Public Policy Polling released their poll conducted on behalf Rep. Ruben Gallego’s (D. AZ-07) potential U.S. Senate bid and they prove that U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema’s (I. AZ) bid to run as an Independent doesn’t have the support it needs to pull off a win:
Today, Public Policy Polling released a survey of Arizonans, showing that headed into the 2024 election, Senator Sinema is broadly unpopular and trails Rep. Ruben Gallego significantly in a three-way race. The poll shows Gallego at 40% and Republican Kari Lake at 41%, with Sinema in a distant third at 13%.
As PPP’s memo (below) explains, the survey of over 650 Arizona voters shows “Ruben Gallego is considerably more popular in the state than Kyrsten Sinema and would be a top tier Senate candidate regardless of what she decides to do in 2024.” While Sinema has no realistic path to victory in a 3-way race, Gallego would start effectively tied with the Republican. The only potential spoiler here is Sinema in her potential 3rd party run.
"You don’t need a poll to understand why voters aren’t happy with Senator Sinema: she’s consistently voted with Wall Street bankers and big drug companies, and against the interests of Arizonans. Sinema’s values are not Arizona’s values. Writing a different letter after her name isn’t going to change that,” said Rep. Ruben Gallego. “There’s clearly a strong desire for a Senator who will put Arizona first.”
Check out the thread below:
B y the way, according to The Daily Beast’s new piece, it sure does sound like it sucks to work for Sinema:
Always have a “room temperature” bottle of water on hand for her at all times. Make sure you get her groceries. And book her a weekly, hour-long massage.
These are just a few of the tasks, framed in a dizzying array of do’s and don’ts, that have fallen to the staffers for Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), according to an internal memo obtained by The Daily Beast.
The 37-page memo is intended as a guide for aides who set the schedule for and personally staff Sinema during her workdays in Washington and Arizona. And while the document is mostly just revealing of Sinema’s exceptionally strong preferences about things like air travel—preferably not on Southwest Airlines, never book her a seat near a bathroom, and absolutely never a middle seat—Sinema’s standards appear to go right up to the line of what Senate ethics rules allow, if not over.
One section of the staffer guide explains that the senator’s executive assistant must contact Sinema at the beginning of the work week in Washington to “ask if she needs groceries,” and copy both the scheduler and chief of staff on the message to “make sure this is accomplished.” It specifies Sinema will reimburse the assistant through CashApp. The memo also dictates that if the internet in Sinema’s private apartment fails, the executive assistant “should call Verizon to schedule a repair” and ensure a staffer is present to let a technician inside the property.
The Senate ethics handbook states that “staff are compensated for the purpose of assisting Senators in their official legislative and representational duties, and not for the purpose of performing personal or other non-official activities for themselves or on behalf of others.”
Craig Holman, a congressional ethics expert with the nonprofit group Public Citizen, said Sinema’s apparent demands that staffers conduct personal tasks amount to a clear violation of Senate ethics rules, and would typically warrant a formal reprimand by the Senate Ethics Committee.
If Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) decides to run for reelection next year, she’ll do so without the help of the big-name Democratic ad makers and pollsters who helped her win her Senate seat in 2018, and without access to the voter database maintained by the Democratic Party.
NGP VAN, which manages Democratic voter data, is set to cut off Sinema’s access at the end of January, according to a source with direct knowledge of the situation. The ad makers who worked with her in 2018, Dixon/Davis Media Group, have split with her campaign. Two other Democratic sources said polling firm Impact Research made the same decision.
Both Dixon/Davis and Impact have the type of pedigree you would expect for firms that work with senators in key races. Dixon/Davis worked on President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign, while Impact Research does polling for President Joe Biden. Both firms made the decision before Sinema’s recent party switch.
A spokesperson for Sinema did not respond to an email seeking comment. A spokesperson for Bonterra Tech, the parent company of NGP VAN, declined to comment.
The decisions make Sinema’s road to reelection even steeper and more complicated. Polls of Arizona’s electorate show that her efforts to ingratiate herself with Republicans have mostly backfired electorally, alienating Democrats en masse without building up an equivalent base of independent or GOP voters. Two Democratic congressmen from the state, Reps. Ruben Gallego and Greg Stanton, are both looking at runs for the party’s nomination, and a three-way battle with a Republican candidate seems likely.
We should have a decision from Gallego soon but he sure is sounding like he’s gearing up for a run. Click here if you want to donate to Gallego’s potential bid.