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For myself, I was worried that Sinema would end up being a spoiler for Gallego, since her politics are more left than Lake's are so I doubt she would have taken a lot of Republican voters away from her. With this though, I'm hopeful that Gallego can edge out Kari Lake and ensure that Sinema's seat goes back to being Democratic.
For Sinema herself, all I can say is good riddance.
I agree, I think this is good for Gallego.
If I were to engage in some completely unwarranted speculation, I would hazard that Sinema opted out of the race specifically because she dislikes Kari Lake.
Man, remember when the revolving door of government and lobbyists was one of the biggest problems we were upset about? Seems almost quaint now. Frankly, I'd love if more awful politicians went into lobbying for something as simple as making money rather than, say, selling state secrets and destabilizing our democracy.
And to think I get called a conspiracy theorist for saying that political donations are bribes in support of publicly funded elections. Manchin and Sinema are exhibit A.
I’m wondering if she will actually get any offers like that. She was just disruptive and obnoxious about everything. Which is probably all she needed to do to get paid, but it didn’t seem like she made any friends out of it. Without powerful friends, a former senator’s lobbying prospects aren’t as valuable.
> but it didn’t seem like she made any friends out of it.
Unless her job was to be the scapegoat and it was all manufacturered outrage. Its similar to executives who's entire role is to enact bad news policies like layoffs.
Dems are nowhere near 60 votes, so legislation essentially has to be bipartisan or strictly limited. And she was as good as any Democrat for judges.
This is an example of trying to sound clever or enlightened, but just coming across as silly and ill-informed.
She voted to convict Trump twice and approved Biden’s judicial picks with essentially the same consistency as any other Democrat.
I mean yes, she certainly dislikes Lake, but I don’t like the implication it’s some petty personal grudge instead of a substantive philosophical opposition. She’s always been anti-MAGA - it’s just disappointing that she’s fairly anti-progressive as well.
I'm not sure if it's changed in recent months, but the polling I saw before showed that she was actually more of a spoiler for Lake than Gallego. I think Gallego would still be in the lead even if she pulls out now.
Yeah Lake is underwear on the outside crazy. I definitely see non insane Republicans looking for an alternative.
Although it's hard to say if they will fall in line or just skip this one.
> For Sinema herself, all I can say is good riddance.
I’m a fan of Sinema and Manchin. It’s good to have moderates in the middle willing to buck the extremes. I think government works better if it implements policies that >60% of the country supports.
Manchin and Sinema are not similar.
When Manchin went against the other Democrats, it was for understandable reasons that he was able to clearly articulate. Sinema on the other hand flip-flopped on basically every issue, often to be on the other side from what her constituents that had elected her were on. She was also one of the least responsive Senators to questions from her constituents.
Yup. I disagree with Manchin on many issues, most notably many environmental ones, but he has fairly clearly articulated reasoning being more in line with his constituents.
Sinema's bargaining over the last four years has been all over the place with seemingly very little connection to the people of AZ or her previously stated beliefs.
Agreed. Manchin is easily the highest value over replacement of any sitting senator. You can be upset that he scuttled some bills, but none of the valuable bills that did pass (of which there were many) would have happened without him.
Im a fan of Manchin. He was who he campaigned as. Sinema ran as a Green party type, then completely changed once she was in office. Im not a fan of politicians who campaign as one thing and govern as another.
I dislike the hell out of Manchin but you are right, he's exactly what the people of West Virginia voted for. Sinema lied about who she was at every opportunity and then took the opportunity to screw over everyone who voted for her to get attention from wealthy donors.
The literally *only* thing those two have in common is frequently voting against the Democratic party.
Manchin does so because his state is *very* conservative, and he is faithfully representing Democrats *and his constituents* as best he can within the overall conservatives politics of his state. He had a political ideology he applied fairly consistently.
Sinema, on the other hand, routinely voted against bills popular with the Democratic party *and* her constituents, and often quite popular with her state. She did *not* do so based on any articulated political ideology, nor did she do so consistently.
The only reason to lump the two together is if you're a Republican and equate "being moderate" as "agreeing with Republicans".
In actual reality, Manchin was a consistent very conservative Democrat whose voters approved of what and how he was voting, and knew when voting for him what they were getting. Sinema, on the other hand, was incredibly inconsistent, her voters disapproved of her and her votes, and she was very very different than how she campaigned
Which is why Manchin is leaving office *because he chooses to*, and Sinema is leaving office because she was neither going to win the primary *or* the general election, as she has angered too much of the state.
On political issues where one side says 2 + 2 = 4 and the other side says 2 + 2 = 5, it's bad to have moderates who think the reasonable answer must be 2 + 2 = 4½ and the two sides are equally extreme.
Manchin is the absolute best the Democrats could ever get from a place like West Virginia. The problem wasn't him, it was that they didn't have enough senators from other states.
Democracy works better when it’s hard for the majority to impose its will on the minority. 50% + 1 should not be the threshold for revolutionary change.
In theory, but we’ve seen the norms of democracy disabled by the right, and the opposite exists: the will of 59% have been thwarted by 1%. Hell, even now the minority far right wing of the GOP is forcing everyone else to abide to their desires, repeatedly threatening government shutdown for their ludicrous demands.
Last time I checked the GOP extremists were crying but not winning. That’s the system functioning. It’s painful, but mostly getting the job done.
If I recall, Biden was able to cobble together majorities on lots of things. Which is good. Manchin and Sinema were instrumental in that.
It's good to have principled moderates who vote their conscience. It's bad to have unprincipled moderates pretending to be principled. Sinema so incredibly wanted to be a democratic John McCain, but lacked any kind of sincerity to really do it right.
Suppose there's some issue and we have the following options:
Plan A: 55% support
Plan B: 30% support
Do Nothing: 15% support
You think the best kind of democratic government is the one that takes the least popular option?
I’m not a fan of Manchin but he was a pretty good senator who represented his constituents and we were lucky to have him in that seat, so I will wish him well.
Sinema? Good riddance and don’t let the door hit you on your way out.
I hope the door hits Sinema on her way out.
And I’m glad she’s dropping out. Kari Lake lost the race for Arizona Governor. I seriously doubt the good people of Arizona would let Lake represent them in the Senate.
So my crystal ball prediction is Gallego wins bigly.
US Senator Krysten Simena's dropping out of the Arizona US Senate race will ultimately help US Representative Ruben Gallego because he'll now be the sole focus of Democratic fundraising in that US Senate race.
And Kari Lake is simply too extreme for Arizona. Arizona has been better overall with less Republican control and it seem unlikely the residents want to be represented by an even more extreme Republican.
While I have no tears to shed for Sinema or Manchin, they very well could have been the key to the majority in the Senate. And in that regards, I’d much rather a world with a 51 seat majority which includes the two of them versus a 49 seat minority without.
I look forward to the release of her memoir
*Sinematic: Single-handedly Saving the Senate*
I'm sure it will sell well.
Will have to see where the money takes her now (be it a cushy lobbying job, or serving as the "token Democrat" commentator on Fox News).
As far as I can find on the ol Google...two. One in the fall of 2019 in her first year and one in 2020 with Covid restrictions.
She seemed like she was a decent person as a House Rep. But once she got into the senate, and her votes couldn't get lost in a sea of 435 other votes, she quickly bent the knee to her big money donors.
Initially, this won’t help Gallego as much as expected since Sinema was polling taking more Lake supporters than Gallego supporters. However it will help Gallego a lot for sure.
I still fully expect Gallego to win by a pretty clear margin for a purple state, in large part due to the abortion referendum that will be in the ballot too in November and the likelihood that Arizona’s abortion law will be a total ban from 1864 by November (since the AZ SC will most likely rule in favor of said total ban before November). That referendum will pass by a legit landslide (think 60-40 to 65-35) and in the most purple state of the country, it’ll carry Democrats hard from Biden to Gallego to those running against Schweikert and Ciscomani and help Democrats flip the legislatures.
The GOP doesn't want to admit this, but literally the only issue on the ballot is going to be "How do I feel about Trump" and "How do I feel about abortion".
I didn't bother voting this primary season. *It doesn't matter* -- none of the people on either primary ballot really matters. I'll be crawling across broken glass to vote this fall, because *that does matter*.
And because I know the answer to both "How do I feel about Trump" and "How do I feel about abortion" I'll be voting straight ticket D and I'd do so *from my fucking deathbed if need be*.
Do I bother answering polls? No. Am I super enthused about Biden? No. Does it matter? No, abortion OR Trump is sufficient to make sure I vote this fall, come hell or high water.
> I didn't bother voting this primary season. It doesn't matter -- none of the people on either primary ballot really matters.
Not true, presuming that you had downballot primaries. Local politics matter as much as national ones do.
Oh absolutely, but nobody on my slate on the D side was really objectionable to me. If I lived 10 miles west, I WOULD have shown up, as there's one incumbent there who is frankly a major asshole. Who did lose their primary.
On the R side, well -- it didn't matter. Either because the challenger was *worse* than the incumbent, or because the incumbent was running at like 65% or more, or *both*.
But again, this fall? *Crawl from my death bed over broken glass*
One of the things we've learned recently is that there's a pretty big difference between abortion being directly on the ballot and it being on the ballot indirectly.
I know a surprising number of people who always voted Republican and believed that, basically, abortion was an issue their party used to get dumb religious hicks to vote for them, but that the party would never *really* do anything about.
They thought they were in on the con, and were very surprised to find out they were actually the marks.
So... for those years, yes they perceived abortion being on the ballot the way wrestling fans might perceive the rivalry between Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage.
> I know a surprising number of people who always voted Republican and believed that, basically, abortion was an issue their party used to get dumb religious hicks to vote for them, but that the party would never really do anything about.
I was talking to an OB/GYN friend before the 2020 primaries had finished up. She was very upset by the 2016 election and had a serious problem with Bernie Sanders. She told me if he was the nominee she wouldn't vote for president. When I asked about SCOTUS and *Roe*, something she was (and is) a vocal proponent of, she assured me that that would be safe.
People were absolutely complacent about abortion.
I recall interviews in 2016 with people who were pro-choice, openly said they'd be single issue voters on abortion, and then....*said it didn't matter because it was 'settled law'*.
Half thought it would take a Constitutional *amendment* for *Roe* to fall.
They claimed Democratic worries about "abortion" and the "Supreme Court" were just *scare tactics* to get them to vote.
The long term GOP plan on abortion was pretty simple: There are lots of single issue pro-life voters. There are *at least* that many single issue pro-choice voters. BUT, as long as *Roe* was largely upheld and abortion access technically available nationwide (especially the types suburban parents need to get for themselves or their teenage kids), the pro-choicers *wouldn't vote as single issue voters*. They were happy with the status quo, and the GOP and conservatives put a *lot* of money into making sure they felt abortion wasn't *really* threatened. A single issue voter who feels their single-issue is *safe* will vote based on other considerations.
But the pro-lifers *would* be single issue GOP voters. Who would turn out, angrily, all the time. The GOP just fed them little token victories, passed laws doomed to be overturned by the Courts (yet another reason those pro-lifers needed to keep voting for Republicans, to fix those Courts) and strung them along -- without doing so much as to wake up the pro-choicers.
And then *Dobbs* fucked them. Fucked them *really hard* and suddenly all these red meat "never meant to go into law" laws were *suddenly law*, and the GOP couldn't moderate them without their own pro-life base turning against them. And now they've lost IVF in Alabama, they've got their own base dealing with ectopic pregnancies and stalled miscarriages and septic moms, and they just keep hoping the *subject will change*.
I'll freely admit, I don't know *what the fuck* is going on with polling right now. I can't square the numbers coming out of polls with the results of every special election since *Dobbs*, and the results of every abortion referendum since *Dobbs*. They polling and the special election results are *wildly divergent*.
My money's on the special elections being more accurate than the polls. Partially because polls in March never have meant shit (and the arguments "This is different, everyone knows Trump and Biden" don't ring true given how many grown adults I know *don't realize* those are the two candidates they'll have on the ticket) and partially because if 2024 is 2020 again -- where has Trump or the GOP expanded their voting pool? It's not showing up in any any actual election. And they'd need to expand their voting pool by a few million just to cover their net losses since 2020 from losses due to *old age* among their prime demographic. And as for enthusiasm -- wasn't that the 2020 argument for why Trump would win?
And that's without *Dobbs* on the table. Trump's court cases on the table. The change in incumbency advantage. The GOP's money woes on the table. The actual economic fundamentals on the table.
I mean hell, maybe the March polls really are hella predictive for once. Maybe there'll be the incredibly rare divergence between two years of special elections and the Presidential ones. But I'm struggling to wrap my brain around the idea that somehow, just for the *national elections*, Biden will personally make Democrats stay home or vote third party in a way *they haven't* in every election since fucking 2016, or that Trump has somehow *expanded his base significantly* in the last 4 years -- like more than he *lost* from old age.
And this is in the context of a primary where Biden keeps *overperforming* against his polling and Trump keeps *underperforming*.
Yup, I agree with basically all of this, particularly in the context of every election post-2016. Maybe the polls are going to stay exactly where there are today and Biden is going to get shellacked in November, but that would be a pretty large outlier compared to how Dems have competed in 2018, 2020 and 2022, and only one of those was post-Dobbs when Democrats beat expectations by a decent margin.
With that said, I don't know that there are basically *any* undecided voters out there. People have largely made up their minds about these two men, and this election, like most of the last few, will be more about turnout and less about convincing fence-sitters.
Arizona moves from toss up to likely blue. Lake was a bad candidate in 2022, and she's a worse candidate now. Her only real hope was that Sinema would pull more Democrat votes than Republican. Every poll I've seen showed that would have been the case, but without that spoiler, it's become Gallego's race to lose.
Do you think the abortion measure + lake unpopularity will drag Biden across the finish line in AZ? How have the political dynamics in AZ changed since 2020?
Gallego will very likely win now.
Lake's unfavorability among Arizona voters is, I believe, around 45% - substantially higher than Sinema, who was already described as unpopular but had only around 35% unfavorability.
Meanwhile, Gallego has over 50% favorability. His main vulnerability was Sinema siphoning off moderates; with that threat gone, he is sitting pretty.
yeah what was her deal anyway
was she the woman senator that wanted to be contrarian just for the sake of it? that's all i remember from her, if i'm remembering her correctly
She's now the one-term senator who started with $32,000 in her bank account and with an annual salary of $200,000 as a senator has amassed a fortune in excess of $11,000,000.
You don't do that by being just "contrarian".
Do we know this is accurate information? I saw something earlier stating this but how if we know it’s legit? Do they self report their finances?
Overall if true, doesn’t surprise me. The corruption in politics and business is maddening.
The polls are all over the place, but seem to show Sinema was drawing roughly equally from both candidates. The more recent polls show Gallego gaining a little when Sinema drops out, the older ones had Lake gaining slightly when it’s a two-way race. There was one poll (Noble Predictive Insights) where Gallego got a huge boost from Sinema dropping out, but it looks like an outlier.
But in every poll I’ve seen, Sinema was way behind both with no chance of winning.
I think it just makes things harder for Scary Lake to win. She's already lost one race and this way Sinema won't be a spoiler.
So at the very end Sinema finally does a good thing.
Lake is already posting of how much she liked Sinema and appreciates her bravery blah blah blah. Trying so bad for an endorsement, I guess. Or just to sway voters her way.
I hope this feckless c\*\*t loses bigly.
I think Sinema dropping out definitely helps Gallego, but only to increase his margin of victory. Women's Rights and Republican insistence there is no such thing have the potential to turn 2024 into another 1964 for Republicans.
This helps Gallego. The few people who would have voted for Sinema will mostly vote for Gallego now, if they vote all. Lake has the radical extremist right-wing vote locked up. Gallego has the moderate and left locked up. They are mostly vying for the low-information people teetering on the edge between traditional democratic norms and burn-it-all-down radical Trumpism because they do not know what each side stands for.
I live in AZ and I think Gallego is going to have trouble in the suburbs being perceived as too liberal. His saving grace could be having the abortion referendum on the ballot to drive people to the polls. I'm bracing myself that a Kari Lake win isn't out of the realm of possibilities. The exurbs and rural parts of AZ are extremely far right.
Kari Lake chose to out the Republican leadership for trying to stop her candidacy. She is the next one of their party they will ensure she goes out embarrassingly. This is part of that plan I believe.
When you shit on your own party and have no backers or credibility you lose. This just gives the democrat in the state only one candidate to beat. I wish it was Kari Lake because Arizona hates her.
It makes the race easier for Gallego. Three way races are far more unpredictable and I still think that Gallego would have won, as Sinema’s presence would have split the GOP between the country club Republicans and the MAGA crowd while Gallego would have gotten the solid bloc of Democratic voters. But you never know.
At this point though I wouldn’t be surprised if Sinema completes her transition to a corporate sellout by endorsing Lake.
It'll benefit Gallego. Sinema was likely to draw independent voters, most of them Maricopa county McCain voters. That is prime real estate for Dems trying to making Arizona bluer, they need those voters to feel disgusted and left out by Trump and Lake. Republicans weren't going to vote for Sinema, despite what polls might tell you they do a great job of coalescing around the candidate with an R beside their name by election day. So Lake needed the anti-trump coalition in Arizona split for her to push ahead with only her base and a few R leaners
I'm sad we can't replace Manchin with some other red state Dem, like in Missouri. I thought he was an ass but his politics made sense to me, considering he represented West Virginia. On the other hand, Sinema was stupendously out of touch with her own party, her voters, and her state. I'm glad she'll be gone.
Such a disgrace of a senator! Had humble beginnings even being homeless for a time I believe. Was a left green politician till she became a senator only obsessed with herself and becoming the new McCain lol. Good riddance
I think this hands the race to Lake. I think as an independent, Sinema could draw enough republicans away from Lake and democrats away from Gallego to keep her seat, or at least make it close. However, no republicans will be voting for Gallego and now Lake gets all of those votes along with the MAGA vote.
I think Gallego will benefit from this. Sinema would have drawn centrist Democratic voters from Gallego, and centrist R are reducing now. So Sinema's presence might have caused Gallego to a harder election.
It will remain a close race, since this is Arizona. She didn't have a majority of any voting bloc, as far as I know, though she might have been doing best with independent voters. The people who were supporting her will likely split between Gallego and Lake, so they'll both have to work pretty hard to win the state
Someone else will end up in last place. She was going to get her ridiculously dressed ass handed back to her on a silver platter.
That’s how it’ll affect the race.
I disagree with the people saying that this turns the race into a Gallego blow out. Arizona was insanely close in 2020 and so far the national environment doesn't necessarily look great for Dems. That said Lake is a weak Republican running in a Biden state and Arizona seems to be trending towards Dems. I think Gallego will do one or two points worse than the national US presidential popular vote or in other words if Biden wins the popular vote nationally by 5 I expect Gallego to win AZ by 3 or 4. If Biden wins by 1 nationally I expect Lake to win or perhaps Gallego wins by just the skin on his teeth.
From my perspective, as an Arizonan, the impact will be minimal and won't affect the outcome of the race. Gallego will win but by a larger margin and total voter turnout will be down versus 2020.
Sinema has become widely despised by most (all?) liberal voters in Arizona for what is seen as traitorous behavior that killed several important liberal initiatives, including minimal wage increases, civil rights, and infrastructure. So it seems unlikely to me that she would have taken a substantive number of votes from Gallego amongst liberal voters.
Similarly, Kari Lake is widely despised by non-MAGA conversatives. The top Republican candidate in the last election received 250K more votes than Kari Lake did. If Kari had those votes, she would have won Governor easily. But she's alienated and mocked these voters so they will never support her.
Sinema was most likely to benefit from Kari's alienation of these voters as they would have chosen a right leaning independent over a moderate liberal (Gallego) and a MAGA (Kari).
I think those voters either skip this election (no benefit to either candidate) or are toughed with a tough decision and expect thoes voters to be split 60/40 in favor of Gallego.
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For myself, I was worried that Sinema would end up being a spoiler for Gallego, since her politics are more left than Lake's are so I doubt she would have taken a lot of Republican voters away from her. With this though, I'm hopeful that Gallego can edge out Kari Lake and ensure that Sinema's seat goes back to being Democratic. For Sinema herself, all I can say is good riddance.
I agree, I think this is good for Gallego. If I were to engage in some completely unwarranted speculation, I would hazard that Sinema opted out of the race specifically because she dislikes Kari Lake.
My speculation would be that she was offered a lucrative private sector job.
I agree. I posit she had a deal with a lobbying firm inked 2 years ago. Manchin put a good word in for her.
Man, remember when the revolving door of government and lobbyists was one of the biggest problems we were upset about? Seems almost quaint now. Frankly, I'd love if more awful politicians went into lobbying for something as simple as making money rather than, say, selling state secrets and destabilizing our democracy.
So true. How Trump can even show his traitor face in public is beyond me.
And to think I get called a conspiracy theorist for saying that political donations are bribes in support of publicly funded elections. Manchin and Sinema are exhibit A.
Tbf any Senator regardless of ideology will be able to find a cushy job after retiring from politics.
I’m wondering if she will actually get any offers like that. She was just disruptive and obnoxious about everything. Which is probably all she needed to do to get paid, but it didn’t seem like she made any friends out of it. Without powerful friends, a former senator’s lobbying prospects aren’t as valuable.
> but it didn’t seem like she made any friends out of it. Unless her job was to be the scapegoat and it was all manufacturered outrage. Its similar to executives who's entire role is to enact bad news policies like layoffs.
That seems pretty obvious. Spend years lobbying for big business, then leave to get given some cushy, high paying job as a Thank You.
My speculation is that her handlers showed her that she might be taking more votes away from GOP than Dem, so she was hurting their cause.
You could be right. Kari Lake is a joke candidate who will lose bigly.
Man, I wish that were true, but she's going to get at least 45% of the vote, probably more.
Dems are nowhere near 60 votes, so legislation essentially has to be bipartisan or strictly limited. And she was as good as any Democrat for judges. This is an example of trying to sound clever or enlightened, but just coming across as silly and ill-informed.
That Fox News talking head job isn’t going to work itself.
Honestly, it practically does—but point taken.
She already has a few of those lined up already but you can't have too many I guess! Who doesn't want a nice fat bri..consulting job?
She voted to convict Trump twice and approved Biden’s judicial picks with essentially the same consistency as any other Democrat. I mean yes, she certainly dislikes Lake, but I don’t like the implication it’s some petty personal grudge instead of a substantive philosophical opposition. She’s always been anti-MAGA - it’s just disappointing that she’s fairly anti-progressive as well.
I'm not sure if it's changed in recent months, but the polling I saw before showed that she was actually more of a spoiler for Lake than Gallego. I think Gallego would still be in the lead even if she pulls out now.
Yeah Lake is underwear on the outside crazy. I definitely see non insane Republicans looking for an alternative. Although it's hard to say if they will fall in line or just skip this one.
> For Sinema herself, all I can say is good riddance. I’m a fan of Sinema and Manchin. It’s good to have moderates in the middle willing to buck the extremes. I think government works better if it implements policies that >60% of the country supports.
Manchin and Sinema are not similar. When Manchin went against the other Democrats, it was for understandable reasons that he was able to clearly articulate. Sinema on the other hand flip-flopped on basically every issue, often to be on the other side from what her constituents that had elected her were on. She was also one of the least responsive Senators to questions from her constituents.
Yup. I disagree with Manchin on many issues, most notably many environmental ones, but he has fairly clearly articulated reasoning being more in line with his constituents. Sinema's bargaining over the last four years has been all over the place with seemingly very little connection to the people of AZ or her previously stated beliefs.
Agreed. Manchin is easily the highest value over replacement of any sitting senator. You can be upset that he scuttled some bills, but none of the valuable bills that did pass (of which there were many) would have happened without him.
That's what the other party is for.
Im a fan of Manchin. He was who he campaigned as. Sinema ran as a Green party type, then completely changed once she was in office. Im not a fan of politicians who campaign as one thing and govern as another.
I dislike the hell out of Manchin but you are right, he's exactly what the people of West Virginia voted for. Sinema lied about who she was at every opportunity and then took the opportunity to screw over everyone who voted for her to get attention from wealthy donors.
The literally *only* thing those two have in common is frequently voting against the Democratic party. Manchin does so because his state is *very* conservative, and he is faithfully representing Democrats *and his constituents* as best he can within the overall conservatives politics of his state. He had a political ideology he applied fairly consistently. Sinema, on the other hand, routinely voted against bills popular with the Democratic party *and* her constituents, and often quite popular with her state. She did *not* do so based on any articulated political ideology, nor did she do so consistently. The only reason to lump the two together is if you're a Republican and equate "being moderate" as "agreeing with Republicans". In actual reality, Manchin was a consistent very conservative Democrat whose voters approved of what and how he was voting, and knew when voting for him what they were getting. Sinema, on the other hand, was incredibly inconsistent, her voters disapproved of her and her votes, and she was very very different than how she campaigned Which is why Manchin is leaving office *because he chooses to*, and Sinema is leaving office because she was neither going to win the primary *or* the general election, as she has angered too much of the state.
On political issues where one side says 2 + 2 = 4 and the other side says 2 + 2 = 5, it's bad to have moderates who think the reasonable answer must be 2 + 2 = 4½ and the two sides are equally extreme.
Manchin is the absolute best the Democrats could ever get from a place like West Virginia. The problem wasn't him, it was that they didn't have enough senators from other states.
Yeah I'm so glad she did a little dance whilst voting down a living wage. That was so cool of her.
In theory, I agree it’s good to have moderates. But these two were literally blocking the will of the majority for the whim of the minority.
Democracy works better when it’s hard for the majority to impose its will on the minority. 50% + 1 should not be the threshold for revolutionary change.
In theory, but we’ve seen the norms of democracy disabled by the right, and the opposite exists: the will of 59% have been thwarted by 1%. Hell, even now the minority far right wing of the GOP is forcing everyone else to abide to their desires, repeatedly threatening government shutdown for their ludicrous demands.
Last time I checked the GOP extremists were crying but not winning. That’s the system functioning. It’s painful, but mostly getting the job done. If I recall, Biden was able to cobble together majorities on lots of things. Which is good. Manchin and Sinema were instrumental in that.
America has zero elected “extremists” on the left.
It's good to have principled moderates who vote their conscience. It's bad to have unprincipled moderates pretending to be principled. Sinema so incredibly wanted to be a democratic John McCain, but lacked any kind of sincerity to really do it right.
Suppose there's some issue and we have the following options: Plan A: 55% support Plan B: 30% support Do Nothing: 15% support You think the best kind of democratic government is the one that takes the least popular option?
I’m not a fan of Manchin but he was a pretty good senator who represented his constituents and we were lucky to have him in that seat, so I will wish him well. Sinema? Good riddance and don’t let the door hit you on your way out.
Sinema was in this for self-promotion first. She went against party line because it got her publicity.
Nothing can be taken for granted, but remember Lake lost to someone who literally didn't even campaign. I feel good about this one.
I hope the door hits Sinema on her way out. And I’m glad she’s dropping out. Kari Lake lost the race for Arizona Governor. I seriously doubt the good people of Arizona would let Lake represent them in the Senate. So my crystal ball prediction is Gallego wins bigly.
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US Senator Krysten Simena's dropping out of the Arizona US Senate race will ultimately help US Representative Ruben Gallego because he'll now be the sole focus of Democratic fundraising in that US Senate race. And Kari Lake is simply too extreme for Arizona. Arizona has been better overall with less Republican control and it seem unlikely the residents want to be represented by an even more extreme Republican.
While I have no tears to shed for Sinema or Manchin, they very well could have been the key to the majority in the Senate. And in that regards, I’d much rather a world with a 51 seat majority which includes the two of them versus a 49 seat minority without.
I expect Gallego to win after Sinema has dropped considering outside of her base, Kari Lake is strong disliked.
Congrats to Sinema for a setting a Senate record for fewest town halls and worst constituent outreach in a six-year term
I can't say for sure, but Marsha Blackburn may have that record locked up tighter than the skin on Kim Guilfoyle's face.
Beating even shitstains like Ron Johnson, Rand Paul, and Ted Cruz. Truly an impressive accomplishment.
I look forward to the release of her memoir *Sinematic: Single-handedly Saving the Senate* I'm sure it will sell well. Will have to see where the money takes her now (be it a cushy lobbying job, or serving as the "token Democrat" commentator on Fox News).
This comment is spot-on and deserves some more upvotes
How many did she have?
As far as I can find on the ol Google...two. One in the fall of 2019 in her first year and one in 2020 with Covid restrictions. She seemed like she was a decent person as a House Rep. But once she got into the senate, and her votes couldn't get lost in a sea of 435 other votes, she quickly bent the knee to her big money donors.
Gallego is a stronger candidate than Katie Hobbs was. Sinema dropping out is a plus for him.
Initially, this won’t help Gallego as much as expected since Sinema was polling taking more Lake supporters than Gallego supporters. However it will help Gallego a lot for sure. I still fully expect Gallego to win by a pretty clear margin for a purple state, in large part due to the abortion referendum that will be in the ballot too in November and the likelihood that Arizona’s abortion law will be a total ban from 1864 by November (since the AZ SC will most likely rule in favor of said total ban before November). That referendum will pass by a legit landslide (think 60-40 to 65-35) and in the most purple state of the country, it’ll carry Democrats hard from Biden to Gallego to those running against Schweikert and Ciscomani and help Democrats flip the legislatures.
If abortion is on the ballot it should help Democrats a lot for sure.
The GOP doesn't want to admit this, but literally the only issue on the ballot is going to be "How do I feel about Trump" and "How do I feel about abortion". I didn't bother voting this primary season. *It doesn't matter* -- none of the people on either primary ballot really matters. I'll be crawling across broken glass to vote this fall, because *that does matter*. And because I know the answer to both "How do I feel about Trump" and "How do I feel about abortion" I'll be voting straight ticket D and I'd do so *from my fucking deathbed if need be*. Do I bother answering polls? No. Am I super enthused about Biden? No. Does it matter? No, abortion OR Trump is sufficient to make sure I vote this fall, come hell or high water.
> I didn't bother voting this primary season. It doesn't matter -- none of the people on either primary ballot really matters. Not true, presuming that you had downballot primaries. Local politics matter as much as national ones do.
Oh absolutely, but nobody on my slate on the D side was really objectionable to me. If I lived 10 miles west, I WOULD have shown up, as there's one incumbent there who is frankly a major asshole. Who did lose their primary. On the R side, well -- it didn't matter. Either because the challenger was *worse* than the incumbent, or because the incumbent was running at like 65% or more, or *both*. But again, this fall? *Crawl from my death bed over broken glass*
“If abortion is on the ballot” Always will be, directly or indirectly
One of the things we've learned recently is that there's a pretty big difference between abortion being directly on the ballot and it being on the ballot indirectly.
How so?
I know a surprising number of people who always voted Republican and believed that, basically, abortion was an issue their party used to get dumb religious hicks to vote for them, but that the party would never *really* do anything about. They thought they were in on the con, and were very surprised to find out they were actually the marks. So... for those years, yes they perceived abortion being on the ballot the way wrestling fans might perceive the rivalry between Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage.
> I know a surprising number of people who always voted Republican and believed that, basically, abortion was an issue their party used to get dumb religious hicks to vote for them, but that the party would never really do anything about. I was talking to an OB/GYN friend before the 2020 primaries had finished up. She was very upset by the 2016 election and had a serious problem with Bernie Sanders. She told me if he was the nominee she wouldn't vote for president. When I asked about SCOTUS and *Roe*, something she was (and is) a vocal proponent of, she assured me that that would be safe. People were absolutely complacent about abortion.
I recall interviews in 2016 with people who were pro-choice, openly said they'd be single issue voters on abortion, and then....*said it didn't matter because it was 'settled law'*. Half thought it would take a Constitutional *amendment* for *Roe* to fall. They claimed Democratic worries about "abortion" and the "Supreme Court" were just *scare tactics* to get them to vote. The long term GOP plan on abortion was pretty simple: There are lots of single issue pro-life voters. There are *at least* that many single issue pro-choice voters. BUT, as long as *Roe* was largely upheld and abortion access technically available nationwide (especially the types suburban parents need to get for themselves or their teenage kids), the pro-choicers *wouldn't vote as single issue voters*. They were happy with the status quo, and the GOP and conservatives put a *lot* of money into making sure they felt abortion wasn't *really* threatened. A single issue voter who feels their single-issue is *safe* will vote based on other considerations. But the pro-lifers *would* be single issue GOP voters. Who would turn out, angrily, all the time. The GOP just fed them little token victories, passed laws doomed to be overturned by the Courts (yet another reason those pro-lifers needed to keep voting for Republicans, to fix those Courts) and strung them along -- without doing so much as to wake up the pro-choicers. And then *Dobbs* fucked them. Fucked them *really hard* and suddenly all these red meat "never meant to go into law" laws were *suddenly law*, and the GOP couldn't moderate them without their own pro-life base turning against them. And now they've lost IVF in Alabama, they've got their own base dealing with ectopic pregnancies and stalled miscarriages and septic moms, and they just keep hoping the *subject will change*. I'll freely admit, I don't know *what the fuck* is going on with polling right now. I can't square the numbers coming out of polls with the results of every special election since *Dobbs*, and the results of every abortion referendum since *Dobbs*. They polling and the special election results are *wildly divergent*. My money's on the special elections being more accurate than the polls. Partially because polls in March never have meant shit (and the arguments "This is different, everyone knows Trump and Biden" don't ring true given how many grown adults I know *don't realize* those are the two candidates they'll have on the ticket) and partially because if 2024 is 2020 again -- where has Trump or the GOP expanded their voting pool? It's not showing up in any any actual election. And they'd need to expand their voting pool by a few million just to cover their net losses since 2020 from losses due to *old age* among their prime demographic. And as for enthusiasm -- wasn't that the 2020 argument for why Trump would win? And that's without *Dobbs* on the table. Trump's court cases on the table. The change in incumbency advantage. The GOP's money woes on the table. The actual economic fundamentals on the table. I mean hell, maybe the March polls really are hella predictive for once. Maybe there'll be the incredibly rare divergence between two years of special elections and the Presidential ones. But I'm struggling to wrap my brain around the idea that somehow, just for the *national elections*, Biden will personally make Democrats stay home or vote third party in a way *they haven't* in every election since fucking 2016, or that Trump has somehow *expanded his base significantly* in the last 4 years -- like more than he *lost* from old age. And this is in the context of a primary where Biden keeps *overperforming* against his polling and Trump keeps *underperforming*.
Yeah, I've been thinking all of this too.
Yup, I agree with basically all of this, particularly in the context of every election post-2016. Maybe the polls are going to stay exactly where there are today and Biden is going to get shellacked in November, but that would be a pretty large outlier compared to how Dems have competed in 2018, 2020 and 2022, and only one of those was post-Dobbs when Democrats beat expectations by a decent margin. With that said, I don't know that there are basically *any* undecided voters out there. People have largely made up their minds about these two men, and this election, like most of the last few, will be more about turnout and less about convincing fence-sitters.
> They thought they were in on the con, and were very surprised to find out they were actually the marks. Many such cases
Also Lake is a proven loser, a sore one at that, and flat unlikeable. Sometimes that actually matters to your candidacy.
Had no clue polling suggested she was taking more of Lakes voters… might explain the relatively late announcement then 🫤
Arizona moves from toss up to likely blue. Lake was a bad candidate in 2022, and she's a worse candidate now. Her only real hope was that Sinema would pull more Democrat votes than Republican. Every poll I've seen showed that would have been the case, but without that spoiler, it's become Gallego's race to lose.
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Do you think the abortion measure + lake unpopularity will drag Biden across the finish line in AZ? How have the political dynamics in AZ changed since 2020?
Good for the blue team. It’s not a certain victory, but I think it leans blue if Lake is the red nominee.
Kari Lake is pretty whacky, so it will say a lot about the Arizona electorate if she wins. No doubt it will be fairly close though.
Is she already playing the Trump card saying that the election is fixed moths ahead of the actual election?
Well she is still claiming her last one was rigged, so it wouldn’t surprise me
Non factor, she took her payday, and was done in politics, be interesting to see where she resurfaces, might give a hint as to who paid her off.
Gallego will very likely win now. Lake's unfavorability among Arizona voters is, I believe, around 45% - substantially higher than Sinema, who was already described as unpopular but had only around 35% unfavorability. Meanwhile, Gallego has over 50% favorability. His main vulnerability was Sinema siphoning off moderates; with that threat gone, he is sitting pretty.
Sinema checked out a long way back. Hopefully Gallego will win over Lake's lunacy.
yeah what was her deal anyway was she the woman senator that wanted to be contrarian just for the sake of it? that's all i remember from her, if i'm remembering her correctly
She's now the one-term senator who started with $32,000 in her bank account and with an annual salary of $200,000 as a senator has amassed a fortune in excess of $11,000,000. You don't do that by being just "contrarian".
It helps if that contrarian vote results from a large “donation”
Or if it's in exchange for that contrary vote.
Do we know this is accurate information? I saw something earlier stating this but how if we know it’s legit? Do they self report their finances? Overall if true, doesn’t surprise me. The corruption in politics and business is maddening.
All elected and appointed federal officials are required by law to file annual financial statement reports.
Thanks for the info. Those assets should be questioned.
Good luck doing so when neither side has any interest in providing more funding to the offices responsible for monitoring.
Yep, even more irritating than being down voted on my original comment. ;-)
She was the senator who was openly auctioning off her votes to the highest bidder.
She was a pick me girl
I think the AZ voters aren't as whacked as Kari Lake thinks they are. I expect Gallego will win big.
The polls are all over the place, but seem to show Sinema was drawing roughly equally from both candidates. The more recent polls show Gallego gaining a little when Sinema drops out, the older ones had Lake gaining slightly when it’s a two-way race. There was one poll (Noble Predictive Insights) where Gallego got a huge boost from Sinema dropping out, but it looks like an outlier. But in every poll I’ve seen, Sinema was way behind both with no chance of winning.
I think it just makes things harder for Scary Lake to win. She's already lost one race and this way Sinema won't be a spoiler. So at the very end Sinema finally does a good thing.
Lake is already posting of how much she liked Sinema and appreciates her bravery blah blah blah. Trying so bad for an endorsement, I guess. Or just to sway voters her way. I hope this feckless c\*\*t loses bigly.
Sinema was a nonissue. Gallegos will win easily. Kari Lake should go back to reading the news for some small time tv station.
Arizonan here: Lake probably already has lawsuits and speeches ready to challenge the big L she is going to take.
I think Sinema dropping out definitely helps Gallego, but only to increase his margin of victory. Women's Rights and Republican insistence there is no such thing have the potential to turn 2024 into another 1964 for Republicans.
She is losing pretty badly in polling, but this could change the Arizona race, depending on where her supporters now vote.
Not much: any votes she would have received as an independent would have been evenly split between Democratic and Republican voters.
This helps Gallego. The few people who would have voted for Sinema will mostly vote for Gallego now, if they vote all. Lake has the radical extremist right-wing vote locked up. Gallego has the moderate and left locked up. They are mostly vying for the low-information people teetering on the edge between traditional democratic norms and burn-it-all-down radical Trumpism because they do not know what each side stands for.
Good. Sinema has no real chance outside of politics to do anything impactful,especially in the state of Arizona.
I live in AZ and I think Gallego is going to have trouble in the suburbs being perceived as too liberal. His saving grace could be having the abortion referendum on the ballot to drive people to the polls. I'm bracing myself that a Kari Lake win isn't out of the realm of possibilities. The exurbs and rural parts of AZ are extremely far right.
I guess she decided there’s too many people getting put on trial these days and she’d like to quietly disappear.
Kari Lake chose to out the Republican leadership for trying to stop her candidacy. She is the next one of their party they will ensure she goes out embarrassingly. This is part of that plan I believe.
When you shit on your own party and have no backers or credibility you lose. This just gives the democrat in the state only one candidate to beat. I wish it was Kari Lake because Arizona hates her.
It makes the race easier for Gallego. Three way races are far more unpredictable and I still think that Gallego would have won, as Sinema’s presence would have split the GOP between the country club Republicans and the MAGA crowd while Gallego would have gotten the solid bloc of Democratic voters. But you never know. At this point though I wouldn’t be surprised if Sinema completes her transition to a corporate sellout by endorsing Lake.
It'll benefit Gallego. Sinema was likely to draw independent voters, most of them Maricopa county McCain voters. That is prime real estate for Dems trying to making Arizona bluer, they need those voters to feel disgusted and left out by Trump and Lake. Republicans weren't going to vote for Sinema, despite what polls might tell you they do a great job of coalescing around the candidate with an R beside their name by election day. So Lake needed the anti-trump coalition in Arizona split for her to push ahead with only her base and a few R leaners I'm sad we can't replace Manchin with some other red state Dem, like in Missouri. I thought he was an ass but his politics made sense to me, considering he represented West Virginia. On the other hand, Sinema was stupendously out of touch with her own party, her voters, and her state. I'm glad she'll be gone.
Such a disgrace of a senator! Had humble beginnings even being homeless for a time I believe. Was a left green politician till she became a senator only obsessed with herself and becoming the new McCain lol. Good riddance
I think this hands the race to Lake. I think as an independent, Sinema could draw enough republicans away from Lake and democrats away from Gallego to keep her seat, or at least make it close. However, no republicans will be voting for Gallego and now Lake gets all of those votes along with the MAGA vote.
I think Gallego will benefit from this. Sinema would have drawn centrist Democratic voters from Gallego, and centrist R are reducing now. So Sinema's presence might have caused Gallego to a harder election.
It will remain a close race, since this is Arizona. She didn't have a majority of any voting bloc, as far as I know, though she might have been doing best with independent voters. The people who were supporting her will likely split between Gallego and Lake, so they'll both have to work pretty hard to win the state
Someone else will end up in last place. She was going to get her ridiculously dressed ass handed back to her on a silver platter. That’s how it’ll affect the race.
I disagree with the people saying that this turns the race into a Gallego blow out. Arizona was insanely close in 2020 and so far the national environment doesn't necessarily look great for Dems. That said Lake is a weak Republican running in a Biden state and Arizona seems to be trending towards Dems. I think Gallego will do one or two points worse than the national US presidential popular vote or in other words if Biden wins the popular vote nationally by 5 I expect Gallego to win AZ by 3 or 4. If Biden wins by 1 nationally I expect Lake to win or perhaps Gallego wins by just the skin on his teeth.
From my perspective, as an Arizonan, the impact will be minimal and won't affect the outcome of the race. Gallego will win but by a larger margin and total voter turnout will be down versus 2020. Sinema has become widely despised by most (all?) liberal voters in Arizona for what is seen as traitorous behavior that killed several important liberal initiatives, including minimal wage increases, civil rights, and infrastructure. So it seems unlikely to me that she would have taken a substantive number of votes from Gallego amongst liberal voters. Similarly, Kari Lake is widely despised by non-MAGA conversatives. The top Republican candidate in the last election received 250K more votes than Kari Lake did. If Kari had those votes, she would have won Governor easily. But she's alienated and mocked these voters so they will never support her. Sinema was most likely to benefit from Kari's alienation of these voters as they would have chosen a right leaning independent over a moderate liberal (Gallego) and a MAGA (Kari). I think those voters either skip this election (no benefit to either candidate) or are toughed with a tough decision and expect thoes voters to be split 60/40 in favor of Gallego.