Is Kyrsten Sinema The Worst Politician In America?

Also, why the Brittney Griner deal was a no-brainer.

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Kyrsten Sinema Wants You To Pay Attention To Her

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It has been a few months since Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema was in the national media spotlight, which is perhaps as good an explanation as any for this bit of news that dropped this morning:

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) said Friday that she is switching her party affiliation from Democrat to independent, creating a shake-up in the chamber after the midterm elections.

On a practical level, Sinema’s switch changes little. She will still caucus with the Democrats, which will allow her to keep her committee assignments. She’ll vote with the Democrats most of the time while being a pain in the neck on certain issues — which is pretty much what she’s done for the past two years. For all her trouble-making, she has still voted with President Biden 93% of the time.

Beyond her narcissistic need for attention, this move is all about Sinema’s political future — and self-preservation. In Arizona, her bouts of iconoclastic behavior have turned her into one of the more unpopular senators in the country.

AARP/Fabrizio Ward/Impact Research

Amazingly, Sinema polls as poorly among Democrats as she does Republicans, which is why there have been rumblings for much of the past year that Rep. Ruben Gallego would challenge her in a Democratic primary. If that happened, there’s a reasonable chance that Sinema, who has burned so many bridges with Arizona Democrats, would have lost. Even if she prevailed, a primary race against what I assume would be a very well-funded rival would have drained her campaign funds and left enough bruised feelings among Democrats to make her a bad bet to win in the general election.

But with Sinema becoming an independent, she’s made things much more difficult for Gallego and dramatically helped her chances for reelection. Obviously, Gallego could still run and win the Democratic nomination, but in a three-way race, the biggest beneficiary would probably be the Republican nominee, as Sinema and Gallego would likely split the Democratic vote. So Gallego will be under enormous pressure not to run. Either way, Sinema has taken a primary challenge off the table and may have stopped Gallego from running at all. Arizona Democrats may not like Sinema, but they’re smart enough to realize that keeping a Senate seat away from Republicans is the more important goal here.

If Democrats do nominate someone in the Senate race, then Sinema’s political career is probably over. But considering her limited options, switching her party affiliation was her best strategic move.

Of course, none of this would be necessary if Sinema wasn’t so godawful at politics. In 2018, she was the first Democrat to win a Senate seat in Arizona in 30 years. Since then, the state has become steadily bluer. In 2020, Joe Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Arizona since Bill Clinton in 1996, and Mark Kelly won the open US Senate seat. In last month’s midterms, Kelly secured reelection, and Katie Hobbs was elected governor.

Yet, for reasons that seemingly only make sense to Sinema, she has moved steadily rightward — blocking key Democratic initiatives in the Senate (like voting rights), pushing for lower tax burdens for some of her largest campaign contributors, and treating the Democratic activists who helped her get elected with outright disdain. Not only has her “maverick” turn pissed people off, but it’s put her in the position of having to switch party affiliation to keep her job. If she had just toed the party line, not made waves, and voted like a loyal Democrat, she’d likely be coasting to reelection in 2024 — like Mark Kelly did this past election.

Beyond that, she had the political makeup to be a star and even a sleeper presidential candidate. Instead, her political career, at least within the Democratic Party, will go no further than the Senate. If she’s holding out hope about running for president as an independent, she’s even more deluded than she already appears to be.

My guess, however, is that even with her deep unpopularity, she’s not an unreasonable bet to win reelection. The Arizona GOP is nuts and likely to nominate a terrible candidate (the rumor is that failed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake is running). Democratic voters will likely suck it up and back Sinema, and while she might lose some rank-and-file support, she’ll probably win over a few Republican voters, which will balance things out. I don’t know Arizona politics that well, but per the chart above, her favorabilities among Republicans are the same as they are with Democrats. Maybe there’s polling data that suggests if she runs as an independent, she’ll win enough GOP votes to outweigh the loss of Democratic votes. Maybe.

But that it came to this is political malpractice, and Sinema has no one to blame but herself.

Brittney Griner Is Free And That’s A Good Thing