Dec.12

electoral-vote.com

Dem 51

   

GOP 49

Arizona in 2024

Until Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) announces her future plans—which could take quite a while—we will be left speculating about the meaning of her newfound independence. In the short run, it doesn't mean much. She has said she will keep her committee positions. That's not actually for her to say; she has no control over that. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) controls the committee positions for Democrats. The fact that she said she would keep her current positions (Homeland Security, Banking, Commerce, and Veterans' Affairs) means that she and Schumer have already made a deal. In effect, she is now no different than Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Angus King (I-ME). Nothing really changes here.

The $64,000 question is: What about 2024? She can't run as a Democrat, but she could file to run in the general election as an independent. She would need to get 40,000+ signatures to do that. If she tried, Republican voters would be trampling all over each other to get to the petition first to sign up in hopes of splitting the Democratic vote. She could get those signatures in a flash. So if she wants to be on the ballot as an independent, she could easily. But what happens then?

We see two plausible scenarios and one implausible one, none of which she has any control over. First the implausible one, to get it out of the way. The Democratic leadership could tell Democrats not to file to run, thus giving her a clear shot at being reelected as an independent. This is the way it plays out in Vermont and Maine. That would never work in Arizona, though, because Sanders and King are immensely popular with Democrats in their respective states. Almost every high-profile Democrat there wants to see them reelected and won't do anything to interfere with that. That won't work for Sinema because Arizona Democrats despise her. They want to see her defeated. It is virtually certain that at least one high-profile Democrat would enter the Senate race, even if national Democrats warned against it. Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), who represents most of Phoenix in the House, is champing at the bit, teasing an announcement. There is no way for the DSCC to stop him, either, if he wants to run. They could threaten to withhold funding, but Gallego is popular enough to raise tens of millions of dollars on his own, after which the DSCC would probably give in and help him. He is undoubtedly now in discussions with state and national Democratic officials, donors, pollsters, and consultants about a run. If the pollsters tell him he would win, it will be hard for party leaders to stop him.

Rep. Greg Stanton (D-AZ), the former mayor of Phoenix and current congressman, is also a potential candidate. As chance would have it, he is now sitting in the House seat Sinema vacated in 2018 when she ran for the Senate. He is not as aggressive as Gallego about teasing a run, but he could well jump in. Our conclusion is that Arizona is not Vermont or Maine. It's bigger and sunnier and the Democrats there hate their senior senator. They are not going to leave the Democratic line on the Senate ballot blank.

The first plausible scenario is that Gov. Doug Ducey (R-AZ) runs for the GOP nomination for the Senate and wins it. If so, every Republican in the state will vote for him. The Democratic vote is likely to be split and the popular soon-to-be-former governor would probably win. If Ducey decides not to run (because Donald Trump will do everything in his power to defeat him), another potential mainsteam candidate is Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb. In a three-way race with Lamb, Sinema, and Gallego/Stanton, Lamb would probably win.

The second plausible scenario is the Kari Lake runs for the GOP nomination (potentially against Ducey in the primary) and with Donald Trump's help, wins the nomination. Now the three-way race would be Lake, Sinema, and some Democrat, probably, Gallego or Stanton. This is a whole different kettle of fish because many Republicans despise Lake but don't want to vote for a Democrat. Sinema would give them an alternative. In this combination, we would expect Sinema to pull in more Republican votes than Democratic votes, making a victory for the Democrat quite plausible. A variant on this theme is that billionaire Peter Thiel decides to p*ss away another $15 million and gets Blake Masters to run for the GOP Senate nomination (again) and he wins.

So, if a mainstream Republican runs in a three-way race, he or she would probably win but if the Republicans nominate a loony, the Democrat could win due to sane Republican voters opting for Sinema instead of the loony. Ranked choice voting would be a real plus here, but Democrats are three seats short in the state Senate and Republicans don't want it.

The order of events could matter. If Gallego gets in first, Sinema, Ducey, Lamb, Stanton, Masters, and Lake will no doubt be observing the reaction (especially fundraising) very closely. That could affect their own decisions one way or another. If Gallego raises a mini-fortune on Day 1, some of the others might take that as an omen and decide against a run.

Other factors could also play a role. The leading progressive digital firm, Authentic, has now dropped Sinema as a client, even though she has paid them over $700,000 since 2020. Suppose she has trouble finding a replacement. Suppose big donors say "Good-bye!" because they don't think she can win. All kinds of stuff could happen that she has to factor in.

Of course, we don't yet know the plans of any of the actors named above. We think it more likely than not that Gallego is in. He keeps teasing a run, and even fundraising for a run. He wouldn't do that unless he were seriously considering it. He just won reelection with 75% of the vote in the state's biggest city. He well understands that is a pretty good indication he'd be a strong candidate, as a Marine Corps veteran in a state full of veterans and a Latino in a state full of Latinos. Stanton knows this very well, but as a former mayor of Phoenix, he is also well known. Of course, he also knows that Gallego is almost certainly in and could raise a lot of money fast, so it would be an expensive Democratic primary. But, remember, in politics a week is long time and we have months to go. Stuff can change quickly.

As an aside, we will now drop the Sen. Krysten Sinema (D-AZ) notation since she is that no more. Chris Weigant observed that since she is now an Independent Senator, maybe Sen. Krysten Sinema (IS-AZ) would be better. But on second thought, that doesn't seem right at all. Also using two characters for the party violates the convention, but maybe there is a way to combine "I" and "S" into one symbol. He humbly suggested Sen. Krysten Sinema ($-AZ), which perhaps sums up the situation adequately.

Sinema is not the first senator to change party registration while in the Senate. Since 1950, nine other senators have jumped ship, as follows:

Six of the nine were reelected after switching, but that is hardly a prediction in Sinema's case. In fact, she could surprise everyone again by not running for reelection in 2024. One possible career path is for her to become a lobbyist, although that seems unlikely. A lobbyist has power when he or she can cajole former colleagues into doing something to help a client. Once Sinema is out of the Senate, no Democrat will give her the time of day, let alone do favors for her clients. More likely is a highly paid gig on Fox. Maybe she and Tulsi Gabbard could have show called The Democrat Hour, featuring all the usual Republican talking points but from former Democrats. Organizing an independent run for the Senate takes a lot of time and money, so Sinema probably has to make a decision within a few months. One thing she almost certainly will not do is quit the Senate abruptly sometime next year because then Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ) would appoint an actual Democrat to her seat and Sinema clearly does not want that. (V)