoenix couple supportive of former President Donald Trump and other GOP candidates.

The private event in north-central Phoenix will not proceed as originally scheduled because the Senate is now set to vote Friday on aid packages for the wars in Ukraine and Israel, provisions that had been in Sinema’s ill-fated bill.

The campaign fundraiser was scheduled to offer tacos and tequila and a chance to meet Sinema, I-Ariz., who hasn’t publicly said whether she intends to run for reelection.

The event was to be hosted by Eric and Macall Stenson, who have given at least $67,000 to various federal campaigns since 2016, all of it to Republicans except for two contributions to Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz.

The planned fundraiser is another indication that while Sinema remains publicly undeclared about her political future, over the past year her campaign has raised and spent millions, largely from donors who can provide her relatively sizable support.

It also shows that while Sinema complained Wednesday about Republicans blocking her bipartisan border security bill, she is allied with some of their same donors.

Is Sen. Sinema running for reelection? Her worst fundraising quarter in 3 years is raising doubts about reelection

A Sinema spokesperson did not clarify whether the fundraiser was canceled or rescheduled. Eric Stenson could not be reached for comment on Thursday.

Sinema’s fundraising operation has slumped since she quit the Democratic Party in December 2022. In the final three months of 2023, her campaign raised its lowest quarterly sum in three years and two of those challenging for her seat — Democrat Ruben Gallego and Republican Kari Lake — significantly outraised her. She still had $10.6 million in cash entering 2024, the most of any of her challengers.

But her campaign is approaching a critical crossroads: If she plans to run for reelection, she must gather at least 42,000 signatures from eligible voters by early April. That is an undertaking that takes weeks, gets more expensive as the calendar slips away and hasn’t begun.

In the meantime, Sinema’s campaign has continued raising money for a run that isn’t declared. On Wednesday, for example, her campaign solicited contributions off the Senate’s failure to pass the bipartisan bill she helped negotiate.

Eric Stenson, the CEO of Stenson Tamaddon, an accounting and financial consulting firm based in Phoenix, was already on board. He gave Sinema’s campaign a net $5,500 last year, records show.

His support for Sinema came in October, six days after he gave a committee aligned with Trump $1,000. In November, he gave the same Trump committee another $1,500.

Eric Stenson gave Trump-aligned committees $1,300 in the 2020 election cycle and $2,200 in the 2016 cycle.

Trump called on Republicans to reject Sinema’s bill, saying he did not want to hand President Joe Biden a legislative victory in an election year.

Two weeks before giving to Sinema, Eric Stenson gave $3,300 to Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. Cruz voted against Sinema’s border bill. She suggested his state, not hers, should be the backdrop for unserious rhetoric about doing something about the border.

“I have a very clear message for anyone using the southern border for staged political events,” Sinema said Wednesday from the Senate. “Don’t come to Arizona. Take your political theater to Texas. Do not bring it to my state because in Arizona we’re serious. We don’t have time for your political games.”

In December, Eric Stenson gave $1,000 to Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., the fourth-highest ranking Republican in House leadership and someone who is sometimes mentioned as a possible running mate for Trump.

Stefanik is among the many Republicans who have complained about border conditions.

“This is a national crisis,” she said Jan. 30. “Every single community has turned into a border community because of the open-border policies of (President) Joe Biden.”

Days later, she issued a joint statement with others in GOP leadership that said Sinema’s bill “fails in every policy area needed to secure our border and would actually incentivize more illegal immigration.”

Since 2021, both Stensons have combined to give Rep. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., $24,800. In 2022, Eric Stenson gave $1,000 to Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz.

The same year, he gave to both sides in Arizona’s Senate race.

In June 2022, he gave Kelly, a Democrat, $2,500. Four months later, he gave Kelly’s challenger, Republican Blake Masters, $2,900. He gave Kelly $250 in 2020 as well in the only other money Eric Stenson apparently has given Democrats since 2016.

The Stensons also have showered money on Trump’s only remaining prominent opponent for the Republican presidential nomination, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. A year ago, they each gave Haley $6,600.

The Stensons have also helped underwrite Republicans in state-level races.

Eric Stenson gave former Rep. Matt Salmon’s gubernatorial campaign $5,300 in 2021. Macall Stenson gave Salmon $4,300 as well.

Eric Stenson gave $2,000 to Michelle Ugenti-Rita’s bid for secretary of state in 2021 and Beau Lane’s campaign for the same office in 2022.

Eric Stenson told The Arizona Republic in 2022 that he created his firm in 2020, partly in response to the flow of federally funded business loans at the outbreak of the pandemic.

“It caused me to look closely at the CARES Act. I had a curiosity as to what Congress was doing to help small businesses and thought it was amazing for Congress to respond that quickly to get stimulus money into the economy,” he said then. “And a lightbulb went off.”

Stenson Tamaddon formed to help small and medium businesses secure economic stimulus benefits available to them.

Last year an investor tied to Eric Stenson bought the building that houses The Arizona Republic that had been owned by another group, according to the Phoenix Business Journal. Stenson plans to make part of the downtown building his company’s new headquarters later this year, according to the Real Deal, a real estate news website.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: AZ Senate race: GOP donors holding fundraiser for Sen. Kyrsten Sinema