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Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona announced on March 5 that she won’t run for a second term after her estrangement from the Democratic Party left her politically homeless and without a clear path to reelection.
Ms. Sinema’s announcement comes after Senate Republicans blocked a bipartisan bill to help secure the U.S.-Mexico border and deliver military aid to Ukraine and Israel – a deal that Ms. Sinema spent months negotiating. She had hoped it would be a signature achievement addressing one of Washington’s most intractable challenges as well as a powerful endorsement for her increasingly lonely view that cross-party dealmaking remains possible.
But in the end, Ms. Sinema’s border-security ambitions, and her career in Congress, were swallowed by the partisanship that has paralyzed Congress.
“I love Arizona and I am so proud of what we’ve delivered,” she said in a video posted to social media. “Because I choose civility, understanding, listening, working together to get stuff done, I will leave the Senate at the end of this year.”
Ms. Sinema’s decision avoids a three-way contest in one of the most closely watched 2024 Senate races. That hard-to-forecast scenario had spawned fierce debate among political operatives about whether one major party would benefit in the quest for the Senate majority. Most analysts agreed Ms. Sinema had faced significant, likely insurmountable hurdles if she had decided to run.
The first openly bisexual person elected to the Senate, Ms. Sinema had raised money for a potential reelection campaign and significantly stepped up her public appearances in Arizona throughout 2023, though her activities slowed as her announcement neared. During her five years in office, she built a formidable campaign bank account pegged at $10.6 million at the end of last year, but her quarterly fundraising was outpaced by Democrat Ruben Gallego and Republican Kari Lake.
Ms. Sinema was a Democrat for most of her political career until she left the party in December 2022, saying she did not fit into the two-party system. She had alienated many colleagues and her party’s base by blocking progressive priorities, often siding with business interests. In an era of party loyalty, she went out of her way to build relationships with Republicans.
When Ms. Sinema became an independent, Democrats feared she would split the left-of-center vote and allow a Republican to win the seat.
Republicans have a favorable map this year in the battle for control of the Senate. Democrats will be forced to defend 23 seats, including Ms. Sinema’s and two others held by independents who usually vote with Democrats, compared with 10 seats for Republicans.
Ms. Sinema tried to build her Senate career in the mold of John McCain, the Arizona Republican whose willingness to buck the GOP infuriated his party’s base but endeared him to the state’s more moderate voters.
But she ended up hewing closer to the path of Jeff Flake, a former Arizona Republican senator who stood against then-President Donald Trump and became a pariah in his party. Like Ms. Sinema, Mr. Flake declined to run for a second term after it became clear he could not survive a primary.
Mr. Flake endorsed Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 against Mr. Trump and was rewarded with an appointment by the president as ambassador to Turkey.
Ms. Sinema did not say what the future holds for her. But in her video message announcing her departure, she blamed the current political climate, saying “Americans still choose to retreat farther to their partisan corners.”
“It’s all or nothing,” she said. “The only political victories that matter these days are symbolic, attacking your opponents on cable news or social media.”
Her 2018 election marked the first time in a generation that Democrats had won a Senate seat from Arizona. It was the start of a period of ascendance for Democrats in a state long dominated by the GOP.
In the Senate, she has been at the center of many of the biggest bipartisan congressional deals of Mr. Biden’s presidency, from an infrastructure package and a new gun law to protection for same-sex marriages.
She worked with members of both parties and she tried to find compromises, often preferring to hang out on the Republican side of the Senate floor to talk to GOP lawmakers. And she became known for diving into the details of policy, keeping spreadsheets and notebooks filled with detail during negotiations.
Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican who often sat at the negotiating table with Ms. Sinema, said she will miss her in the Senate. “I like people who are willing to reach across the aisle and get things done,” Ms. Collins said.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York, who has at times had a strained relationship with Ms. Sinema, said the Arizona senator “blazed a trail of accomplishments in the Senate.”
Ms. Sinema has been a reliable vote for Democrats on most nominations and legislation. But with the party hamstrung by razor-thin majorities, she refused to give her blessing to some of the progressive movement’s top priorities.
Her support for maintaining the Senate’s filibuster rule, which requires 60 of 100 votes to pass most legislation instead of a simple majority, has been a particular source of frustration for progressives, who say it gives Republicans a veto despite the Democratic majority. Ms. Sinema says it forces the bipartisan compromise that most voters crave.
She single-handedly thwarted her party’s longtime goal of raising taxes on wealthy investors. The year before, she received nearly $1 million from private equity professionals, hedge fund managers, and venture capitalists whose taxes would have increased under the plan.
At times, she’s seemed to take delight in serving as a roadblock.
She curtsied while casting a vote against raising the minimum wage. A few weeks later, with backlash to that vote still fresh, she posted to Instagram a photo of herself at brunch wearing a ring that said “f—- off.”
Progressives dialed up the pressure. Activists followed her into a bathroom seeking answers to their questions. Critics disrupted a wedding where she was a guest. The Rev. Jesse Jackson was among demonstrators arrested in a protest outside her Phoenix office.
Long before she faced reelection, donors threatened to walk away, and several groups began collecting money to support an eventual challenger.
In 2022, before she became an independent, leaders of the Arizona Democratic Party censured Ms. Sinema, a symbolic move that carried no practical impact but was emblematic of the rupture of her relationship with the party.
Ms. Sinema’s political career began as an anti-war activist. A self-described “Prada socialist,” she ran unsuccessfully for local office as a member of the Green Party. She was later elected to the Arizona Legislature as a Democrat and became a prolific spokesperson against Republican bills. Witty, pithy, and accessible, she was on speed dial for journalists covering the Legislature.
But she came to believe that she could be more effective building bridges with the Republican majority than publicly excoriating them, she wrote in her 2009 book, “Unite and Conquer.” It was the start of her move toward the center and the persona that has formed her national brand.
This story was reported by The Associated Press. AP writers Mary Clare Jalonick, Stephen Groves, and Farnoush Amiri in Washington contributed to this report.
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