Just as Democrats were celebrating victory in Georgia, Senator Krysten Sinema from Arizona kicked off the 2024 election season by announcing that she was switching her registration from Democrat to Independent (or to use the Arizona terminology “Party Not Designated”). With nothing else to talk about, barring any major developments in the lame duck session, here are my two cents on what is going on.
First, this decision will not change much in the U.S. Senate. An old state representative from my area used to say that the most important vote that a representative cast was their vote for speaker on the first day of the session. The party that won that vote would control the committees and the floor of the House (and, with them, would determine which bills would come up for a vote). Similarly, for the Senate, that initial vote in January on the organization of the Senate is a big deal. And Senator Sinema appears to still be intending to caucus with the Democrats and will support an organizational plan that reflects a 51-49 Democratic majority. And, whether she is technically Senator Sinema (I-AZ) or Senator Sinema (D-AZ), her vote on individual bills is unlikely to change. (And both due to the filibuster and the Republican majority in the House, the only thing getting through the next Congress will be consensus bills on which her vote will not matter.)
Second, one of Senator Sinema’s alleged reasons for the switch is that she is upset that the party leadership did not do more to protect her from pressure form progressives. If that is true, Senator Sinema is too thin-skinned to be in the Senate. The job of activists is to get the legislation that they want passed. They are going to try to convince “friendly” or “persuadable” Senators to support that bill by any means available. I’ve worked most of my adult life in various government offices. Even though our decisions are not political (policy is made at other levels and we just apply it to individual cases), the electeds who I have served regularly get blowback over those decisions based on incomplete reporting of the facts. To paraphrase President Truman, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of politics.
Third, the real reason seems to be an effort to avoid a primary and block the Democrats from running a candidate. Based on her current approval rating, Senator Sinema was very vulnerable to a primary. Even if she somehow survived a primary, a reasonable Republican would have a good shot at taking the seat. But in a three-way race, a nutty Republican (Ms. Lake, Mr. Masters, Representative Biggs, Representative Gosar) would probably win. In recent elections, even nutty Republicans have been getting over 45% of the vote. If the Democrats ran a serious candidate, that candidate would almost certainly get over 30% of the vote. But Senator Sinema would have a serious chance of getting 10% or more of the vote, flipping the seat to Republicans.
To the extent that the switch was a gambit to keep the Democrats from running a serious candidate, the initial reaction from potential Democratic candidate seems to show that the gambit failed. There are several serious contenders who seem to exploring a campaign.
What is left is what will Democrats do to convince Senator Sinema that she should not run. It looks like her Senate career is coming to a close, but Senator Sinema’s history shows that she is not a team player. The only reason why she would not make a futile effort at running for another term would be if she left the Senate to do something else — preferably something that would not expire at the end of President Biden’s term in office. I do not all of the options in play,, but, with a Democrat as governor in Arizona who can appoint a solid candidate to serve in the Senate if Senator Sinema decided to resign, Senator Schumer and President Biden should be exploring the possibilities.
