The last critical Arizona Senate race ended a month ago, and the next one is already kicking off — with pressure on Democrats to dodge a political disaster.The last critical Arizona Senate race ended a month ago, and the next one is already kicking off — with pressure on Democrats to dodge a political disaster.
Kyrsten Sinema’s Friday party switch has jolted her home state’s 2024 Senate race to life far earlier than expected, raising questions from Capitol Hill to Phoenix about the risk that Democrats could hand the GOP a must-win seat.
The now-independent senator wouldn’t say in an interview with POLITICO whether she’ll seek reelection in two years. Still, multiple Democrats see Sinema’s move as an attempt to shore up her electoral standing — by both avoiding a primary and trying to box out her likely chief opponent, Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.).
“Does it dilute us? Does it draw away from us? Yes, absolutely,” Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said, adding that he’s already personally assured Gallego of support in any 2024 Senate fight but also warned him to take Sinema seriously. “Anybody who underestimates her is foolish.”
Multiple people close to Gallego, however, said they do not expect he will back down. The outspoken, bilingual Marine Corps veteran has been quietly assembling a Senate campaign team, with his launch now essentially kicked into overdrive. The effect was indeed immediate: A group of Democratic consultants focused on the still-unformed race huddled about the Sinema switch early Friday morning, according to one person familiar with the conversations.
Sinema’s decision places perhaps the biggest burden on someone else entirely: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. The chamber’s top Democrat and his campaign arm are already under enormous pressure, particularly from the left, to unite behind a 2024 Senate candidate from their own party — instead of falling in line behind Sinema.
Grijalva described the party’s job in simple terms: “[T]o coalesce around a Democrat and get that ready. That’s all we can do.”
Chuck Coughlin, an Arizona-based strategist who left the Republican Party in 2017 and is now unaffiliated, said that “people are taking a collective gasp” in his state.
