Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema will not run for re-election in Arizona

Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema announced Tuesday that she will not run for re-election this year, leaving the Senate after a term in which she painted Arizona blue, left the Democratic Party and played a key role in numerous legislative negotiations in a Senate closely divided. .

“Because I choose civility, understanding, listening and working together to get things done, I will be leaving the Senate at the end of this year,” Sinema he said in a video posted on his X account.

Sinema’s decision paves the way for a tough and costly fight for her seat, although it will be easier than the complicated three-way race it would have sparked if she stayed in office. Top Republican, 2022 gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, and top Democrat, Rep. Rubén Gallego, are already working hard to replace Sinema.

In her video, Sinema said partisan warfare has prevailed.

“Commitment is a dirty word. We have come to that crossroads and we choose anger and division. “I believe in my approach, but it is not what America wants right now,” Sinema said.

Sinema’s decision comes as her prospects for victory seemed slim if she ran. Polls on the race are sparse, but polls have consistently shown Sinema in third place in a hypothetical three-way race between Gallego and Lake. It was unclear which candidate would have garnered more support.

In particular, Sinema believed she was stronger with Arizona Republicans than with her former party. in a prospectus reported by NBC News Last September, Sinema told donors that her path to victory was to attract 10% to 20% of Democrats, 60% to 70% of independents and 25% to 35% of the Republicans.

Gallego praised Sinema for the news of her departure.

“Looking ahead, Arizona is at a crossroads. Protecting access to abortion, addressing housing affordability, securing our water supply, defending our democracy – all of this and more is at stake,” he said in a statement. “I welcome all Arizonans, including Senator Sinema , to join me on that mission. .”

Lake also praised Sinema in a statement: “We may not agree on everything, but I know she shares my love for Arizona. Senator Sinema had the courage to stand up to the far left in defense of the filibuster, despite the overwhelming pressure from the radicals of his party like Rubén Gallego who asked him to burn everything.”

Republicans, who hope to regain control of the Senate this year, see Arizona as a possible turnaround opportunity. Democrats have a slim majority in the Senate, and the GOP needs a net gain of two seats to win the chamber outright or one seat plus the vice presidential tiebreaker.

Sinema’s political arc has been extraordinary, from Green Party organizer to one-time GOP Democratic front-runner in the U.S. Senate. In 2004 she became a Democrat and was elected to the Arizona Legislature. At a 2011 progressive rally, she called Arizona the “meth laboratory of democracy” and criticized legislation the state’s Republicans were pushing. She ran and won an election in 2012 for the U.S. House of Representatives, where her voting record showed some centrist bona fides. She used that moderate approach to be elected to the Senate in 2018, ending a statewide losing streak for Democrats.

Sinema was a pivotal vote during Biden’s first two years in the 50-50 Senate, using her influence to shape his signature Inflation Reduction Act and single-handedly reject provisions she opposed, such as increases of tax rates for corporations and the wealthy, and to reduce a provision intended to reduce prescription drug prices. She was at the center of multiple successful bipartisan negotiations, including on infrastructure and gun safety.

cinema he left his party to become independent in 2022, while helping Democrats maintain control of the Senate. This came after an irreparable rift between Sinema and Arizona Democrats, when she stood in the way of some Biden-proposed legislation and voted to block Democratic efforts to undo the Senate filibuster to advance right-to-care legislation. vote.

Previous key allies, such as EMILY’s List, said they would no longer support Sinema, and there was talk that Gallego would challenge her in a Democratic primary. She announced in December 2022 that she would leave the Democratic Party and become an independent, but Sinema did not indicate whether she would run for re-election.

Sinema’s influence has waned since Republicans took control of the House and Democrats gained a Senate seat in 2023. The Arizona senator negotiated a border security deal with Democrats and Republicans earlier this year, but was blocked by Republicans.

“What I have demonstrated in my five years in the United States Senate is that I have a proven track record of bringing together disparate interests and groups, finding common ground and moving forward with bipartisan solutions,” Sinema told NBC News in December at the en amid negotiations on the border bill.

And as she often did, she ignored a question about her reelection plans, treating it as a sideshow compared to her legislative work: “I’m 100% focused on getting a real result,” Sinema continued.

Arizona’s inclination to become a purple state was confirmed in 2020, when Biden narrowly won the state against then-President Donald Trump. In 2022, Arizona’s other senator, Democrat Mark Kelly, won his re-election race by 5 percentage points, but in another state race, now governor. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, beat Lake by less than 1 point.

Other key races in the 2024 battleground include Democratic Sens. Jon Tester of Montana and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, both up for re-election, while in West Virginia, Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin is not running for another term.