The activists who approached Sen. Kyrsten Sinema last year to discuss her obstruction of key Democratic initiatives — like election, immigration and health care reform — were right all along. So were the Black and brown progressives who gathered outside her office to protest her support for the racist filibuster that summer.
Maybe you couldn’t hear them over the sounds of centrist pearl-clutching. (Or, perhaps, you were distracted by the sight of Sinema trying to escape accountability in a bathroom stall.)
But some “I told you so’s” are in order.
On Friday, Sinema announced she’s leaving the Democratic Party and registering as an independent, claiming the choice was a high-minded decision to lessen the vitriol in politics. Ultimately, though, she just confirmed what a lot of progressives have warned about for years: She’s cravenly self-interested and willing to placate an illiberal conservative movement — despite coming from an increasingly liberal state — if it ups her chances of maintaining power.
“Today, Kyrsten Sinema told us what we already knew for years: that she is not a Democrat and simply out for herself,” Alejandra Gomez, executive director of Latino community organizing group Living United for Change in Arizona, said in an interview on Friday.
In this case, leaving the Democratic Party could have some obvious advantages for Sinema in the short term. Rather than stay in a party where she’s largely loathed and has the potential to be ousted by a primary challenger in 2024, she can theoretically play spoiler for Democrats. That’s assuming you believe she’s popular enough among liberals to siphon the party nominee’s votes in a potential re-election bid). The Arizona Democratic Party is skeptical of those chances (as am I, for reasons I’ll explain).
“Senator Sinema may now be registered as an independent, but she has shown she answered to corporations and billionaires, not Arizonans,” Arizona Democrats said in a statement on Friday. “Senator Sinema’s party affiliation means nothing if she continues not to listen to her constituents.”
Please see our statement below regarding @kyrstensinema’s change in party affiliation. pic.twitter.com/qGWSSVR8cU
— Arizona Democratic Party (@azdemparty) December 9, 2022
Those last lines are vital. Arizona is becoming more liberal, and its lurch to the left hasn’t been passive. It’s the product of people migrating from liberal states like Colorado, Washington, Illinois and California, and — importantly — progressive groups like LUCHA working hard to get Democrats like Sinema elected.








