Arizona is Bluer than Sinema imagines

and is more progressive, too

As the Left grouses about Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, neither its idealists nor the pragmatists within the Democratic Party have honed in on the problem that vexes these two.

Their terms expire in 2024.

Joe Manchin lives in fear that his 40 year record of being a popular and respected West Virginia politician will end in ignomious defeat due to Trumpism and the possibility that Trump himself will be on the ballot to ensure it. In 2018, then-President Donald Trump targeted Manchin for defeat; and despite an electoral history that had Manchin winning statewide with very comfortable margins, Manchin won in a squeaker that year with 49.6% and a 19,397 vote margin.

Like Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema also won in a tight race in 2018, but the similarities end there.

Arizona had an open Senate seat election in 2018 due to the “retirement” of Jeff Flake. Senator Flake had inured Trump’s ire by deigning to criticize him; and rather than get primaried, he “retired.” Flake had supported Trump more than 95% of the time while in office.

Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema bested Congresswoman Martha McSally 49.96% to 47.61% in 2018. But what looks like another squeaker is actually a case of a Green Party activist, who was named Angela Green, winning 2.41% of the vote. Green tried to withdraw from the race (too late as ballots had been printed and mailed to voters) and Democrats in the Grand Canyon state feared she would spoil their chances for winning a Senate race for the first time since 1988. All for naught once the votes were counted. It is worth noting that Sinema’s raw vote margin (55,900 votes) more than doubles if Green’s vote total (57,4542) is included.

And it’s not as if Trump’s numbers in Arizona are better than West Virginia. Trump got 48.67% in 2016 and 49.36% in 2020 in Arizona, but he managed to get over 68% of the vote twice in the Mountain State.

Further, Sinema has a lot less to fear with Trump being on the ballot in 2024. Her fellow Senator Mark Kelly won a special election in 2020 with 51.2% of the vote and a raw vote margin of nearly 79,000.

Demographics matter and Sinema’s misread of her increasingly liberal constituency is costing her dearly. EMILY’s List has dumped her due to her strident opposition to reforming the filibuster rules to protect voting rights. That political knock will hurt her when she tries to “paper up” her liberal credentials in 2024.

By the way: The Green Party did not thrown in in the 2020 Senate race — just guessing they knew the difference between a true blue progressive and a paper one.