If we're talking about the difference of Toss-Up and Likely/Safe D, then we're talking about at least several points, which would be more than 100,000 votes. A lot of the registered Republicans who voted for Sinema also voted for Biden, Kelly, and Hobbs, so it's not like these are voters who will exclusively vote for Sinema. And I'm not arguing that left-wingers will vote for a Republican over Sinema, I'm arguing that they might stay home or write someone in. Not many will do, but possibly enough to cost her the election if the race is very close. There are plenty examples of this, most notably the 2016 Presidential Election.
The small number of people who might cross over for Sinema would be offset by the (perhaps not so) small number of Democrats/left-wingers who would not vote for Sinema.
Proof?
If her approval ratings are this abysmal among Democrats, I have a hard time believing there won't be at least a small number who won't stomach voting for her in 2024.
1. Literally no left-winger will stay home in a presidential year. This is a really, really disingenuous take because you know it doesn’t make sense.
2. Remind me how 'depressed' D turnout doomed JBE, Manchin, Golden, etc. and how "small" the number of Republicans/Trump voters who voted for them was? Why did Manchin receive near-unanimous support from left-wingers/Democrats in WV even after he voted for Kavanaugh (only after Collins announced her support for him, of course)?
3. We can debate whether it’s the difference between Likely D and Tossup or Lean D and Tossup (both assuming a neutral year), true, but even the difference between Tossup and Lean D is a significant one in an extremely close Toss-up state like AZ. Nowhere did I estimate "more than 100,000 votes" either — probability does not equal raw vote margin.
4. There is absolutely no evidence that Hillary Clinton lost because "Democrats stayed home." In fact, that election would have never been as close as it was if such a large portion of the D base had "stayed home." You also failed to provide other examples (I really hope you didn’t have 2014 in mind here because someone like Landrieu didn’t lose by 11 points because she wasn’t "liberal enough" or because of "depressed" D base turnout).
I get that most of you hate Sinema and want to see her gone, but not everyone feels like you. Stop assuming that the electorate at large thinks like progressives who constantly demand purity tests or projecting your biases/world view onto the overall/general electorate.
I’m not even saying this as someone who wants Sinema to win the D primary (I think her supposed moderation is 100% performative and would prefer an easier opponent with less/no crossover appeal), but many of you are really letting your obsessive (and largely misguided) hatred of Sinema cloud your judgment.
Depressed Democratic turnout absolutely lost several Democrats their races in years like 2010 and 2014. Someone like Landrieu was screwed either way, but higher turnout absolutely could've saved Hagan and Udall, and Warner wouldn't have had such a close call. I don't think it's letting my "bias" impact my analysis when my analysis has pretty consistently been that ideology is not a big factor in so-called "electability." I don't think Sinema is "literally the devil" or worse than Republicans, I just think she's a pathetic attention-seeker, much like a lot of "moderate heroes" who posture themselves to appear centrist without holding any consistent beliefs. I know why Republicans like her, kind of like how Democrats showered praise on Murkowski for refusing to vote to confirm Kavanaugh (funny how they didn't remember many other times she loyally sided with the Republicans.) There have been Democrats in the past that I've disliked more (Mark Pryor, for example. Not just because he's "too far right", but because he showed himself to be a complete idiot on several occasions.)
I don't think Sinema would do
worse than most Democrats, and the argument that Democrats have to be progressives to win is no better than the argument that they have to be moderate to win, in my opinion. What I do think is that we aren't talking about more than a small number of voters who would only vote for her over a Republican, but would otherwise vote Republican, and that small number of voters could be offset by, again a
small number of voters who couldn't stomach voting for her, even if they're voting Democratic in other elections. Plenty of "moderate" Democrats, who made a point of distancing themselves from the left did no better than generic Democrats, and plenty underperformed Biden, despite their supposed electability advantage. And for voters who might pick her over a Republican for superficial reasons, who's to say someone like Gallego couldn't also win those voters, or a different cluster of voters?
Manchin isn't a good comparison, and I think you know that. He's been an institution in his state for over a decade, and while you can argue that his way of connecting to voters isn't authentic, he has made a name for himself in the state, although it's worth noting that his most recent win was far less impressive than his previous ones, and he's absolutely done for in 2024. Sinema, on the other hand, is a freshman Senator who got elected by a narrow margin in a great year for Democrats (and a more generic Democrat replicated her margin against the same opponent in a more neutral year), and the only notoriety she has are the shenanigans she's pulling right now, which will likely please partisan Republicans who want the Democratic agenda to fail, but isn't going to give her some enormous electoral advantage over a Democrat more liked within the party and who can appeal to Independents in a different way. And I've talked about JBE before. Basically, Senate races to Gubernatorial races are an apples-to-oranges comparison, and it's not like he's a hardcore conservative on every issue, either, nor do I think he would act like Sinema in the Senate (which, again, he'd never get elected to in Louisiana.) And what about Tester? He's no Bernie Sanders, but ss I'm sure you'd tell anyone on Atlas, he's not really a moderate, and doesn't exactly buck the party when it matters. It's not ideology or posturing as a moderate hero that wins elections.
As for 2016, Democrats didn't "stay home", but a non-negligible number voted third party, and that number was almost certainly enough to make the difference, given that Trump got under 50% in several key states. Looking at the fact that Trump, of all people, got a higher percentage of Republicans than Clinton did of Democrats speaks volumes. Not to say that Clinton wasn't "liberal" enough, but likability is the key factor here. If Sinema has low favorabilities among Democrats, that's not evidence that a significant number of Republicans or right-leaning independents will actually pull the lever for her.
And I get that you like challenging the "conventional wisdom" and going against the grain on Atlas, but just because Atlas's hatred of Sinema is a bit extreme doesn't mean the analysis that she isn't an electoral juggernaut and a different Democrat could absolutely win this race in 2024 is wrong.
