PURPLE ARIZONA: Kyrsten Sinema Isn’t Hitting the Panic Button. “Sinema, whose office did not respond to multiple requests for comment, is not underwater yet. She’s lost some standing among Arizona Democrats, but her approval rating is still at 56 percent, according to Noble’s most recent poll. (At this early juncture, approval polls are probably more reliable than likely-voter models.) Sinema can afford to anger the Democratic base a little, so long as she gets at least 50 percent of it in her primary race, Noble said. John McCain won only 52 percent of the GOP primary vote in his last election, in 2016, but he still won the general by 13 points. Similarly, Sinema’s power is her cross-party appeal: 42 percent of independents view her favorably, and she’s almost as popular among Republicans.”

Sinema faces very little pressure back home to get on board with Biden’s multitrillion-dollar regulatory and welfare boondoggle, and lots of reasons not to.

She’s a decent fit for Arizona moderates, but a lousy one for woke DC Democrats.

Joe Manchin is so fed up with his party’s dominant far-left wing that he has already “devised a detailed exit strategy for his departure” from the Democrats and sit in the Senate as an “American Independent.”

The big question about when/if Manchin or Sinema go independent is with which party they would caucus.

But it does seem that if McConnell and Schumer had to fight over them, both Sinema and Manchin could wield a lot more influence as independents than they can now in their radicalized party.