Sinema at 8% approval with Arizona Democrats

[Roll Roons]

Off the top off anyone’s head, what’s the largest primary loss of an incumbent in modern history?

In 2010, Bob Inglis lost his primary runoff to Trey Gowdy by something like 40 points.

Honestly, it's just not common for incumbent Senators to lose primaries, especially if they're not appointees. Lugar, Murkowski and Lieberman are really the only ones in recent memory, and the latter two were reelected anyway.

Bennett in Utah lost his renomination in 2010 to Mike Lee, but Utah Republicans don't do primaries, they do activist dominated conventions.

So out of the four we have from the last two decades:

Lieberman and Murkowski won anyway.
Mike Lee went on to win the general.
Murdock went on to lose the general.

Yes, but I didn't count Bennett because he didn't actually lose a primary.

[TML]

[...]
Honestly, it's just not common for incumbent Senators to lose primaries, especially if they're not appointees.
[...]

In 2018, Jeff Flake would likely have lost his primary had he decided to go for another term instead of retiring. In many cases, unpopular incumbents may end up not running again in the face of poor primary polling.

[Adam Griffin]

With those numbers among Democrats, Sinema's overall approvals would have to be at what? 30%?

A lot of this is incredibly soft, but it goes both ways. Sure, plenty of these disapproving Democrats will still vote for her in a primary and the overwhelming, overwhelming majority in a general election - but so will the overwhelming, overwhelming majority of Republicans vote for a Republican in the GE; their current support means nothing other than the antithesis of a protest-vote for blocking the Democratic agenda.

To be at or around -40 approval is going to cost you at least 3-4 points statewide in a partisan GE relative to breakeven approvals. I doubt her numbers would look this bad nor obviously be anywhere close to the same partisan composition if she wins the nomination again in 2024, but if they were anywhere close to this (i.e. 60-70% approval among Ds and ~15% among everybody else), it would be apocalyptic for her outside of a 2018-style national environment and/or Arizona swings another 5 points to the left between now and then - and even then, she'd almost certainly still lose.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

For reference, Lieberman was still at 40ish % approval when he lost his primary. This are unprecedentedly bad numbers for a same party incumbent. I mean that literally, there has, to my knowledge, never been a sitting Senator that has done anywhere near this badly in approvals with same party voters.

[xavier110]

This forum thinks way too much in the present and not nearly enough through the lens of what it might look like in two years. There’s a good chance that several of the following happen:
-2022 is a red wave and Kelly loses by 5-6 points
-Biden blames the “far left” for their harmful “rhetoric” and uses them as the scapegoat
-GOP controls the house and/or senate so now the narrative is all about republican obstructionism and everybody forgets Sinema exists
-Orange man bad (or someone similar) is running so Biden tells democrats to stop being petty and unify to save democracy
-Nobody except for Twitter laser eyes remembers anybody’s voting record in 2021
-Of the few people who do remember, most are either small government budget-obsessed right center types who credit Sinema with limiting the national debt or independents who adore mavericks for no reason at all (both of which are plentiful in Arizona and can vote in D primary)

No.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

This poll doesn't mean much until after Midterms if D's win, and get 52 seats and hold onto H the Filibuster is gone ANYWAYS

[Mr. Smith]

Off the top off anyone’s head, what’s the largest primary loss of an incumbent in modern history?

In 2010, Bob Inglis lost his primary runoff to Trey Gowdy by something like 40 points.

Honestly, it's just not common for incumbent Senators to lose primaries, especially if they're not appointees. Lugar, Murkowski and Lieberman are really the only ones in recent memory, and the latter two were reelected anyway.

Bob Bennett to Mike Lee (UT-2010), though that was technically a convention.

[Roll Roons]

Off the top off anyone’s head, what’s the largest primary loss of an incumbent in modern history?

In 2010, Bob Inglis lost his primary runoff to Trey Gowdy by something like 40 points.

Honestly, it's just not common for incumbent Senators to lose primaries, especially if they're not appointees. Lugar, Murkowski and Lieberman are really the only ones in recent memory, and the latter two were reelected anyway.

Bob Bennett to Mike Lee (UT-2010), though that was technically a convention.

See my post above.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

For reference, Lieberman was still at 40ish % approval when he lost his primary. This are unprecedentedly bad numbers for a same party incumbent. I mean that literally, there has, to my knowledge, never been a sitting Senator that has done anywhere near this badly in approvals with same party voters.

Just to expand on this for comparison, per 538, the most recent same-party approvals for incumbents who then lost primaries

Specter (D-PA) 50/33 [+17]
Smith (R-NH) 45/30 [+15]
Lieberman (D-CT) 40/29 [+11]
Lugar (R-IN) 43/43 [+/- 0]


Even her most favorable pollster (OHPI which I suspect is her internal of choice because they are absurdly more favorable to her than anyone else), has her underwater with Dems, which would make her the least popular incumbent in recent history with her own party. The Civiqs and PPP numbers, needless to say, are so far underwater that there is nothing to compare it to.