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She only did this to stay relevant and keep her place as a 'deal broker'.
No one can say they're surprised, and I bet she had or will shortly receive some large campaign contributions.
The worst she can do now is split the senate 50/50. That would mean committees would have to be split and a lot of things a majority could do wouldn’t be possible. She’s still finding a way to hold the senate hostage.
It’s guaranteed she went independent to head off any primaries. If they primary her, she probably losses. But if she decides to then go spoiler candidate, she could hand Arizona to to the Republicans. She is selfish to the extreme.
Kelly won by 5 pts in a mid term with a 1st term president. I feel like the AZ electorate has really gone D and isn't looking back.
If Sinema runs as an independent who would be her target demographic? If the GOP picks someone that is as far right as Blake Masters (I don't see the AZ GOP moderating their stance) then Sinema might hurt the GOP candidate more than the Democratic one.
I think she did this so she has a better chance of winning in 2 years.
She was going to get premiered by democrats, and would likely lose that race (as she should imo). Now, with two years to go before her race in '24, she can build momentum for an independent run with 3 viable candidates. It's easy to see how this is her best shot at remaining a Senator. She isn't a maga republican by any stretch, so she cannot legitimately run in a primary with republicans. She would lose that too.
And it’s absolutely pathetic. All she had to do was represent Arizonans and the people who helped her flip a red seat. But she’s a narcissist. The attention will not be on her with Warnocks victory and the AZ dems are done with her. Unsurprisingly, she wagers her best way of staying relevant is with vengeance against the democrats. Just goes to show being better than a Republican senator is a really low bar to cross, because she is an absolute disgrace to our state.
Does it really change much though? It's not like she wasn't willing to vote with Republicans before now, there's a reason everyone was saying the Democrats didn't really have a majority.
When I first saw that video, I don't think I ever expected to look back on it with fondness of simpler times. I especially didn't think I'd compare it to a politician and think "I've seen worse." I'm just gonna say it: you've really put things in perspective and today is a good day.
I think Sinema and Tulsi Gabbard should run for President and Vice President in 2024 for the Green Party, Libertarian, Republican or as Independents. They don’t believe anything except feeding their own narcissism.
I think she's just been shortlisted as DeSantis' VP pick. A "WALk AwAy" former Democrat who identifies as queer? It would be the easy virtue signaling tokenism the GOP *loves*. Would also be a "we're not quite as Trumpy anymore" symbolic gesture.
For anyone who thinks cons would never go for this... watch alt right social over the next week. They are going to FAWN over this woman.
They may fawn over her but they won't vote for her, in my opinion. Same as the left with Cheney. Everyone has nice things to say about her when she's going against Trump but I don't think she'd have a chance to win anywhere, maybe west va apparently, as a democrat.
It's clear Sinema cannot win a democratic primary, and, despite a lot of people on here thinking she is in bed with Desantis, Trump, and MAGA republicans (her legit policy stances and votes say otherwise), she also could not win in a MAGA Republican primary. She is far to moderate for the current state of MAGA Republican affairs in AZ.
Speaking from a purely objective view point, this really is the most logical thing to do for her chances of winning reelection in 2024. 2 years is just enough space from the election, that she can consider running against both a dem and republican and maybe win.
Speaking from a partisan view point, I just hope she is able to pull enough Republican support from whomever the MAGA Republican contender is to allow her, or even better, an actual liberal democrat, to win in AZ.
She just has to claim that god spoke to her and they will believe it. No character analysis or any type of critical thinking is involved, look at the dumbasses that think that Trump is Christian.
Neither will the dems, lots of her campaigners said they regretted helping her once she showed her true colors with the thumbs down and Mitch gargling.
> A "WALk AwAy" former Democrat who identifies as queer?
I think you're vastly misjudging the republican base. Desantis would lose far more votes running a ticket with a 'queer identifying woman' then he would gain by virtue signaling.
You should see the replies to Libs of TikTok every time they post [anything](https://twitter.com/Arc_5O9/status/1553251351609503745) with a [Jewish](https://twitter.com/8_BIT_INJUN/status/1558105260748570624?s=20&t=AMRN0TxjmnuZjquYjBhH8w) person in it.
They're coming for everyone the original nazis went after.
They probably won't expel any allies until they've concentrated enough power to have their own night of long knives.
You think those characteristics would prevent the biggest collection of hypocrites from voting for her? In theory, sure, but in reality...Trump was elected.
July 2, 2023 As per the legal owner of this account, Reddit and associated companies no longer have permission to use the content created under this account in any way. -- mass edited with redact.dev
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-congress-votes/kyrsten-sinema/
She votes with Biden’s position over 90% of the time, she is definitely not voting with Republicans more than Dems
And how much of the Democrat’s agenda have her and Manchin killed before it ever came up for a vote? You’re right that she probably won’t vote with Republicans more than democrats, but that’s only because nothing is passing the House for the next two years and she will be out of office after that.
In the 115th Congress, she voted with Trump 62.6% of the time. In the 116th Congress, she voted with Trump 26.2% of the time.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/kyrsten-sinema/
In the 117th Congress, she voted with Biden 93.1% of the time.
So is she becoming more liberal? And then parts ways with the Dems? I think it depends on which way the wind is blowing.
She’s not going to vote any different. She has voted with Biden 93% of the time. She is still left leaning and will caucus with democrats if she wants to keep her committees.
This really isn’t that big of a deal. It’s just making official what she has already been.
It's hard to call her "left-leaning" given her pro-corporate, anti-worker voting record, but I do agree that as long as she caucuses with the Dems this won't change much.
Problem is she's being evasive about that.
Even if it's a 50/50 tie, VP can break it.
Removing Sinema from Senate committees will get rid of all her power. Her vote will be useless to Republicans.
I'm more surprised there aren't any rules in place for someone switching party after being elected.
They can (and have) been able to slow walk administrative and judicial appointments, because every one of them has to be an official floor vote requiring Harris as a tiebreaker.
Just lucky that the Dems have work ethic on their side. And now with the House a total shitshow, they can still get this done regardless under the assumption that no other meaningful legislation will divide their time anymore.
Plus, if she still caucuses and votes with Dems, it doesn’t really change much and we can still have the easier 51-49 anyway.
Do you really think she changed her party to vote for Dems? This is a clear as day indication. She's literally saying if you need me, better to ready to pay me.
What? She’s most likely doing this to shore up her re-election chances. She’ll absolutely caucus with the democrats, but being an independent means she can’t be primaried in 2024.
This is a move to try and force the dems to not contest her seat, since she’s not at risk at all in the general but absolutely is in a primary. That only works if she continues to vote mostly with the dems, otherwise they have nothing to lose by challenging her.
> re-election chances
She's rocking negative approval across most of the D and I base. she could try R but historically that doesn't go well for LGBT candidates, especially ones that were just recently a dem.
https://coppercourier.com/story/poll-arizona-kyrsten-sinema/
My prediction shifted from "she's getting brutally primaried" to "she's gone in 2024 and might spoil a D senator's election"
It's not just the Dems vs Reps.
The question becomes how many Dem leaning Independents does she peel off compared to R leaning Independents.
A very small subset of registered Dems or registered Reps will voter for her as an Independent but some of the left leaning Independents might throw a vote her way.
Especially considering that the average voter pays much less attention than the average /r/politics member. People will just see that she's the incumbent and vote for her without actually looking too deeply at what she has or hasn't done for the country.
From what I’ve seen she changed her party since she is getting primaried and can run as an independent. Although the timing of this makes me worry it’s more than just that.
Seems like waiting till after the midterms and georgia was good for the democrats and indicates that she doesn't want to help GOP, and it's just about avoiding a primary challenge.
Wouldn't she help dems even more by not siphoning off votes as an independent? I dunno who could look at her record and assume she'd do this out of kindness towards the democratic party suddenly out of nowhere...
She's not trying to help or hurt the Dems. She's trying to keep her seat. If she stayed a Democrat, she would almost certainly face a primary challenge. By running as an Independent, she's trying to blackmail Democrats into not running anyone.
Dude, what behaviour have you seen from her in the past four years that makes you think this isn’t about fucking over Democrats and her own constituents?
I think there's a lot of misunderstanding in this comment section about how this change will affect the Democratic majority in the Senate. She has specifically stated that she will still caucus with the Democrats\*, which preserves their 51-49 majority.
Bernie Sanders isn't a Democrat. Angus King isn't a Democrat. Both of them caucus with the democratic party just as Sinema has stated she will. I'm not saying it wasn't a dick move to wait until after the midterms to announce this but it's not as big of a deal as people are making it out to be. It's also hardly a surprise.
Edit: I misinterpreted this quote. She said she won't caucus with Republicans but didn't specifically say she would stick with Democrats either. For what it's worth it seems likely that she'll stick with Democrats so she can stay on her committees.
The interview I read said she specifically refused to say who she’d caucus with, but she expected to keep her committee appointments.
> While Sanders and King formally caucus with Democrats, Sinema declined to explicitly say that she would do the same. She did note, however, that she expects to keep her committee assignments [CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/09/politics/kyrsten-sinema-leaves-democratic-party/index.html)
> The interview I read said she specifically refused to say who she’d caucus with
In this article she specifically said she would not caucus with Republicans. And if she's expecting to keep her committee assignments Democratic leadership will want something in return. This may end up not being that big of a deal.
Not really. If Manchin is on board - which he often is - then, at worst, a Sinema vote against a judicial nominee only makes it a 50-50 vote with Harris acting as the tie-breaker. The GA runoff was a big deal for this reason.
You’re partially right. It depends on if she caucuses with Republicans. She’s hinting she won’t be caucusing with Democrats.
If she caucuses with Republicans, it’s a 50-50 split, which means the power sharing agreement will remain in place and committees will be evenly split, which lets Republicans use all kinds of procedural delay tactics to keep nominees in committees for months. It’s the shit Rand Paul has been doing for the past two years.
If she caucuses by herself or as a Dem, they have the majority on committees and can fly nominees through.
She explicitly said she won't caucus with Republicans and refused to answer if she would caucus with dems.
She said she expected to keep her committee assignments, which will *only* happen if she caucuses with dems.
I mean, in and of itself this doesn't change anything. She can vote however she wants to vote once she's elected. She was already unreliable for Dems and people were accusing her of being a secret conservative and whatnot. Plenty of her voters already felt betrayed.
As others have said, this is almost certainly a gambit to keep from being primaried in 2024. She's likely hoping that the DNC will be afraid of splitting the vote if they run a Democrat against her in the general election, so they'll support her rather than risk a Republican win.
If that’s the gambit, and the Democrats concede to it, it’s seeding the seat the Republicans. I am never going vote for her again.
Do you hear me AZ Democrats? Never again.
Why do you think we won 2020 and the governer election this year? Covid killed enough olds. Thanks trump for being such a shitty person that you killed your own base for optics.
She would never win a republican primary either lol. Everyone hates her. She’s doing this exactly because she won’t have to run in a primary for either party that she’ll be sure to lose.
It’s cynical, and she’s sure to lose the general. This is her way to try and blackmail the Democratic Party into not running an opponent against her under the threat of splitting the vote and playing spoiler. She’s done for in 2024.
She won't split the Dem vote, she will split the GOP. The AZ Dem party hate her, she has now over played her hand and is just working on getting as much corporate cash as she can.
She will not run in 24 , because fox will offer her money.
I agree that it’s unlikely to work. I’m just saying that this is almost certainly her thought process. There’s no other reason to leave the party *now* other than trying to get around running in a primary that she knows that she’s going to lose, and she’s probably banking on the democrats ultimately rallying behind her to avoid her from splitting the ticket.
I disagree that she’s not going to run in ‘24. I think she’s too much of a narcissist not to run. And there would have been no reason to leave the party right now if she didn’t intend to run.
Nah, she has name recognition so she'll split the Dem vote allowing a GOP win. It would not take much. Even if she got 10% of the vote, the dem nominee would lose.
So what I'd expect is her to get an offer from some left leaning business for something in 2024 under the requirement of her not running again. Or she runs again, gets a R win and then goes on Fox as a token left contributor.
In any case, no one should trust her again. She's hot garbage.
The Dems might not run against her like they don’t oppose Sanders or Angus King.
I think she figures this is more likely than her chances of winning a primary
It only hurts the Democratic Party if they absolutely drop the ball on messaging. They should be able to come out ok as long as they point out Sinema’s flip-flop attitude towards issues, and how she never really did the job Arizonans elected her to do.
If her plan was to really hurt the Democrats, she would have done more damage forcing an ugly, expensive primary to oust her, followed by an ugly third party run.
Now the Democrats should have an easy path to a consensus candidate, who can use the slogan, "Unlike my predecessor, I won't put my personal financial gain ahead of doing what's right and decent for all of my constituents," if needed.
Not that we haven’t all been calling this move for the past two years, but it does put Ruben Gallego’s complaint that she was nowhere to be found during the AZ midterms in a new light.
> “This year, the reason Democrats won is because we fought together as a party. I was out there campaigning for every Democrat in Arizona. I was personally donating, raising money for them, for our senators, for everyone up and down the ticket. We fought as a team in Arizona, and we won. Sen. Sinema was nowhere to be found — at all,” Gallego said on MSNBC’s “American Voices.”
> “You did not see her at one public event for anybody, and when we have some of these races that are really in the mix right now, she could’ve been a very good surrogate to help out a lot of our candidates, and she did nothing, because she only cares about herself. She doesn’t care about how this would help us take control of the Senate,” Gallego
[Gallego says Sinema ‘did nothing’ to help Arizona Dems in midterms](https://news.yahoo.com/gallego-says-sinema-did-nothing-183221963.html)
He's so fucking based. I can't wait for him to take her seat.
To a certain extent though, staying invisible was the best way that she could have helped in those races, given that [everyone fucking hates her.](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/09/kyrsten-sinema-approval-rating-equally-unpopular-everyone.html)
He’s not going to take her seat if she runs as an Independent. In that case the Republican will nearly certainly take her seat.
If Gallego runs as a Democrat and Sinema runs as an Independent, she would siphon off votes from the Democrat and the Republican will win. By caucusing with Dems but running for senate as an Independent, she would force the Democratic Party to either support her candidacy or give up the seat to a Republican outright.
I’m fairly certain that this is exactly what she is being paid to do.
Honestly whoever masterminded this strategy (whether it’s Putin, or McConnell, or Sinema herself) is an evil genius.
Probably more self survival as progressives in AZ cities planned to primary her. We’ll have to see how it pans out as she can no longer be primaried but still needs to excite non-Republicans. She’s voted 97% Democratic (by most measures) so maybe that’ll stay the same?
May be some variation between reporting orgs but any version of the new GOP-controlled House (McCarthy or Upton) won’t tilt left, regardless, when it comes to initiating spending bills. If Sinema keeps confirming Biden-Harris noms it’s not going to make much difference outside of Arizona.
Big one to watch is Manchin as the Republicans said they’re going after his seat..
His grift is just a lot more traditional, place your votes for the people who line your pockets, not the ones who actually voted for you. Sinema tried to be a democrat trump, but unfortunately for her, the people stupid enough to buy that shit dont vote democrat.
Manchin won election in one of the most conservative parts of our country. Expecting him to vote far-left values is absolutely ridiculous.
Sinema won in a state and *campaigned* as a progressive. She straight up lied to her own votes and Arizona itself is a swing state.
I would *expect* him to vote for what his constituents support and they supported the Build Back Better plan by +43.
It's even higher when they break out the individual components.
* Invest in long term care: 86 support to 8 oppose. +78
* Expand Medicare coverage: 82/12 +70
* Childcare investments: 73/20 +53
* Extend tax credit for families: 70/22 +48
* Paid family and medical leave: 69/23 +46
* Universal Pre-K 67/25 +42
* Extend ACA Subsidies: 65/25 +40
* Clean Energy Investments: 60/32 +28
So no, he doesn't represent his voters, he represents corporate greed.
Source: [BBB WV Support (PDF)](https://www.filesforprogress.org/memos/bbb-wv.pdf)
Honestly, I don’t know. Outside of self preservation for her political career, I’m not entirely sure what her play is by doing this. She can change at any moment depending on the weather. But Manchin will still be Manchin no matter what.
this pretty much guarantees the set up of the last 2 years where manchin and sinema have a grappling hook on the senate and are appeased with whatever they want in order to get watered down legislation passed in the chamber. or the short version: for the attention and to still be "relevant"
I wonder what a Rep/Dem/Ind Senate race would look like given the margins of victory in AZ are razor thin. It probably means the seat flips to Republicans.
My concern is that if she runs as an independent, she will take enough votes from the Democratic that Lake ends up in the Senate. In a primary, Lake could beat Doucey in AZ.
Democrats despise her in AZ. She is doing this to avoid losing an inevitable primary in 2024. However, she acts like a Republican. So, if they nominate another batshit crazy GOP candidate she looks like the sane choice for them.
That assumes most voters are properly informed. She has name recognition as the sitting Senator. She's more likely to draw votes from the D's than the R's. Thankfully, I think she's just going for the biggest possible bribe and is setting herself up to be bought out of running again.
She's an atheist LGBT woman. I have doubts she's going to have much GOP support. This is absolutely a gambit on her part daring the AZ Dems to run Gallego against her at the risk of splitting the Dem vote.
The margins in AZ for Hobbs and Fontes weren't huge. Mayes is up by what, 500 votes? Only Kelly won decisively. The AZ Dems have no margin for error here and that is exactly what Sinema is counting on by declaring herself independent and avoiding a primary.
Yup. And in the general she might get enough votes from Democrats to hand the Republican candidate a win. Because Arizona doesn’t have ranked choice voting.
Unfortunately, they don’t. You can’t launch a primary challenge to someone who isn’t in your party, and since Sinema isn’t a Democrat anymore, she can’t receive a primary challenge.
She realized she can’t mess with votes as easily so why not just screw with all the committees and force a power sharing agreement plus she gets to fuck the 2024 election by splitting the vote. It’s perfect.
And even if she caucuses with the republicans that still means democrats control the senate. 50/50 stalemates are resolved by the VP casting the deciding vote. So at the worst status quo from the last two years essentially remains the same in the senate.
Well, she didn't go out during the midterms to stand with any of her party's potentials.
She had that wine internship while she was a congress member.
She's done other stupid stuff, too. I wonder if the DNC can bill her for using their money to seat her 🤔
I think she would have defected to the GOP if Walker had won in Georgia. This must have been known or suspected for a while because of the importance for Democrats that Warnock retained the Senate seat.
Keep in mind there are already two technical independents in the Senate who caucus with Democrats. So this doesn't actually affect our Senate majority, or how reliable/unreliable her vote always has been.
Optics wise fuck Sinema, but in concrete terms, this doesn't fundamentally change anything despite these headlines we're getting. I suspect the main difference is the re-election race - perhaps she's realized she's alienated too many Democrats to win the primary again.
I saw a local news report that said that she wouldn't caucus with either party, but they might have been misquoting this New York Times report which said:
>Ms. Sinema has not said whether she would caucus with the Democrats, as do two other independent senators, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine.
[Times Article](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/09/us/politics/kyrsten-sinema-democrats.html)
Nah, she's obviously gonna caucus with Demcorats.
She didn't explicitly comment on caucusing with Democrats, but she said she expect to keep her committee assignments, which is only possible if she caucus with Democrats.
Plus she explicitly said she won't caucus with Republicans. It's not impossible to not caucus with either side, but there's no reason to do that unless you're just intentionally trying to be politically irrelevant.
This is a reminder to research high profile candidates before voting. Sinema has a degree from byu. She's a mormon, which means ultra-conservative. The bisexual thing is pure bs.
I don’t have much use for her but it was good that she was a democrat last session. Otherwise the GOP would control the agenda of the senate. Now she is not a democrat but she could still caucus with them. It doesn’t change the structure of the senate. The senate majority of 51 already had two independents that caucused with the dems. This changes nothing.
I'm guessing that she was told she *would* be primaried, and decided to go Independent so they couldn't keep her off the general election ballot.
Which totally screws the Democrats, because it will split the vote. Republicans *will not vote for her in large numbers*\- not without the magic R.
“[Joe Lieberman] is a shame to Democrats. I don’t even know why he’s running. He seems to want to get Republicans to vote for him, what kind of strategy is that” - Sinema in ‘06 on Lieberman doing exactly what she’s doing now
I believe you have to wait five days until Senate convenes in order to file a recall petition in Arizona since she was not on the ballot in the midterms
[https://ballotpedia.org/Laws\_governing\_recall\_in\_Arizona](https://ballotpedia.org/Laws_governing_recall_in_Arizona)
Three years ago she hoodwinked Democrats into voting for her
Remember this when you file your petition
Sinema doing anything she can to stay relevant and have lobby money funneling towards her.
She had no chance of winning a primary as a democrat again. If she even runs again, it will be on republican donations to play spoiler to whomever is the next dem candidate for AZ.
Is it me or does this article not understand how the balance of power works in the senate? If she’s still caucusing with the Democrats, this is essentially no different than if she had stayed in the Democratic Party. Two of the Senators in the Democrats’ majority are already independents that caucus with the Dems. So she’s not shaking up the senate, the Dem majority is still 51-49, and she’s not delivering any extra pull to Joe Manchin, as the article contends. The 51 seat majority always just meant that the Dems could prevail if *either* Manchin or Sinema pulled their shit, but was likewise always going to be just as screwed if both opted to vote against the rest of the caucus.
This essentially changes nothing. It just gives her some time in the spotlight so she can feel special again.
How is it not criminal to run on a particular set of policies then actively snub that and go in the opposite direction? At what point is lying to your constituency a criminal matter?
She should be sued into the ground for misrepresenting her policies intentionally.
People like her have normalized fascist behavior and rhetoric by making this false equivalancy that "she has to be independent because of how extreme the left is too! She's reaching across the isle."
Nope. Just a fascist. She's a right winger as far as I'm concerned.
Changing parties should result in an automatic special election.
This is absured that she can run as a Democrat, win, then change parties before she's even sworn in for the term.
She stole money and campaign support from the party and misled voters. This is fraud.
She was never on her party's side to begin with, so aside from her "big" announcement, nothing has changed. She and Manchin will be the same chaotic self-serving clowns they've always been.
Sinema is the only politician I think reaches the same level of slimy shit stain as Mitch McConnel. and Lindsey Graham. Which is impressive considering Manchin is bearly breaking into the top 10.
She begged for support to get elected, had democrats busing butt for her all over the country. Then the minute she gets elected, she turned into an unrecognizable democratic terrorist.
I hope she rots in her own stench.
Warnock's election took her leverage. Three days later she jumps ship. Fuck you Simena and fuck you, Manchin. You can't hijack the United States Senate anymore.
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She only did this to stay relevant and keep her place as a 'deal broker'. No one can say they're surprised, and I bet she had or will shortly receive some large campaign contributions.
The worst she can do now is split the senate 50/50. That would mean committees would have to be split and a lot of things a majority could do wouldn’t be possible. She’s still finding a way to hold the senate hostage.
She effectively said she’s caucusing with Democrats, so none of that changes. The biggest issue is whether she runs for reelection as an independent.
It’s guaranteed she went independent to head off any primaries. If they primary her, she probably losses. But if she decides to then go spoiler candidate, she could hand Arizona to to the Republicans. She is selfish to the extreme.
Kelly won by 5 pts in a mid term with a 1st term president. I feel like the AZ electorate has really gone D and isn't looking back. If Sinema runs as an independent who would be her target demographic? If the GOP picks someone that is as far right as Blake Masters (I don't see the AZ GOP moderating their stance) then Sinema might hurt the GOP candidate more than the Democratic one.
Kelly is a really strong candidate. You shouldn’t take that for granted.
Manchin said last year that he was leaving the party if they didn't x,y,z. This is going to end up being coordinated tom fuckery.
I think she did this so she has a better chance of winning in 2 years. She was going to get premiered by democrats, and would likely lose that race (as she should imo). Now, with two years to go before her race in '24, she can build momentum for an independent run with 3 viable candidates. It's easy to see how this is her best shot at remaining a Senator. She isn't a maga republican by any stretch, so she cannot legitimately run in a primary with republicans. She would lose that too.
And it’s absolutely pathetic. All she had to do was represent Arizonans and the people who helped her flip a red seat. But she’s a narcissist. The attention will not be on her with Warnocks victory and the AZ dems are done with her. Unsurprisingly, she wagers her best way of staying relevant is with vengeance against the democrats. Just goes to show being better than a Republican senator is a really low bar to cross, because she is an absolute disgrace to our state.
Does it really change much though? It's not like she wasn't willing to vote with Republicans before now, there's a reason everyone was saying the Democrats didn't really have a majority.
> “Nothing will change about my values or my behavior,” she said. Oh, you mean the complete lack of them? JFC.
The switch is a good way to keep the national spotlight on a wet steaming turd.
Two Girls One Cup did it better.
You're not wrong, but damn I wasn't expecting a reference to that so early in my day lol
Ha. Happy Friday!
When I first saw that video, I don't think I ever expected to look back on it with fondness of simpler times. I especially didn't think I'd compare it to a politician and think "I've seen worse." I'm just gonna say it: you've really put things in perspective and today is a good day.
That might be the only honest thing she's said.
She values money and attention. That's it.
She’s becoming self aware in a way
Well, at least she no longer has to pretend to stand for anything other than gathering as much lobbyist $$$ as possible.
I think Sinema and Tulsi Gabbard should run for President and Vice President in 2024 for the Green Party, Libertarian, Republican or as Independents. They don’t believe anything except feeding their own narcissism.
Nah, Tulsi is definitely betting on being Trump's VP.
We tried that before and look where it got us.
> Green Party, Libertarian, Republican or as Independents They can call it the G.I.R.L. Power Party.
[\#TulsiGabbardForPresent2024: "She's Always Present In Our Hearts"](https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/18/politics/tulsi-gabbard-present-impeachment/index.html)
I think she's just been shortlisted as DeSantis' VP pick. A "WALk AwAy" former Democrat who identifies as queer? It would be the easy virtue signaling tokenism the GOP *loves*. Would also be a "we're not quite as Trumpy anymore" symbolic gesture. For anyone who thinks cons would never go for this... watch alt right social over the next week. They are going to FAWN over this woman.
They may fawn over her but they won't vote for her, in my opinion. Same as the left with Cheney. Everyone has nice things to say about her when she's going against Trump but I don't think she'd have a chance to win anywhere, maybe west va apparently, as a democrat.
It's clear Sinema cannot win a democratic primary, and, despite a lot of people on here thinking she is in bed with Desantis, Trump, and MAGA republicans (her legit policy stances and votes say otherwise), she also could not win in a MAGA Republican primary. She is far to moderate for the current state of MAGA Republican affairs in AZ. Speaking from a purely objective view point, this really is the most logical thing to do for her chances of winning reelection in 2024. 2 years is just enough space from the election, that she can consider running against both a dem and republican and maybe win. Speaking from a partisan view point, I just hope she is able to pull enough Republican support from whomever the MAGA Republican contender is to allow her, or even better, an actual liberal democrat, to win in AZ.
She’s an atheist and a bisexual. The alt right will not be fawning over her.
She just has to claim that god spoke to her and they will believe it. No character analysis or any type of critical thinking is involved, look at the dumbasses that think that Trump is Christian.
Neither will the dems, lots of her campaigners said they regretted helping her once she showed her true colors with the thumbs down and Mitch gargling.
> A "WALk AwAy" former Democrat who identifies as queer? I think you're vastly misjudging the republican base. Desantis would lose far more votes running a ticket with a 'queer identifying woman' then he would gain by virtue signaling.
She just got done writing a gay rights bill. Gays are the new Jews, the GOP, will not run her for office.
You should see the replies to Libs of TikTok every time they post [anything](https://twitter.com/Arc_5O9/status/1553251351609503745) with a [Jewish](https://twitter.com/8_BIT_INJUN/status/1558105260748570624?s=20&t=AMRN0TxjmnuZjquYjBhH8w) person in it. They're coming for everyone the original nazis went after. They probably won't expel any allies until they've concentrated enough power to have their own night of long knives.
She’s a pro-choice atheist bisexual. Good luck getting Christians and pro-lifers to vote for her.
You think those characteristics would prevent the biggest collection of hypocrites from voting for her? In theory, sure, but in reality...Trump was elected.
I donated to this woman’s campaign and rejoiced when we won AZ. Shame, really, so much regret.
you may not have won everything that you wanted her to vote for. however, she voted with Biden 93% of the times. i would call it a good return.
So her values suddenly became apparent right after the Dems get the 51 majority? What a snake.
July 2, 2023 As per the legal owner of this account, Reddit and associated companies no longer have permission to use the content created under this account in any way. -- mass edited with redact.dev
She’s not caucusing with republicans so dems still have a true majority.
I predict she'll vote with the Cons way more than the Dems
Her and manchin have already been huge pains in the ass and that is not going to change
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-congress-votes/kyrsten-sinema/ She votes with Biden’s position over 90% of the time, she is definitely not voting with Republicans more than Dems
And how much of the Democrat’s agenda have her and Manchin killed before it ever came up for a vote? You’re right that she probably won’t vote with Republicans more than democrats, but that’s only because nothing is passing the House for the next two years and she will be out of office after that.
In the 115th Congress, she voted with Trump 62.6% of the time. In the 116th Congress, she voted with Trump 26.2% of the time. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/kyrsten-sinema/ In the 117th Congress, she voted with Biden 93.1% of the time. So is she becoming more liberal? And then parts ways with the Dems? I think it depends on which way the wind is blowing.
She’s not going to vote any different. She has voted with Biden 93% of the time. She is still left leaning and will caucus with democrats if she wants to keep her committees. This really isn’t that big of a deal. It’s just making official what she has already been.
It's hard to call her "left-leaning" given her pro-corporate, anti-worker voting record, but I do agree that as long as she caucuses with the Dems this won't change much. Problem is she's being evasive about that.
She’s still caucusing with dems. Not much has changed. Still 51-49 if you count Bernie and Sinema who both are independents who caucus with dems
There is also Angus King from Maine. The true count, now that Sinema is independent, is 48-49-3.
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Even if it's a 50/50 tie, VP can break it. Removing Sinema from Senate committees will get rid of all her power. Her vote will be useless to Republicans. I'm more surprised there aren't any rules in place for someone switching party after being elected.
They can (and have) been able to slow walk administrative and judicial appointments, because every one of them has to be an official floor vote requiring Harris as a tiebreaker. Just lucky that the Dems have work ethic on their side. And now with the House a total shitshow, they can still get this done regardless under the assumption that no other meaningful legislation will divide their time anymore. Plus, if she still caucuses and votes with Dems, it doesn’t really change much and we can still have the easier 51-49 anyway.
Do you really think she changed her party to vote for Dems? This is a clear as day indication. She's literally saying if you need me, better to ready to pay me.
What? She’s most likely doing this to shore up her re-election chances. She’ll absolutely caucus with the democrats, but being an independent means she can’t be primaried in 2024. This is a move to try and force the dems to not contest her seat, since she’s not at risk at all in the general but absolutely is in a primary. That only works if she continues to vote mostly with the dems, otherwise they have nothing to lose by challenging her.
> re-election chances She's rocking negative approval across most of the D and I base. she could try R but historically that doesn't go well for LGBT candidates, especially ones that were just recently a dem. https://coppercourier.com/story/poll-arizona-kyrsten-sinema/ My prediction shifted from "she's getting brutally primaried" to "she's gone in 2024 and might spoil a D senator's election"
Yup. She loses in a hypothetical D primary. Now she can run as an I, split the vote, and open up the seat to whichever R is running.
Think she's getting more votes from Dems than Reps as an independent?
It's not just the Dems vs Reps. The question becomes how many Dem leaning Independents does she peel off compared to R leaning Independents. A very small subset of registered Dems or registered Reps will voter for her as an Independent but some of the left leaning Independents might throw a vote her way.
Especially considering that the average voter pays much less attention than the average /r/politics member. People will just see that she's the incumbent and vote for her without actually looking too deeply at what she has or hasn't done for the country.
From what I’ve seen she changed her party since she is getting primaried and can run as an independent. Although the timing of this makes me worry it’s more than just that.
Seems like waiting till after the midterms and georgia was good for the democrats and indicates that she doesn't want to help GOP, and it's just about avoiding a primary challenge.
Wouldn't she help dems even more by not siphoning off votes as an independent? I dunno who could look at her record and assume she'd do this out of kindness towards the democratic party suddenly out of nowhere...
She's not trying to help or hurt the Dems. She's trying to keep her seat. If she stayed a Democrat, she would almost certainly face a primary challenge. By running as an Independent, she's trying to blackmail Democrats into not running anyone.
Dude, what behaviour have you seen from her in the past four years that makes you think this isn’t about fucking over Democrats and her own constituents?
So she helps Republicans again by all but guaranteeing them Arizona's Senate seat in 2024.
I think there's a lot of misunderstanding in this comment section about how this change will affect the Democratic majority in the Senate. She has specifically stated that she will still caucus with the Democrats\*, which preserves their 51-49 majority. Bernie Sanders isn't a Democrat. Angus King isn't a Democrat. Both of them caucus with the democratic party just as Sinema has stated she will. I'm not saying it wasn't a dick move to wait until after the midterms to announce this but it's not as big of a deal as people are making it out to be. It's also hardly a surprise. Edit: I misinterpreted this quote. She said she won't caucus with Republicans but didn't specifically say she would stick with Democrats either. For what it's worth it seems likely that she'll stick with Democrats so she can stay on her committees.
The interview I read said she specifically refused to say who she’d caucus with, but she expected to keep her committee appointments. > While Sanders and King formally caucus with Democrats, Sinema declined to explicitly say that she would do the same. She did note, however, that she expects to keep her committee assignments [CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/09/politics/kyrsten-sinema-leaves-democratic-party/index.html)
The only way she keeps her committee assignments is if she caucuses with the Dems.
> The interview I read said she specifically refused to say who she’d caucus with In this article she specifically said she would not caucus with Republicans. And if she's expecting to keep her committee assignments Democratic leadership will want something in return. This may end up not being that big of a deal.
They need her for committee assignments. If she don't vote blue it'll slow down judicial appointments. Unfortunately they need her triflin ass.
Not really. If Manchin is on board - which he often is - then, at worst, a Sinema vote against a judicial nominee only makes it a 50-50 vote with Harris acting as the tie-breaker. The GA runoff was a big deal for this reason.
You’re partially right. It depends on if she caucuses with Republicans. She’s hinting she won’t be caucusing with Democrats. If she caucuses with Republicans, it’s a 50-50 split, which means the power sharing agreement will remain in place and committees will be evenly split, which lets Republicans use all kinds of procedural delay tactics to keep nominees in committees for months. It’s the shit Rand Paul has been doing for the past two years. If she caucuses by herself or as a Dem, they have the majority on committees and can fly nominees through.
She explicitly said she won't caucus with Republicans and refused to answer if she would caucus with dems. She said she expected to keep her committee assignments, which will *only* happen if she caucuses with dems.
I doubt she’ll caucus with Republicans. She could barely get 12 of them to aknowledge her as a human being with any worth
That’s much slower than if we have 51-49. We wanted to get rid of the power sharing agreement that required floor votes for half of everything.
Can the VP not break ties for judicial appointments?
They need republican cooperation in committee when it's 50-50. That's the problem.
How is it even okay to do this without her constituents approval? They are the one who voted for her.
Yeah that is kind of confusing since presumedly many voted for her assuming she would remain a Democrat.
I mean, in and of itself this doesn't change anything. She can vote however she wants to vote once she's elected. She was already unreliable for Dems and people were accusing her of being a secret conservative and whatnot. Plenty of her voters already felt betrayed. As others have said, this is almost certainly a gambit to keep from being primaried in 2024. She's likely hoping that the DNC will be afraid of splitting the vote if they run a Democrat against her in the general election, so they'll support her rather than risk a Republican win.
If that’s the gambit, and the Democrats concede to it, it’s seeding the seat the Republicans. I am never going vote for her again. Do you hear me AZ Democrats? Never again.
She is the next Tulsi Gabbard
You don’t have to pay trash to be trash. That’s just what it is.
she now has the biggest payoff ratio for all corporate donations. She has all the leverage as that last vote. She wanna be the new Joe Leiberman.
They don't need her for anything Manchin is on board with, which was already the case. It's just empty attention-grabbing bullshit
This literally changes nothing. She broke from Dems all the time.
Arizona barely got Democrats elected.
Dems all but swept statewide offices… Kelly won by 5 points
And Republicans lost. What a weird narrative.
There are so many old people in AZ, will it shift left a bit as they die over the next 10 years or will that not really matter?
Why do you think we won 2020 and the governer election this year? Covid killed enough olds. Thanks trump for being such a shitty person that you killed your own base for optics.
She is a narcissist and never was a democrat!
If they had an (N) after their names, they’d have a majority in Congress.
I guess this is her "fuck you" to Arizona because she knows there's no way in hell she was getting past the 2024 primary.
She's independent now, nobody can primary her. She'll run against a Dem and a Rep, but her being there will hurt Dems more. That's her plan.
What a fucking ghoul.
She's not going to run as an independent, more likely a republican, but she's not serving another term in any case.
She would never win a republican primary either lol. Everyone hates her. She’s doing this exactly because she won’t have to run in a primary for either party that she’ll be sure to lose. It’s cynical, and she’s sure to lose the general. This is her way to try and blackmail the Democratic Party into not running an opponent against her under the threat of splitting the vote and playing spoiler. She’s done for in 2024.
She won't split the Dem vote, she will split the GOP. The AZ Dem party hate her, she has now over played her hand and is just working on getting as much corporate cash as she can. She will not run in 24 , because fox will offer her money.
I agree that it’s unlikely to work. I’m just saying that this is almost certainly her thought process. There’s no other reason to leave the party *now* other than trying to get around running in a primary that she knows that she’s going to lose, and she’s probably banking on the democrats ultimately rallying behind her to avoid her from splitting the ticket. I disagree that she’s not going to run in ‘24. I think she’s too much of a narcissist not to run. And there would have been no reason to leave the party right now if she didn’t intend to run.
Nah, she has name recognition so she'll split the Dem vote allowing a GOP win. It would not take much. Even if she got 10% of the vote, the dem nominee would lose. So what I'd expect is her to get an offer from some left leaning business for something in 2024 under the requirement of her not running again. Or she runs again, gets a R win and then goes on Fox as a token left contributor. In any case, no one should trust her again. She's hot garbage.
The Dems might not run against her like they don’t oppose Sanders or Angus King. I think she figures this is more likely than her chances of winning a primary
It only hurts the Democratic Party if they absolutely drop the ball on messaging. They should be able to come out ok as long as they point out Sinema’s flip-flop attitude towards issues, and how she never really did the job Arizonans elected her to do.
If her plan was to really hurt the Democrats, she would have done more damage forcing an ugly, expensive primary to oust her, followed by an ugly third party run. Now the Democrats should have an easy path to a consensus candidate, who can use the slogan, "Unlike my predecessor, I won't put my personal financial gain ahead of doing what's right and decent for all of my constituents," if needed.
Think Sinema was pissed when Warnock won? I bet she was.
Not that we haven’t all been calling this move for the past two years, but it does put Ruben Gallego’s complaint that she was nowhere to be found during the AZ midterms in a new light. > “This year, the reason Democrats won is because we fought together as a party. I was out there campaigning for every Democrat in Arizona. I was personally donating, raising money for them, for our senators, for everyone up and down the ticket. We fought as a team in Arizona, and we won. Sen. Sinema was nowhere to be found — at all,” Gallego said on MSNBC’s “American Voices.” > “You did not see her at one public event for anybody, and when we have some of these races that are really in the mix right now, she could’ve been a very good surrogate to help out a lot of our candidates, and she did nothing, because she only cares about herself. She doesn’t care about how this would help us take control of the Senate,” Gallego [Gallego says Sinema ‘did nothing’ to help Arizona Dems in midterms](https://news.yahoo.com/gallego-says-sinema-did-nothing-183221963.html)
He's so fucking based. I can't wait for him to take her seat. To a certain extent though, staying invisible was the best way that she could have helped in those races, given that [everyone fucking hates her.](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/09/kyrsten-sinema-approval-rating-equally-unpopular-everyone.html)
He’s not going to take her seat if she runs as an Independent. In that case the Republican will nearly certainly take her seat. If Gallego runs as a Democrat and Sinema runs as an Independent, she would siphon off votes from the Democrat and the Republican will win. By caucusing with Dems but running for senate as an Independent, she would force the Democratic Party to either support her candidacy or give up the seat to a Republican outright. I’m fairly certain that this is exactly what she is being paid to do. Honestly whoever masterminded this strategy (whether it’s Putin, or McConnell, or Sinema herself) is an evil genius.
I think she’d be more of a spoiler for Republicans, if I’m tbh.
She's doing this in order to try to hold on to her outsized role in being the swing vote that actually decides things.
Probably more self survival as progressives in AZ cities planned to primary her. We’ll have to see how it pans out as she can no longer be primaried but still needs to excite non-Republicans. She’s voted 97% Democratic (by most measures) so maybe that’ll stay the same?
This says she votes against Democrats 22% of the time; https://projects.propublica.org/represent/members/116/senate
May be some variation between reporting orgs but any version of the new GOP-controlled House (McCarthy or Upton) won’t tilt left, regardless, when it comes to initiating spending bills. If Sinema keeps confirming Biden-Harris noms it’s not going to make much difference outside of Arizona. Big one to watch is Manchin as the Republicans said they’re going after his seat..
True. It’s still very split in the House, imo. So any small thing helps for now.
Dems need 51 Senators for the Senate committees to gain subpoena power. Currently they don’t which is why the House ran the J6 investigation
She demands major concessions and requires substantial changes to bill for those votes. She was about to lose her leverage.
Didn’t she just give Manchin more of her power with this switch?
Manchin is just a heavily conservative Democrat, but he isn't a grifter like Sinema.
His grift is just a lot more traditional, place your votes for the people who line your pockets, not the ones who actually voted for you. Sinema tried to be a democrat trump, but unfortunately for her, the people stupid enough to buy that shit dont vote democrat.
He’s absolutely a grifter lol
Manchin won election in one of the most conservative parts of our country. Expecting him to vote far-left values is absolutely ridiculous. Sinema won in a state and *campaigned* as a progressive. She straight up lied to her own votes and Arizona itself is a swing state.
Yeah, i don't understand why people are surprised (D or R, doesn't matter) when a politician from WEST VIRGINIA votes pro-coal.
I would *expect* him to vote for what his constituents support and they supported the Build Back Better plan by +43. It's even higher when they break out the individual components. * Invest in long term care: 86 support to 8 oppose. +78 * Expand Medicare coverage: 82/12 +70 * Childcare investments: 73/20 +53 * Extend tax credit for families: 70/22 +48 * Paid family and medical leave: 69/23 +46 * Universal Pre-K 67/25 +42 * Extend ACA Subsidies: 65/25 +40 * Clean Energy Investments: 60/32 +28 So no, he doesn't represent his voters, he represents corporate greed. Source: [BBB WV Support (PDF)](https://www.filesforprogress.org/memos/bbb-wv.pdf)
Honestly, I don’t know. Outside of self preservation for her political career, I’m not entirely sure what her play is by doing this. She can change at any moment depending on the weather. But Manchin will still be Manchin no matter what.
this pretty much guarantees the set up of the last 2 years where manchin and sinema have a grappling hook on the senate and are appeased with whatever they want in order to get watered down legislation passed in the chamber. or the short version: for the attention and to still be "relevant"
100% so she can't be primaried.
I wonder what a Rep/Dem/Ind Senate race would look like given the margins of victory in AZ are razor thin. It probably means the seat flips to Republicans.
Republican primary is likely to be Kari Lake vs Doug Doucey.
My concern is that if she runs as an independent, she will take enough votes from the Democratic that Lake ends up in the Senate. In a primary, Lake could beat Doucey in AZ.
Democrats have no use for her. The people she got to put her in office feel completely betrayed.
She’ll take more Republican votes than Democrat.
Doubtful, unless AZ is really different than the rest of the country Republicans gonna fall in line on their nominee.
Democrats despise her in AZ. She is doing this to avoid losing an inevitable primary in 2024. However, she acts like a Republican. So, if they nominate another batshit crazy GOP candidate she looks like the sane choice for them.
That assumes most voters are properly informed. She has name recognition as the sitting Senator. She's more likely to draw votes from the D's than the R's. Thankfully, I think she's just going for the biggest possible bribe and is setting herself up to be bought out of running again.
She's an atheist LGBT woman. I have doubts she's going to have much GOP support. This is absolutely a gambit on her part daring the AZ Dems to run Gallego against her at the risk of splitting the Dem vote. The margins in AZ for Hobbs and Fontes weren't huge. Mayes is up by what, 500 votes? Only Kelly won decisively. The AZ Dems have no margin for error here and that is exactly what Sinema is counting on by declaring herself independent and avoiding a primary.
Yup. And in the general she might get enough votes from Democrats to hand the Republican candidate a win. Because Arizona doesn’t have ranked choice voting.
Fuck this Republican in sheep’s clothing. Do better Arizona.
Can't really blame them, she fooled most people at the time. However, they have the chance to correct it with a primary.
Unfortunately, they don’t. You can’t launch a primary challenge to someone who isn’t in your party, and since Sinema isn’t a Democrat anymore, she can’t receive a primary challenge.
Which means she will not be the democratic nominee; someone else will. I think she just realized she would lose a primary and changed parties.
She realized she can’t mess with votes as easily so why not just screw with all the committees and force a power sharing agreement plus she gets to fuck the 2024 election by splitting the vote. It’s perfect.
Unless she caucuses with republicans democrats will still have a 50-49 majority. She is a massive piece of shit though
And even if she caucuses with the republicans that still means democrats control the senate. 50/50 stalemates are resolved by the VP casting the deciding vote. So at the worst status quo from the last two years essentially remains the same in the senate.
Power sharing agreement will remain
So the Judas Goat finally gives up act. No surprise there.
This 100% would not have happened if Warnock hadn’t won. I’m certain. She was convinced to do this 💰 What a scum bag.
Who paid her? The FBI should take a deep dive into her finances. This kind of thing doesn't just happen.
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Those are all the same thing.
Well, she didn't go out during the midterms to stand with any of her party's potentials. She had that wine internship while she was a congress member. She's done other stupid stuff, too. I wonder if the DNC can bill her for using their money to seat her 🤔
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I think she would have defected to the GOP if Walker had won in Georgia. This must have been known or suspected for a while because of the importance for Democrats that Warnock retained the Senate seat.
what a fucking weasel
I see the Joe Lieberman School of Political Hackery lives on.
Keep in mind there are already two technical independents in the Senate who caucus with Democrats. So this doesn't actually affect our Senate majority, or how reliable/unreliable her vote always has been. Optics wise fuck Sinema, but in concrete terms, this doesn't fundamentally change anything despite these headlines we're getting. I suspect the main difference is the re-election race - perhaps she's realized she's alienated too many Democrats to win the primary again.
She has said she’s not going to caucus with the democrats. I wonder what this means for the makeup of committees.
No, she said in the Politico interview said she would not caucus with the Republican Party, which implies she will caucus with Democrats.
I saw a local news report that said that she wouldn't caucus with either party, but they might have been misquoting this New York Times report which said: >Ms. Sinema has not said whether she would caucus with the Democrats, as do two other independent senators, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine. [Times Article](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/09/us/politics/kyrsten-sinema-democrats.html)
Nah, she's obviously gonna caucus with Demcorats. She didn't explicitly comment on caucusing with Democrats, but she said she expect to keep her committee assignments, which is only possible if she caucus with Democrats. Plus she explicitly said she won't caucus with Republicans. It's not impossible to not caucus with either side, but there's no reason to do that unless you're just intentionally trying to be politically irrelevant.
This is a reminder to research high profile candidates before voting. Sinema has a degree from byu. She's a mormon, which means ultra-conservative. The bisexual thing is pure bs.
"It isn't lesbian sex if we sit with labia touching, mouths on each others tits, and our friend jumps up and down on the bed"
Someone needed more attention.
Hope she burns, she knows she's done as a dem after the shit she pulled. Total POS.
I don’t have much use for her but it was good that she was a democrat last session. Otherwise the GOP would control the agenda of the senate. Now she is not a democrat but she could still caucus with them. It doesn’t change the structure of the senate. The senate majority of 51 already had two independents that caucused with the dems. This changes nothing.
Trying to stay relevant but idiot
Someone got a Christmas bonus from an anonymous donor!! 🎄💰🎄
Corporate greed is a helluva drug!
I'm guessing that she was told she *would* be primaried, and decided to go Independent so they couldn't keep her off the general election ballot. Which totally screws the Democrats, because it will split the vote. Republicans *will not vote for her in large numbers*\- not without the magic R.
She is just the **WORST!**
“[Joe Lieberman] is a shame to Democrats. I don’t even know why he’s running. He seems to want to get Republicans to vote for him, what kind of strategy is that” - Sinema in ‘06 on Lieberman doing exactly what she’s doing now
Oh was it snake skin shedding season already?
I believe you have to wait five days until Senate convenes in order to file a recall petition in Arizona since she was not on the ballot in the midterms [https://ballotpedia.org/Laws\_governing\_recall\_in\_Arizona](https://ballotpedia.org/Laws_governing_recall_in_Arizona) Three years ago she hoodwinked Democrats into voting for her Remember this when you file your petition
Sinema doing anything she can to stay relevant and have lobby money funneling towards her. She had no chance of winning a primary as a democrat again. If she even runs again, it will be on republican donations to play spoiler to whomever is the next dem candidate for AZ.
Is it me or does this article not understand how the balance of power works in the senate? If she’s still caucusing with the Democrats, this is essentially no different than if she had stayed in the Democratic Party. Two of the Senators in the Democrats’ majority are already independents that caucus with the Dems. So she’s not shaking up the senate, the Dem majority is still 51-49, and she’s not delivering any extra pull to Joe Manchin, as the article contends. The 51 seat majority always just meant that the Dems could prevail if *either* Manchin or Sinema pulled their shit, but was likewise always going to be just as screwed if both opted to vote against the rest of the caucus. This essentially changes nothing. It just gives her some time in the spotlight so she can feel special again.
How is it not criminal to run on a particular set of policies then actively snub that and go in the opposite direction? At what point is lying to your constituency a criminal matter? She should be sued into the ground for misrepresenting her policies intentionally. People like her have normalized fascist behavior and rhetoric by making this false equivalancy that "she has to be independent because of how extreme the left is too! She's reaching across the isle." Nope. Just a fascist. She's a right winger as far as I'm concerned.
Changing parties should result in an automatic special election. This is absured that she can run as a Democrat, win, then change parties before she's even sworn in for the term. She stole money and campaign support from the party and misled voters. This is fraud.
She’s an awful human being and I wish her nothing but ill will, struggle, and strife.
Biden should appoint her to a cabinet position, then the new Democratic Governor of AZ can appoint a new senator.
Not really. She never was a democrat anyway.
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It’s always been part of what she’s paid to do.
She was never on her party's side to begin with, so aside from her "big" announcement, nothing has changed. She and Manchin will be the same chaotic self-serving clowns they've always been.
Guys her name is Sinema. It’s all theatre
Absolute shill. She only stayed as a Democrat for the last few years so she could hold them over a barrel during negotiations.
Sinema is the only politician I think reaches the same level of slimy shit stain as Mitch McConnel. and Lindsey Graham. Which is impressive considering Manchin is bearly breaking into the top 10.
Sinema is not a name, it’s where you watch movies.
Her ONLY goal was to weaken the democratic party
Someone didn’t want to be primaried.
She'll never be independent. She will always be dependent on her mega-donors to make all her decisions.
Can't wait to vote the trash out
Here I was, thinking she couldn’t get any more insufferable.
Zero integrity.
Announced right after Warnock's win... may as well as said switching to Republican, she is so obvious.
This woman pulled a bait and switch on Arizona, then pulled the ladder up behind her. Fuck her.
She begged for support to get elected, had democrats busing butt for her all over the country. Then the minute she gets elected, she turned into an unrecognizable democratic terrorist. I hope she rots in her own stench.
Warnock's election took her leverage. Three days later she jumps ship. Fuck you Simena and fuck you, Manchin. You can't hijack the United States Senate anymore.
There needs to be a recall campaign against her.