Did anyone see this coming? The ever-mysterious Sen. Kyrsten Sinema has decided to switch her political affiliation to Independent. She says she won't caucus with Republicans, and if she continues to caucus with Democrats the party breakdown in the Senate will stay at 51-49. If she doesn't caucus with anyone, it will be 50-49. So it won't affect Democratic control either way.
In the end, then, this probably won't make any difference. Sinema will have an I by her name; she says she'll continue to get her committee assignments from Chuck Schumer; and her voting record will likely stay about the same too. As for her motivation, that's less clear. When you get around the blather, she seems to think that Arizonans will prefer a maverick just like the late John McCain, so that's what she's going to be.
She said her decision is “a reflection of who I’ve always been.” A shameless publicity hound?
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But she isn't. She rarely gives interviews. She doesn't publish inflammatory tweets, or give controversial speeches. I've no idea what her objectives are, but she does seem to function in an imagined world that has little connection to the real one.
Her objectives are to keep herself in a position where she can please rich donors. She's just too dumb to hide it as much as regular politicians do.
how best to get attention.....
It will make a difference in 2024. If she runs as an independent, she would likely suck some support away from the Dem candidate (most probably Ruben Gallego).
I agree with this. Democrats should figure out something she wants that gets her out of the Senate by election 2024.
Polls suggest she is supported equally by Democrats, Republicans and independents, as in they all disapprove of her 2:1. And that's BEFORE this act of treachery. Assuming Republicans nominate an extremist again like Masters or Lake, she could well get more votes from them than from Democrats and independents.
Motivation is that she no longer has to gear up for a Dem primary fight in 2024. She can skip the primaries and run for re-election as an independent like Bernie Sanders and Angus King.
Her motivation -- if that's what you can call a cynical ratfuck -- is that she realized after the midterms that her unique brand of block-the-Democratic-agenda independent mavericky-ness was not going to fly if she still wanted to run as a Democrat in 2024. She was going to get primaried and lose badly. By running as an independent against both a Democratic and Republican candidate, she would threaten to split the Democratic vote and give the AZ seat to a Republican. She's essentially holding her seat hostage and giving a big middle finger to AZ Democratic voters.
Then again, she may just decide to give up and not run again and go join Tulsi Gabbard as a Fox News commentator or something.
That's it, exactly.
She has no path to reelection through a D primary. But she can hope to clear the D field by running no matter what as an I. Either the D run a candidate, they split the vote and one senate seat flips to R; or the Ds bite their tongue, leave her alone, and she can be reelected as the maverick incumbent.
Except she needs Dems+Indies to win in AZ against a Republican. And indies hate her as much as Dems and Reps. Even if it waa Sinema against a Republican she'd lose because she would have no ground troops.
Her motivation is perfectly clear. Warnock getting elected reduced her importance and a narcissist always has to be centered. This is LOOK AT MEEEEEEEEEEE!
^This!
Exactly right.
To answer the question, I did not see this coming, because I don't think about Princess Sparkle Pony unless she doesn't something like this.
Which is, of course, why she did it.
Kristie Sinema & Jill Stein: two of a kind.
Dr. Jill attacked the Hill
And carried Donnie's water
Hill fell down
And lost the Crown,
And Greens were scum thereafter.
I agree that it's mostly about avoiding being primaried, which was a foregone conclusion at this point. It also gives her a month or so of being the star of the "Who will Kyrsten caucus with?" show. Until it's a done deal, I wouldn't be totally shocked if she changed her mind and decided to caucus with Republicans. But I'm hoping that doesn't happen.
If she caucuses with the GOP and runs as an independent in 2024, she'll split the GOP vote.
Probably, but I wouldn't expect her to be any more loyal to the GOP than she was to Democrats, and while she also couldn't win that way, she hasn't shown that she has much political acumen. Her poll numbers suck with virtually everyone.
She's pretty left wing. She wouldn't get 1% of the GOP vote (OK, I probably exaggerate based on 0 knowledge - but she isn't going to fool the MAGAs).
Performative of her personality. Là.
It's an attempt to hold the seat hostage and try to prevent a Dem candidate from primarying her. While she'll avoid the primary, it is unlikely to persuade Gallegos from running against her, and she has no chance of winning a race if he runs. So she's hoping she can prevent him from winning if he runs.
Not a great strategy- not even a good one- but it's pretty much all she's got right now if she wants to try to keep the seat.
All of the above, and also because Kanye will need a running mate.
She identifies as bi so we know she can’t make up her mind! Another useless self-loathing so and so.
She started out in the Green Party advocating for LGBT+ rights and the like. It may be that "Independent" is where she is on her path to fascism. She would hardly be the only far leftie to wake up one morning as a fascist. The only thing unusual would be the route she is taking.
The problem with the argument that Sinema acted because of fears of a primary challenge is that this has been a concern all along. Why change now, instead of earlier? What's changed now? And the answer is, the party balance in the Senate. She's free to do it now without raising charges of losing the Democrats control of the Senate. (Which would come up even though, since Schumer has agreed to continue to give her committee assignments, I hope he's made her agree to continue to caucus with the Democrats.)
Because now the 2024 election has started and she’s trying to scare potential opponents out.
She is loathed here in Arizona. Not just by Dems, but by everyone. She has no chance of winning a primary, and she has no chance of winning as an I.
She wants attention because she wants money. She will quit and take on lucrative whore jobs.
But not until she costs Dems the seat.
literally everyone with eyes saw this coming. sinema is all about maximizing her power, and she's now the key vote in a 50-49 Senate. she doesn't care about being re-elected, that's been clear for a while; three years from now she'll be a lobbyist for a company that advertises itself as Uber for clean water, or some such thing.
Did anyone see this coming? Well, yeah. It isn’t that surprising. Apparently she is going to caucus with the Ds so it makes no difference. No doubt she thinks this increases her chance of getting reelected. I guess it does increase them from squat to squat-and-a-half.
For those who don’t know, Sinema has run in the past as a very left wing candidate. Currently, she changed her tune and got a lot of money from business groups so she made sure to take out many of the tax increases that were in the Inflation Reduction Act - even some that Manchin supported. But she tried to go further than that. It appears that Sinema thinks (or thought) that if she triangulates between Ds and Rs she’ll become President.
One story sums up this thinking. There was some vote on the floor of the Senate. I forget what it was for - some minor nomination or law that was quickly forgotten. Before the vote, she made sure to get McConnell’s attention so he would see her vote against it. McConnell couldn’t have cared less and I’m sure thinks she is a fool or a useful idiot. But Sinema thinks she is signaling to Rs that she is a reasonable alternative to mainstream Ds and someone they can work with and hopes to convince them to actually back her someday. It is an almost childlike understanding of Rs and what they want out of government.
At some point it finally got through to her that, because of the stupid stunts she pulled, everyone in her state hates her and she is now trying a plan B.
Is she really even maverick-y?
John McCain bucked his party to do popular things like preserve Obamacare. Sinema bucks her party to... preserve the carried interest loophole.
Sinema/Gabbard'24!
Ever since Sinema traded her vote on a key bill to *preserve the carried interest loophole* of all things, instead of doing something to benefit her constituents, I've been convinced that she isn't even trying to get reelected. She intends to cash in after she leaves, move to NYC and spend the rest of her life getting paid tons of money doing next to nothing on some cushy corporate boards.
But that's reading her behavior on the assumption that she's smart. If I'm wrong, it's because she is dumb as a post.
Democrats have won all politically important statewide elected positions in Arizona: Governor, Secretary of State, Attorney General, and of course, US Senator.
This is a sensible way to position herself for the presidential run she has been rumored to intend to make. Let us all give her every encouragement in that endeavor. She'd make a great nominee for the No Labels mob, or Forward.
This is a big gamble for her because she has to hope the Dem nominee is too liberal for most Arizonans to take and the GOP once again nominates another freak unacceptable to the electorate/
I also agree No Labels, Unity Party every centrist outfit out there will be recruiting her to run for President
She has an approval rating of 18% among Arizona Democrats. She won't be renominated. She finally got that through her head and has apparently decided to try appealing to Republicans and Independents -- where her approval rating is 25%. This is her best shot to get reelected but it won't work. She will, however, hand the seat to a Republican.
Your conclusion is too simple by half, Kevin. This is a shot across Reuben Gallego's stated intent to "primary" her. If she doesn't run in the Democratic primary he'll of course cruise to victory, and then he and she will split the Democratic and Independent vote in the General Election, leaving whoever the Mad MAGAt's nominate on the Republican line an easy walk to victory.
SinNoMore knows that the only way to avoid this -- because she's going to get at least 15% out of the Democratic vote -- is to cancel the Democratic primary as happens in Vermont and Maine when Bernie and Angus King are up.
Pretty cagey of her. She has put the Arizona Democrats in a pretty tight box.