Will Kyrsten Sinema’s exit actually make it easier for Democrats in Arizona?
Word is that they just don't like her down there
Welcome to a Thursday evening edition of Progress Report.
This will come as a shock to many of you, I’m sure, but I’m saddened to bring the news that Elon Musk is not actually dedicated to protecting free speech. The unhinged billionaire went on a rampage this evening on his new social media platform this evening, dropping the Twitter ban hammer on nearly a dozen journalists who have actively covered both his time turning the app into a hub for Nazis and setting Tesla on fire all the while.
I’m guessing he’ll bring them back at some point, if only because Twitter needs media elites to continue to matter as a social platform, but nothing can obscure just how idiotic and thin-skinned he has proven himself over the past few months. If nothing else, my hope is that this disaster destroys the myth that great wealth is always earned and always indicative of great genius. The guy is a phony dope.
Speaking of phonies, tonight we’ve got a reported piece on the fallout from Kyrsten Sinema’s defection from the Democratic Party to “Arizona Independent.” I spoke with folks in the state about whether they saw this coming, how Arizonans have reacted to her time in office, and what will happen in the 2024 election.
Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s decision last week to register as an independent was the latest twist in what has become a two-year psychodrama with Democrats in Washington. For most political observers, the announcement was surprising, if not shocking, but back home in Arizona, the divorce is the conclusion of what was an uneasy marriage from the start.
“I was working crazy hours leading up to Election Day [in 2018], coordinating a big SMS program, people were out there knocking doors in 110 degree heat, and I knew at the time that she was not someone who I was always going to agree with,” says Emily Kirkland, the former director of the grassroots organization Arizona Progress. “That was clear. But the expectation was that at a minimum she was going to be a Democrat and support the priorities of a Democratic president.”
With the end of the Democratic trifecta less than a month away, the list of major Biden administration priorities that Sinema has sunk is longer than the ones she’s supported. Her steadfast refusal to bend on the arcane filibuster rule doomed Democrats’ last chance at passing essential protections for voting and reproductive rights for what could be at least a decade. Sinema’s unyielding devotion to protecting the profit margins and personal fortunes of the nation’s wealthiest few resulted in the gutting of several policies meant to narrow unprecedented income inequality.
How did this happen? How did it get this bad?
“Understanding Kyrsten Sinema’s motivations has become a parlor game,” Kirkland, who is now advising the Replace Sinema PAC, says. “I almost wish that it was easier to understand her motivations, even if I disagreed with them. But the truth is that it's hard to trace it back to anything other than a desire for attention and a desire to please wealthy donors. Those are the only two things that seem to really motivate her.”
Known for being a savvy if unloved political operator in the state legislature, Sinema amassed a moderate but not obstinate record during her three terms in Congress. When she ran for Senate, the state Democratic Party cleared the field for her — Sinema refused to debate any primary candidates — and she ran a scripted campaign that did little to engage with the press or public.
In hindsight, Sinema’s elusiveness was a sign of things to come, and for people that were involved in the campaign, the last two years of her reciting disingenuous paeans to bipartisanship while doing the bidding of Wall Street and pharmaceutical companies lines up with their experience.
“Everything she says is message-tested and poll-tested,” Sacha Haworth, who served for a time as Sinema’s campaign comms director in 2018, tells Progress Report. “She promised to be an ‘independent voice’ for Arizonans. That's the line that she would repeat over and over. But she also campaigned on protecting and lowering costs for health care and campaigned on an immigration deal. Yet the deal she was just working on would have extended Trump’s detention centers for asylum seekers.
“I would guarantee you that she didn't take a single meeting with a group in Arizona that works on [immigration] issues before she came to that conclusion,” Haworth, also an adviser to the Replace Sinema PAC, adds. “You can see this is a pattern over and over again, she essentially just burns the bridges behind her and doesn't acknowledge people who have worked to work to get her elected.”
There’s little chance that Haworth is wrong about Sinema’s not meeting with immigration activists. Organizers in Arizona describe a nonexistent relationship with the senator, who closed most of her offices in the state and tenaciously avoided any and all communication with activists, even when they followed her from lavish fundraiser to lavish fundraiser.
Arizona was roiled last year by quack right-wing conspiracy theorists that attempted to overturn its elections through absurd “audits” run by fraudsters, a process that would have been funny had it not been a serious threat to elective democracy. Sinema’s stonewalling of voting rights prompted a wave of protests, sit-ins, and arrests in the summer of 2021, culminating in the state Democratic Party voting to censure her this past January.
It was at that point that conversations about running a more progressive primary challenger against Sinema began to bubble to the surface, and this past summer, it was Sinema’s last-minute insistence on weakening drug price provisions and protecting tax loopholes for private equity that activated the Primary Sinema campaign in earnest.
Whether Sinema decided to register as an independent as a plea for attention or to avoid what had become an inevitable primary challenge, it has in some ways scrambled the party’s plans going into the 2024 elections. Pundits have suggested that Democrats may have to reluctantly back Sinema out of fear of splitting the vote and letting a Republican win with a plurality, but there’s a reason why the Primary Sinema campaign quickly changed its name to Replace Sinema.
“I think Democrats are incredibly frustrated, and that is absolutely true of more moderate or centrist Democrats who are seeing her block President Biden's agenda,” Kirkland says. “It's not about a progressive or center split within the Democratic party here at all. And then you have a set of Republicans tied to the Chamber of Commerce who will sing her praises in public, but ultimately are going to vote for a Republican over her. She doesn't have a base.”
Polling numbers support that thesis, with Democrats in Arizona recently registering just a 7% approval rating for the senator who no longer identifies with their party and Republicans giving her just a 27% approval rating. Kirkland suggests that as Arizona Republicans continue to nominate far-right lunatics like Kari Lake and Blake Masters, more moderate GOP voters could deflect to Sinema, resulting in Sinema taking more of the Republican vote than Democratic vote.
Whether it’s Rep. Ruben Gallego or someone else, there will be a Democratic candidate running in Arizona in 2024, and their campaign, with or without Sinema running as an independent, there’s a confidence right now that more progressive policies can be winners in what was once a very red state.
Some of that confidence comes from the successful re-election of Sen. Mark Kelly, who while no progressive, voted like a loyal Democrat in his first two years in the Senate and won his race against Blake Masters by five points. Ironically, the popular issues that the party pushed most actively this fall were still on the table thanks to Sinema’s obstinance and corruption, and will likely be a big part of their campaign against her in 2024.
In the meantime, Replace Sinema will work hard to convince Democrats that the incumbent is no longer a viable candidate, using mass media and what will be a paid advertising campaign in the months to come. Sinema does have a large war chest — the upside of schilling for the wealthy — but it’s unlikely that the noise of those ads will overtake the years of silence from Sinema that preceded it.
“She's someone who has had many labels over her political career,” Haworth says. “She was first with the Green Party, then she was Democrat, and now she's an independent. It's just the latest label that she's found for herself. And she will discard it as well when it no longer suits her.”
Wait, Before You Leave!
Progress Report has raised over $7 million dollars for progressive candidates and causes, breaks national stories about corrupt politicians, delivers incisive analysis, and continues to grow its paid reporting team. Yes, we pay everyone.
None of the money we’ve raised for candidates and causes goes to producing this newsletter or all of the related projects we put out. In fact, it costs me money to do this. So to make this sustainable, hire new writers, and expand, I need your help.
For just $5 a month, you can buy a premium subscription that includes:
Premium member-only newsletters with original reporting
Exclusive access to chat
Financing new projects and paying new reporters
You can also make a one-time donation to Progress Report’s GoFundMe campaign — doing so will earn you a shout-out in an upcoming edition of the big newsletter!
I donated money to her Senate Campaign..was hopeful. Wrote email to her after became obviously apparent she was working for the Big Money, asked for my money back. No response. Will support the Democrat that runs against her.
DINO...always was...