Yesterday, the headlines on stories about a new poll of Arizona voters largely depicted the results in a positive light for Sen. Kyrsten Sinema. And at first glance, the topline numbers did look pretty good for the elusive centrist Democrat, with a 50-36% approval rating in the state. But dig a little deeper into the data and you’ll find that Sinema’s posturing this year has her headed toward some serious trouble.
While the 50-36% number might put her in a decent position in a general election, the big problem she faces is actually getting to a general election. Her approval rating with Democrats is below 50%, with just 47% of voters in her own party happy with the job she’s doing. And while she’s still up 47-38% with Democrats, her counterpart Mark Kelly has a whopping 87-6% approval rating with Democratic voters.
That’s a 40% deficit, which may well mark a high-water mark for Sinema if she doesn’t change her approach to legislating. As you can see in the table below, a gigantic 68% of Democrats disapprove of her insistence on maintaining the filibuster even if it means Republicans are able to block President Joe Biden’s agenda.
The numbers above track with Sinema’s approval rating with Republicans, which stands right now at 54-32%. That’s pretty misleading, though, because there’s no chance that 54% of Republicans will vote for her in a general election. As you can see above, that approval rating is entirely a product of Republican voters appreciating her throwing a wrench in Democrats’ plans. When given the opportunity to replace her with a Republican, they won’t think twice about voting her out of office.
Sinema will thus be very, very vulnerable to a primary from the left should she not change her mind on the filibuster… or, should I say, change her mind again.
The video below, which emerged earlier this week and was published today by More Perfect Union (where I work, as it so happens), illustrates just how craven a politician Sinema has become and the hypocrisy at the heart of her ceaseless defense of the filibuster:
Back in 2010, when she was acting like a bleeding heart anti-war liberal, Sinema slammed Joe Lieberman for being a self-obsessed centrist who was demanding that Democrats give their power away to Republicans. Funny how things change, huh? If she addresses this video at all — which she probably won’t — she’ll likely say that she learned and evolved since entering the Senate.
If she’s learned anything, it’s that oil company lobbyists are very persuasive, especially when they consider you one of their most crucial allies.
Her stance on the filibuster right now is blocking everything from the For The People Act to the PRO Act and every other non-budget item. Her obsession with bipartisanship and lower spending is likely going to hurt the big reconciliation bill, too. It’s going to crush democracy, but it’s hard to tell if she cares.
As an Arizona lawmaker who knows Sinema told me last week, she’s been pretty impervious to activist pressure — in some ways, she enjoys trolling the libs — so it’s likely going to take a lot of pressure from the top to move her toward giving in on the filibuster:
“I personally think we have to move past her and put pressure on the rest of the Democratic Party, President Biden and leadership in the Senate,” said state Sen. Juan Mendez. “We can’t just keep being like, it’s one person [to convince]. People are responsible for her. She's her own senator, but she's also in a party that is supposed to have leadership.”
The pressure is at least coming from her aforementioned Arizona senate counterpart, as Mark Kelly last week told party stakeholders in a call last week that he believed the filibuster had to go in order to create a functional Senate. The Arizona secretary of state, Katie Hobbs, has been on a tour calling for the end of the filibuster in order to pass the For The People Act, and the Supreme Court this morning is likely to raise the stakes even further by ruling in favor of the Arizona GOP in a case over a law that discounts many provisional ballots and will lay further waste to what’s left of the Voting Rights Act.
UPDATE: The Supreme Court just in fact gutted the Voting Rights Act, using that case from Arizona.
As a blatant careerist, Sinema has got to be aware of how much danger she is putting herself in serious danger of losing re-election. Democratic activists in Arizona are fired up and relentlessly protesting at her office, and from what I hear, already discussing potential primary challengers. I just hope she changes direction before she takes down the party and American democracy with it.
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