Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is currently public enemy No. 1 among progressives. The Arizona senator is one of two legislators who is holding up the Build Back Better reconciliation bill, and unlike West Virginia’s Sen. Joe Manchin, a conservative Democrat from a red state, her motivations for seeking cuts to the spending package remain unclear, not to mention seemingly at odds with her past as a left-wing activist. Motivated by a sense of betrayal and anger, protesters have confronted Sinema at the Boston Marathon and in the bathroom of the university where she teaches. There is a real possibility that she’ll face a primary challenge. Way to Win, a collection of donors and organizers, has formed a PAC, Change for Arizona 2024, to push Sinema out. Way to Win’s donors have put an initial $400,000 toward this cause (the group moved $110 million in the 2020 cycle) and is asking for other donors to join them. Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA) is a key group behind this push. It helped put Sinema in office by working to register and turn out hundreds of thousands of new voters and feels deeply betrayed by her obstructionism.
Sinema inspires such distaste from progressives that Change for Arizona may not be the only effort to fund a primary against her, and donors both small and large may be thinking of giving money in hopes of forcing her out. Writing in The Nation, the prominent donor and strategist Steve Philips argues that primarying Sinema “makes eminent sense.” But this is almost certainly a terrible idea. Sinema’s efforts to stymie her own party may be baffling and enraging, her personal style may drive you up the wall, but funding a primary—especially right now—is a fool’s errand. Here’s a list of reasons why.
A primary campaign is a long shot
Sitting senators rarely ever lose primaries. Two Democratic incumbents have lost primaries since 2000, and both were exceptional cases. In 2010, Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter lost to challenger Joe Sestak, but Specter had recently switched parties. In 2006, Connecticut’s Sen. Joe Lieberman (who had angered progressives by opposing his own party’s priorities, just as Sinema is doing now) lost a primary to Ned Lamont but went on to form a third party and win in the general election.
Assuming Sinema runs for reelection in 2024, she’ll surely have a lot of establishment backing and lots of money, as well as strong name recognition. Prominent Arizona Democrats may be wary of primarying her and risking the wrath of party leaders. And even if a primary succeeds, there’s no guarantee the victor will win the general election—after all, Lamont and Sestak both lost.
The political landscape is going to change between now and 2024
Right now, Sinema looks like the major obstacle to progressive priorities in the Senate. But by the time this hypothetical primary campaign rolls around, that will surely change. In 2022, either Democrats will drop Senate seats to Republicans (the likely scenario) and lose control of the chamber, or they’ll buck historical midterm trends and expand their majority. If Democrats don’t have a majority, it won’t really matter that Sinema doesn’t vote with her own party often enough. If they have 51 or more seats, they will be able to get bills through without her vote. And of course, Democrats are likely to lose control of the House, which means they won’t be able to pass legislation into law with or without Sinema.
As time passes, Sinema may also look stronger. As FiveThirtyEight noted, she’s currently less popular among her state’s Democrats than Lieberman or Specter, but if she eventually votes for some kind of slimmed-down BBB bill and is no longer in the news, her favorability numbers may improve. And if Democrats are once again in the minority in the Senate, voters may prioritize keeping a Democrat in that Arizona seat, even if they aren’t big Sinema fans.
A primary challenge is unlikely to change Sinema’s behavior
Advocates of primarying Sinema may hope that the credible threat of a primary challenge will force her to stop her obstructionism and deliver on the promises she made to the Arizona organizers who worked so long and hard to make her election possible in a formerly red state. Since the days of the Tea Party, right-wing activists and donors have successfully put fear in the hearts of Republican incumbents, often forcing them to fall in line. Shouldn’t a more empowered left wing of the Democratic Party be able to flex its muscles in the same fashion? And hasn’t it already by taking out the likes of Sen. Joe Crowley, defeated by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a 2018 primary challenge?
That’s a nice theory, but the evidence doesn’t yet support that this kind of tactic can work within the Democratic Party at the senatorial level. And as I said, 2024 is still a long time from now—as Sinema well knows. Also, to the degree that we can divine her political intentions—as Michelle Cottle of the New York Times recently tried to do—Sinema might believe that positioning herself as an independent in the style of John McCain and drawing fire from the left will actually help her stay in office in a purple state.
There are better ways to help Democrats in the Senate
If you’re mad at Sinema, here’s one thing you can do: Help elect more Democrats to the Senate so that she is no longer the swing vote. Most of the time, the party in power loses seats in the midterms, but there are going to be competitive races in North Carolina (where the Republican incumbent is retiring) and Wisconsin (where Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, a particularly Trumpy member of the GOP, should face a tough test). Either of those seats could be picked up by Democrats. (See our recent rundown of all potential pickups here.) The party also has to defend seats in Arizona (where Sen. Mark Kelley is up for reelection), Georgia, Nevada and New Hampshire. Giving money to campaigns and organizations in those states should take precedence over trying to replace one Democrat with another. If you care about the Senate, that’s where you should be donating.
The 2022 midterms will determine who holds power in Congress during the second half of President Joe Biden’s first term. That’s the whole ball game. Sinema’s intransigence is merely a sideshow, and donors shouldn’t get caught up in it.