Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema says she is leaving the Democratic Party and will become an independent member of the Senate.
Left-wing Democrats in Arizona were lining up to challenge her in the 2024 primary after Sinema helped blow up Joe Biden’s agenda for the last two years. She and West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin enraged their fellow Democrats because they believed the massive spending bills proposed by their party to be unnecessary and inflationary.
They were right.
Sinema expects nothing much to change by going independent. “Nothing will change about my values or my behavior,” she told Politico.
“I don’t anticipate that anything will change about the Senate structure,” Sinema said. Exactly how she’ll fit into that structure is “a question for Chuck Schumer… I intend to show up to work, do the same work that I always do. I just intend to show up to work as an independent.”
Sinema says her decision to leave the Democrats was largely based on the fact that she “never really fit into a box of any political party.” Indeed, she worked closely with Republicans on bipartisan legislation like the infrastructure bill.
Sinema asserted she has a different goal in mind: fully separating herself from a party that’s never really been a fit, despite the Democratic Party’s support in her hard-fought 2018 race. That year she became the first Democrat in three decades to win a Senate race in Arizona, defeating former Sen. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.).
Sinema wouldn’t entertain discussions of pursuing a second Senate term: “It’s fair to say that I’m not talking about it right now.”
“I keep my eye focused on what I’m doing right now. And registering as an independent is what I believe is right for my state. It’s right for me. I think it’s right for the country,” she said, adding that “politics and elections will come later.”
Sinema votes with Biden 93% of the time and will continue to vote with Biden and the Democrats on procedural issues. And Sinema is no Republican — at least, she doesn’t fit in with the ideological base of the Republican Party today. She’s pro-choice and takes a dim view of conservative judges. She’s against raising taxes — for the most part — and opposes the Democrats’ power grabs on elections.
But she supports gay marriage and has a generally liberal view of social issues. The question is, why now? It certainly won’t strengthen her position as an independent and may even cost her a seat on one of her two committees.
Her announcement is “less about the timing,” she said. “It’s really about me thinking how can I be most productive? How can I be true to my core values, the values of my state, and how do I continue being a really productive but independent voice for Arizona?”
Not that she wants any part in figuring out exactly how many seats they control now that she’s out of the Democratic Party.
“I would just suggest that these are not the questions that I’m interested in,” Sinema said. “I want people to see that it is possible to do good work with folks from all different political persuasions, and to do it without the pressures or the poles of a party structure.”
Sinema may help block some spending bills with Senator Manchin and could also stop the appointment of a radical left Supreme Court justice. But the bottom line is that Democrats aren’t losing anything, and Republicans aren’t gaining anything with Sinema’s exit.
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