I did not anticipate this morning having to get out a quick article before I start a day of errands, but here we are. This morning, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) proved I did not just make a typo, officially switching her party affiliation from Democrat to Independent. Sinema, who was first elected to Congress in 2012 (first in the House, and then in the Senate in 2018), has seen a bizarre progression to the middle (she was in the Green Party as recently as 2004, for crying out loud). Her political positions have always been unusual as the two-party system reaches a form of stasis in each party (with true independents rarely assuming high office), with a relatively progressive view on social issues while she is far more moderate on economic issues, and quite conservative when it comes to institutional issues, specifically around the filibuster, where her viewpoint had become untenable for most Democrats. This is a fast-breaking story, and normally I'd wait a bit to see if any other dominoes fall (I don't like to write articles that are quickly outdated), but both because I've gotten a few messages about this already, and because I'm going to be doing errands for the remainder of the day, I wanted to get my five initial thoughts out about what this move means.
 |
| Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) |
Though she appeared cagey about it in interviews, as did her press team, it does appear that Sinema will continue to caucus with the Democrats despite this move. Essentially what this would mean is that Sinema will continue to get committee seats, and will essentially back Chuck Schumer maintaining his leadership of the Senate (though, again, she has not said this explicitly-I will be very eager to get Schumer's statement later today explaining if the press is getting the specifics wrong here). She has pointedly said she will not caucus with the Republicans, and the reelection of Raphael Warnock this past Tuesday would've meant the majority wasn't at risk either way, but Sinema's 51st vote was crucial for Democrats to get subpoena power & to get majorities in each committee, so from an immediate, practical standpoint, this is the most important question on the table. Essentially Sinema is going the route that the Senate's two other Independents (Bernie Sanders of Vermont & Angus King of Maine) follow-supporting the Democrats in terms of power structure, but not being an actual Democrat. However, unlike King & Sanders, she reportedly will not be attending Democratic caucus meetings, so it's not entirely clear how much Schumer will be able to consistently count on her other than she seemed to indicate that she'd still be a reliable vote for Biden's executive & judicial nominees, as she has been for the past two years.
 |
| Gov-Elect Katie Hobbs (D-AZ) |
What is apparent to me beyond what the senator said this morning is that she obviously thought she'd be making this announcement in a different environment, perhaps one where she wasn't expected to make the announcement at all. Sinema is only 46, and her political career has been extremely ambitious, getting into the Arizona state legislature before she turned 30, and moving from a freshman in the State House minority to one of the most powerful women in America in less than 15 years...that's impressive. I had said a few times leading up to the 2022 elections that her strategy seemed pretty clear-she was operating under a lens that Democrats can't win in Arizona, and as a result they would take whatever they got from her, assuming she was similar to someone like a Susan Collins in Maine or a Joe Manchin in West Virginia-an imperfect option that the party had to suck up & vote for because she's the only act in town. But Democrats had a very strong 2022, and four Democrats (Katie Hobbs, Mark Kelly, Adrian Fontes, & Kris Mayes) won statewide office in Arizona. This screwed up Sinema's math-it became very clear that her win in 2018 wasn't a fluke but a canary-in-the-coal-mine for Republicans...Arizona was a purple state, maybe even one that is looking blue by the end of the decade, and as a result Sinema, who has spent much of the past six years pissing off the Democratic base, could lose a primary and the Democrats could still win the general election. She's right-there's no longer a place for her in the Democratic Party, but it's entirely because she misread the room.
 |
| Sen. Angus King (I-ME) |
No matter what Sinema says, and I'm trying to be as impartial as I can (I donated to Sinema in 2018 & I am pissed that my money went to someone who would mistreat the party like this), the most accurate criticism she's going to get today from the left is that she's an opportunist. This move does not have to do with independence (people like Joe Manchin, Jon Tester, & Mary Peltola are within the Democratic Party as moderates and function just fine in much redder territory than Sinema has to endure without risking their independence), but it does have to do with her reelection. Though the freshman senator has indicated she hasn't decided on running for reelection, the only reason to do this would be because she's running for reelection. I mentioned the Senate Independents above, and I want to focus specifically on Angus King. King, in 2012, angered many Democrats (including this one) because he would not explicitly state that he would caucus with the Democrats if he won. Despite this, Democrats largely abandoned their nominee (Cynthia Dill) to ensure that Republican Secretary of State Charlie Summers wouldn't win (Maine did not yet have the Ranked-Choice Voting it does today, so ticket-splitting was a real threat). King did end up caucusing with the Democrats (despite protestations at the time, I'm still convinced that Harry Reid knew this would happen which is why the party largely backed him), and has ever since. As a result, he basically became the de facto nominee in 2018 for the Democrats, and would be again in 2024 if he ran. This is almost certainly the path that Sinema is trying to cut here-essentially ensure the Democrats don't run any candidate in 2024 because they know she'll caucus with the Democrats, and go back to the plan she had before: "it's either me or nothing." Of course, had Democrats been swept out of office in 2022, that statement would've been pragmatism...now, it's essentially blackmail.
 |
| Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) |
The question here is if Democrats will play ball or not. The most important thing, at the end of the day, is that the Democrat in this seat supports the Democratic leader. Not just for 2024, but you could make an argument that losing this seat would make 2026 or 2028 extremely difficult to win the Senate majority as well. Democrats aren't going to like hearing this, but there's a not small chance that Schumer, who is already facing a brutal map in 2024, would simply continue to support Sinema as the de facto Arizona nominee, not wishing to let ticket-splitting cost the party a seat that they can't work without. If the choice truly is Sinema or nothing, Sinema is better than nothing.
But there's two problems here. For starters, while King & Sanders are beloved by their respective state's Democratic Parties (or Joe Lieberman, whom I'd be remiss to not mention in this article because there's a lot of similarities to what he did in 2006 to what's happening now), Sinema is not. Her approval ratings are low at this point with Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. She has no natural base. As the Democratic nominee, the assumption would be that Democrats would hold their nose & reelect her, but if there's another viable (very clearly want to note viable-not a Cynthia Dill style candidate) Democratic nominee in the race, you have to assume that most of the Democratic Party would support them...in that situation, Sinema is not an actual candidate, but at best Ralph Nader...it's pretty easy to see a world where Sinema would struggle to get even double digits (despite being a sitting US Senator) if, say, 90% of the Democratic Party got behind the nominee from the outset.
The second part is it's pretty clear whom the Democrats want as their nominee. Rep. Ruben Gallego has been making waves for months about a primary challenge to Sinema. It's not clear whether Schumer will be able to keep Gallego out of the race, and given the strange dynamics of the situation, it's possible Gallego would be a clear-the-field nominee. Given the opportunity, Gallego would be hard-pressed to find a reason not to run, and as a clear-the-field nominee (keeping other potential competitors like Kris Mayes or Greg Stanton out of the race), he'd be able to counter Sinema's strategy effectively from the outset. I'm curious how Mark Kelly (who seems to generally get along with Sinema, even if he employs none of her unusual campaign strategies) would handle such a situation-if he got behind Gallego, it'd be a signal to the Democratic establishment that we're rolling the dice here because Sinema is too risky of a long-term bet even if she's the safest option right now. If he was cagey, it'd be harder for Gallego to garner strength, and in the process, Sinema's plan might work, albeit in the sense that "nothing" (i.e. a Republican) would be more likely than "Sinema."
 |
| Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) |
For the past two years, Sen. Sinema has been coupled with Joe Manchin in the collective public conversation, and of course this shouldn't end right now. Manchin has indicated he'd remain a Democrat as recently as the last few weeks, but I'll be honest here-I always assumed that Manchin would pull something like this (i.e. turning independent but caucusing with the Democrats) more than Sinema. Manchin, quite frankly, could gain from it. As long as he caucused with Democrats and supported Schumer, being able to literally proclaim he's an independent would've helped his cause. And unlike Sinema, you can say with a straight face that Manchin is the best option the Democrats have in West Virginia. If Manchin had pulled something like this, Democrats would've been frustrated, but any practical Democrats with any power (and certainly Schumer) would sign up in a heartbeat for six more years of Manchin supporting Schumer but calling himself an Independent (ala Angus King) if that won him reelection. It's not entirely clear if this will impact the famously (actually) independent Manchin at all, but honestly...if this helped him win reelection, I'd be fine with it.
No comments:
Post a Comment