With 2024 on the horizon, all eyes are on Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), the Arizona Democrat-turned-independent who has not announced publicly if she will run for re-election in perhaps one of the most unpredictable contests in the country.
Sinema left the Democratic Party last year to become an independent, and if she should decide to run, she would likely face Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), a progressive Democrat who announced his bid in January, and Kari Lake, a polarizing conservative who lost the gubernatorial election last year.
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What exactly a Sinema third-party run for Senate looks like is still unclear. Technically, she still has five months to announce a decision. She must gather the necessary signatures to qualify to appear on the Arizona ballot for the November election by April 6, 2024.
Sinema’s office did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request asking about the senator’s timeline for a decision. Many political operatives in the state say they are equally as clueless about her plans.
“Anyone who says they know what Sinema is going to do is lying to you,” said an Arizona Democratic strategist who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “She does what she wants to do and no one will know until she’s ready to make that decision public.”
The strategist said a late decision from Sinema ultimately could end up benefiting Gallego, who has been barnstorming the state and meeting with voters for the last year.
“Without Sinema in the race yet, it’s creating this open lane for Gallego, where he’s the only one out there who supports Democratic values,” the person said. “He has a compelling story as a war veteran and is well-spoken.”
There are some signs the senior Arizona senator is preparing to launch a bid. An internal memo surfaced in recent months in which her team laid out a path to winning a second term, judging that the Arizona independent would need to win between 10% and 20% of Democrats, 25% to 35% of Republicans, and about 60% to 70% of independent voters.
“My numbers for a Sinema win were similar to what she came out with, it was somewhere around 20% of Democratic voters and 25 to 30% of Republican voters and then 60% of unaffiliated voters,” said Chuck Coughlin, a longtime Arizona operative who is the CEO and founder of the Phoenix-based firm HighGround.
A recent poll from Noble Predictive Insights shows Gallego leading the hypothetical three-way Senate race with 39% support, followed by Lake with 33%, and Sinema in last place, with 29% support. The poll surveyed 1,010 registered voters in Arizona with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1%. The polling also suggested Sinema could siphon away twice as many Republican voters as Democrats in a three-way race in a state that is 34% Republican, 34% independent, and 30% Democratic, according to Arizona data.
However, there have been other signals that the Arizona senator may be interested in pursuing a different path in the future. According to the new biography about Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), “Romney: A Reckoning,” Sinema once told Romney she could pursue anything once she left office and felt proud of what she had accomplished in the Senate.
“I don’t care,” she told Romney, one of her closest allies on Capitol Hill, according to the book. “I can go on any board I want to. I can be a college president. I can do anything. I saved the Senate filibuster by myself. I saved the Senate by myself. That’s good enough for me.”
Sinema’s office has disputed how her remarks were presented, according to reporting from Business Insider.
“Private conversations are easily misconstrued and mistaken during the game of telephone,” Hannah Hurley, a Sinema aide, told Business Insider. “When asked about whether she was concerned that her stance on the filibuster could endanger her reelection changes, Kyrsten stated what she has stated for years now: She is not worried about winning the next election, and instead she is laser-focused on her ability and the Senate’s ability to deliver lasting results for our country.”
Sinema’s fundraising has also shown signs of slowing in the third quarter. She raised $826,000 between July 1 and Sept. 30, 50% less than her total from the previous quarter, when she raised almost $1.7 million. Gallego outraised her by a nearly 4:1 margin in that period.
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Although Coughlin said he has no insight into Sinema’s plans, the fundraising numbers give him pause.
“I don’t really sense that she’s out, you know, blazing a campaign trail right,” Coughlin said. “I don’t see her fundraising being as robust as it ought to be.”
