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As National Democrats, including President Joe Biden, battle Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema’s positions in an equally divided Senate, progressives at home launch campaigns to pressure the state’s senior senator, threatening a main challenger in 2024.
But Arizona is far from a blue state, and some argue that Sinema’s opposition to parts of the Biden agenda is in line with what she campaigned for: an independent, moderate voice to represent the trends. often eccentric policies of the Arizonans.
The former Green Party activist, who once criticized a presidential candidate for trying to win Republican support, is now a moderate thorn in the president’s side.
Progressives are expressing frustration with Sinema, who they say is working against an already moderate president and making Democratic priorities more difficult to implement. And activists are stepping up the pressure on her with crowdfunding campaigns and protests, even following her into a bathroom while at her home in Arizona last week, an action widely condemned by leaders on both sides of the House. the aisle.
Sinema also clashed with protesters at the airport last weekend, asking her why she opposed Biden’s Senate agenda. On her flight, she was approached by a DACA recipient, who asked her to commit to supporting a journey to citizenship. Protesters say they’re struggling to get meetings with Sinema, so they’re looking to the airwaves and larger fundraising campaigns to increase the pressure.
Common Defense, an organization run by progressive veterans, is placing a seven-figure ad buy to target Sinema and pressuring her to help push through Biden’s “Build Back Better” program.
“I feel like she’s failing to come with us when part of her campaign was to cut prescription drug costs, and that’s something the Build Back Better Act is doing. spoke out against, and again, no real good reason why, “Common Defense’s Naveed Shah told ABC News.
Opposition to Sinema did not start with infrastructure. At least two new political action committees have been launched in response to Sinema’s positions since Biden came to power, both seeking to fund a main challenger if Sinema does not change his mind on the filibuster.
Kai Newkirk, a progressive organizer who helped elect Sinema in 2018, is part of efforts to pressure Sinema to align with Biden’s agenda in the Senate using one of the new committees of political action to send a clear message: how Biden’s agenda can pass, otherwise Democrats will look elsewhere for a 2024 Senate candidate. He and other activists have launched a conditional crowdsourcing campaign to fund a main challenger to Sinema, who raised $ 100,000 in one week.
Arizona Democrats recently threatened a no-confidence vote if Sinema continues to oppose filibuster reform that would help secure passage of Biden’s platform, an issue they see as the biggest blockade to Democratic success in Washington.
“We are at a point where we need federal action and nothing is happening there,” Senator Martín Quezada told a progressive media. “I expected the Kyrsten Sinema that I had seen in the legislature. I was always impressed with his intelligence, his aggressiveness and his commitment to the values we supported. This is what I hoped we would get. , but she didn’t. She was the exact opposite of what we thought we were going to elect. “
Part of the dissatisfaction with Sinema comes from a lack of clarity on what exactly she wants. She first ran to State House in the 2000s as an independent and advocated for progressive agendas. As her political career developed and gained larger constituencies, she continued to move to the center. Now, in the Senate majority for the first time, she has participated in meetings with the White House and, along with West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, is one of two Democrats blocking movement on the infrastructure package. by Biden.
Even her colleagues don’t know exactly what she and Manchin are looking for.
“Now it is time, I would say for both senators, to leave your mark and close the deal,” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois said last week. “What do you want? What’s your end goal? It’s time to stop talking about it and talk to her directly.”
Aside from his lack of support on some aspects of Biden’s platform, some Democrats argue his actions could harm first-year Senator Mark Kelly, a Democrat, when he is re-elected next year.
“I think the risk is that it will be more difficult to re-elect Kelly, for the Democrats to retain their majorities in general, because we have not been able to achieve what we were elected to do, if Sinema continues to do what it is now, ”Newkirk said. “You have to keep your promises and make a difference in the lives of voters to get you back to power.
Groups that have organized for her claim that it is difficult to get a meeting with her office and that when they do, they often run into no responses.
“She doesn’t explain what she does or where she really stands to her constituents. And it’s absurd and insulting … to feel that she doesn’t even have to explain to the people who elected her. – that she is there to represent – where she stands on these specific issues, ”Newkirk said.
But all of this may not matter. While Arizona opted for the Democrats to lead their 2020 poll – in both presidential and senatorial races – only former President Bill Clinton and President Joe Biden have broken Arizona’s tendency to vote. red for its presidential candidates. Biden only won the state by 0.3%, a reminder that some Democrats’ fantasy of a deep blue Arizona may still be a long way off.
Samara Klar, associate professor at the University of Arizona’s School of Government and Public Policy, said that despite many Democrats being angry with Sinema, Arizona voters historically love a candidate who is willing to stick to their beliefs, even if they are not popular within their own party at the time.
“Sinema and Mark Kelly both ran and won on this centrism business. That’s what they are, they won’t be typical partisan politicians,” she said.
“Even among Democrats, we tend to see a bit more right-wing positions and preferences for centrism and moderate candidates than we tend to see at the national level. In fact, I would say Kyrsten Sinema was widely elected because of that, ”she said. added.
Sinema, who only won his 2018 election by just under three points, is yet to win a Democratic primary, Newkirk argues.
“If she runs as independent, it is not an institution like John McCain. The votes are not there. She has to win the Democratic primary, and if she continues on this path, she will not be able, but she will continue to win the Democratic primary. digging in his heels, ”Newkirk said.
Sinema has often said that she saw Senator John McCain as an inspiration and that she was sometimes referred to as a politician cut from the same cloth. But Chuck Coughlin, a GOP strategist in Arizona who has watched Sinema’s rise in national politics, told ABC News those comparisons were insufficient.
“People knew who John McCain was – it’s not something that has to be defined by anyone else,” Coughlin said. “And she doesn’t have that kind of deep roots in public consciousness. She’s defined right now. It’s a time in her life that will define her in the future.”
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