DFP Poll Suggests Deep Primary Trouble For Kyrsten Sinema

[MT Treasurer]

Obviously Sinema is not needed for Democrats to hold this seat if the environment is favorable enough for them, but Sinema losing to a progressive challenger would be an absolute gift to the GOP. I don’t think it will happen, though (AZ Democrats may not like Sinema, but they like Mitch McConnell even less).

Race would be Likely D with Sinema and Toss-up with Gallego/most non-Sinema Democrats.

[MT Treasurer]

Obviously Sinema is not needed for Democrats to hold this seat if the environment is favorable enough for them, but Sinema losing to a progressive challenger would be an absolute gift to the GOP.

You really think so? I think a damaged Sinema with baggage is an easier opponent for Republicans than a progressive Democrat with no baggage.

Definitely. Sinema has lost the approval of a large part of the D base, but she still enjoys considerable crossover appeal among Republicans (even Republican leaders/strategists are heaping praise on her on a regular basis even though she is obviously extremely unlikely to cast the deciding vote against anything D leadership actually prioritizes). Sinema losing the primary would only reinforce the predictable "[candidate xyz] is too left-wing for AZ/does not represent the spirit of John McCain and Kyrsten Sinema/etc." lines of attack, and both Kelly and Sinema (unlike Warnock or Ossoff) owe their wins largely to moderates. Gallego would never get the crossover support from R-leaning voters that Sinema would have gotten and would depend on the top of the ticket/environment/mistakes of his R opponent much more than Sinema.

[MT Treasurer]

There are not hundreds of thousands of voters in Arizona who would vote for a Republican against any Democrat but Sinema.

This is a straw man — there don’t have to be "hundreds of thousands" of these people to make the difference in a state as close as AZ.

Partisan Republicans are going to back someone who votes with McConnell >95% of the time over someone who might do it ~50% of the time.

Yes, and not every Republican in AZ is a partisan Republican? Sinema didn’t win in 2018 because of "partisan Republicans," those people obviously supported McSally. Also, the vast majority of swing voters don’t study these statistics/voting records and vote based on perception/branding rather than the candidates' actual ideology.

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.

No, because Democrats would never vote for a Republican Senate over Kyrsten Sinema. Remind me: When was the last time a Democrat actually lost a competitive Senate race because the D base didn’t "come home" for them? This is far, far more common with R incumbents/candidates, Democrats usually don’t demand these purity tests because they know what’s at stake.

[MT Treasurer]

But crossover appeal doesn't mean they'll vote for her. These people aren't swing voters. Republicans like her because she screws up the Democratic agenda. Republicans and R voting indies in Arizona will easily vote for an actual Republican who can do this over a Democrat.

The people you are talking about are literally the reason you guys have the trifecta (Republicans/Trump voters/R-leaning indies supporting Manchin, Tester, Golden, Cartwright, etc.).

People here are really underestimating how easily some voters can be conned into supporting the "right" candidate from the other side — this is even more true for Republicans (at least in Senate races) but also applies to D-leaning voters in gubernatorial races (e.g. Democrats for Sununu). Not everyone is a hardcore partisan.

[MT Treasurer]

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.