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Just say the name “Kyrsten Sinema” to a progressive and they’ll probably spit on the ground in disgust. The first-term Arizona senator, who was, at one point, a Green Party member, has made a name for herself by opposing many of her own party’s core priorities, including raising the minimum wage, President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better bill and the recently failed voting rights legislation. (Along with West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, she seems to believe that filibuster rules that prevent a Senate majority from enacting its agenda are a hallowed American institution on par with baseball or double cheeseburgers.) At times, she seems gleeful in her obstruction, as she was when she made a curtsy-ish thumbs-down gesture when she voted no on a minimum wage hike.
This has turned her into something of a celebrity, and a persona non grata among many of her former supporters. EMILY’s List announced before the voting rights vote that it was considering not backing her reelection, and hours later NARAL came out with a similar statement. A group of major donors has threatened to support a primary challenger, and one poll of her home state’s Democrats found that 72 percent want to replace her; that same poll saw her trailing in a hypothetical matchup with Arizona Congressman Ruben Gallego, a name commonly batted around as a likely primary opponent. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders mused openly to reporters about supporting such a primary challenge, along with a challenge to Manchin.
So it seems worthwhile to return to a question I wrote about in October, when a PAC to fund a Sinema primary challenge began raising money. I was skeptical then about the wisdom of donating to such an effort, and I still am skeptical, even though Sinema is seemingly intent on burning through her support, and even though she seems like a pretty lousy senator. To explain why, let’s talk about primaries in general, and what they can achieve.
Is it worth it to replace one Democrat with another Democrat?
The goal of political giving is to elect politicians who will use their power to enact policies that help people and make the world a better, more equal place. For Democrats to enact such policies, they need to have majorities in state legislatures or Congress, and control of executive-branch posts in states and the presidency. The value of an individual legislator is mostly that they’ll vote for Democratic bills (or block Republican ones). Sinema and Manchin both supported the American Rescue Plan, which passed in 2021, and was a major achievement, a reward for winning those key Georgia Senate elections.
The problem is that when you have a narrow majority, as the Democrats currently do, you need unified support from your caucus to pass anything, leading to a situation where Manchin and Sinema can hold legislation hostage with their idiosyncratic and sometimes nonsensical demands. A logical conclusion to draw is that they need to be replaced.
But following the logic just leads to more frustration. It’s not enough just to replace Sinema; you also need to replace Manchin—getting rid of Sinema in order to get a 49th vote to eliminate the filibuster doesn’t actually achieve your goal. And though Sinema is a juicy primary target, Manchin is probably the only Democrat who could win in West Virginia.
Complicating matters further, Sinema’s next election isn’t until 2024, by which time Democrats might have lost the House, the Senate or both. It’s extremely unlikely that replacing her will lead directly to legislative victories—it’s extremely unlikely that replacing any individual legislator with a member of their same party will have much of an impact.
The opportunity cost of primaries
In an ideal world, replacing a below-replacement-level Democrat like Sinema would be a frictionless process. But unless the party as a whole abandons her (including the powerful Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee) and lines up behind a challenger, a primary is an expensive proposition. And Senate primaries rarely succeed. The last time a sitting Democratic senator lost a primary was when Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman (who, like Sinema, was despised by the party’s base) was defeated by Ned Lamont—and Lieberman ran as a third-party candidate and won in the general election anyway. It’s conceivable that the confident-to-the-point-of-delusion Sinema could try something similar, and though she probably wouldn’t win (she doesn’t have the base of support Lieberman had), but she could split the Democratic vote sufficiently to hand the seat to the GOP. Unless she decides not to run for reelection, getting Sinema out of the Senate is going to be messy.
Meanwhile, donors will have many more giving opportunities between now and then, including live Senate races in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina and Florida. If Democrats could somehow net two more Senate seats this year, and somehow retain control of the House, Democrats wouldn’t depend on “Manchinema” to pass filibuster reform; they could do it over the duo’s objections.
The problem with donations to primary sitting Democrats is that the money could go toward defeating Republicans—either to campaigns at the federal and state levels or in the form of donations to groups that do year-round organizing. Getting Sinema out of office may be a priority for many Democrats, but how does it rank on a list of priorities that includes fighting to retain House seats and beating the truly terrible Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson?
When does it make sense to drive a Democrat out of office?
Sometimes, a Democratic politician is so out of step with their constituents or the party as a whole that it makes sense to get rid of them. One recent example is former Congressman Dan Lipinski, who essentially inherited his Chicago seat from his father and was an anti-abortion Democrat who voted against the Affordable Care Act. Marie Newman finally defeated him in 2020, ending the bad, weird dynamic of a safe seat Democrat being a conservative.
Some donors who are invested in particular issues may find other reasons to primary a Democrat. Healthcare reform advocates, for instance, would like to take out Massachusetts Rep. Richard Neal, a powerful member of the House who has worked tirelessly to undermine legislation combating surprise hospital bills. Critics of Israel rejoiced when Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated the pro-Israel Joe Crowley in 2018 and were frustrated by Turner’s loss to Brown last year. If your main concern is moving the party in a particular direction on a particular issue, donating to primary candidates may make sense. This is not going to be true for most donors, however.
What about open primaries?
A lot of the above principles apply to open primaries. You may have preferences about which Democrat wins a given nomination, but almost any Democrat is better than almost any Republican. Donors may want to give to a certain primary candidate because of their shared issue positions or because a donor thinks a candidate is much more electable than the alternatives. But electability is always a tricky thing to evaluate, and donors should ask themselves whether it would be better to give after the primary is over and all of their money will be used to defeat Republicans.
Sometimes, open primaries can be contentious and news-making affairs that symbolize larger ideological, intra-party struggles, like last year’s Ohio contest between Shontel Brown and the more progressive Nina Turner. But when any given Democrat is going to vote with the party the vast majority of the time, the difference between Democrats is dwarfed by the difference between the parties—something donors should remember as they plan their giving.
Three rules for donating to primaries
For your average donor who wants Democrats to win elections and build power, donating to primary candidates almost never makes sense—why throw money at a battle between Democrats when you could use your limited money to defeat Republicans? But if you have to give to primaries, here are some suggestions:
Be sure you’re giving to a candidate who has a chance to win in the general election. In the case of Arizona, Gallego may have a good shot at defeating Sinema. But if he decides against running, is there going to be a credible candidate? That’s one reason to adopt a wait-and-see approach to that race.
Give through an intermediary group. If you aren’t intimately familiar with a district or state, it can be hard to judge who is and isn’t a credible candidate. That’s one reason it might be better to give to an organization that spends on primaries and shares your values rather than trying to pick winners yourself. If you’re a left-wing Democrat, giving to Justice Democrats may make sense, for instance.
Have a clear sense of your objectives. This is true for all forms of giving, but it applies especially to primary giving, where it’s easy to get drawn into heated ideological battles. Sinema is public enemy No. 1 for many donors right now, and not without reason. But they should ask themselves if their money is needed elsewhere.