AZ-SEN 2024: Away we Gallego (3/5 - Sinema OUT)

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Gallego or Stanton would be ideal.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

I’m all for primarying Sinema but there’s no guarantee we keep the seat if we run Gallego or whoever defeats Sinema. If a crazy is nominated we are definitely favored but if not it’s easy to imagine Gallego being defined as extreme and losing, especially if Biden loses the state.

Sure, but Sinema is a far weaker candidate than Gallego.  Gallego, Stanton, or really just about any serious candidate would have a better shot in the GE than Sinema, plus if they win then we’d get an actual Democrat in the seat instead of a Republican.  I mean, Sinema is a Republican in a state where an actual Democrat can win (see: Mark Kelly x2, Fontes, Hobbs x2, Hoffman in ‘18, and Mayes) that alone is reason enough to primary her.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

I’m all for primarying Sinema but there’s no guarantee we keep the seat if we run Gallego or whoever defeats Sinema. If a crazy is nominated we are definitely favored but if not it’s easy to imagine Gallego being defined as extreme and losing, especially if Biden loses the state.

Sure, but Sinema is a far weaker candidate than Gallego.  Gallego, Stanton, or really just about any serious candidate would have a better shot in the GE than Sinema, plus if they win then we’d get an actual Democrat in the seat instead of a Republican.  I mean, Sinema is a Republican in a state where an actual Democrat can win (see: Mark Kelly x2, Fontes, Hobbs x2, Hoffman in ‘18, and Mayes) that alone is reason enough to primary her.

You keep using that word. It does not mean what you think it means.

Nah, respectfully, this is a case where you simply don’t know what you’re talking about.

I think people on this forum are all underestimating Sinema. 2 years in politics is super long.

The crazy thing is too that Sinema doesn't need to be this way. She can still do the whole "bipartisan work is important, etc." without being so off-putting to Dems. Mark Kelly just won by 5 points by still maintaining the "independent" mantle despite voting with Dems nearly all of the time. Arizona clearly doesn't have a problem with it. She's just making things worse for herself. But yeah, she can still turn this around if she stops being so obstructionist.

I do wonder about her involvement this year. I wonder if it was more of her not caring at all to help, or if they thought she'd be more of a hinderance? It does speak volumes though that she couldn't at least tweet a few times for Hobbs/Kelly or something. She didn't need to be by their side the whole time, but the fact that she did *nothing* it seems is pretty striking, and kinda shows that she's still refusing to be a team player.

How much is she fundraising behind the scenes? I thought I heard she's a prolific fundraiser for Democratic campaign committees, and that's part of why Schumer still stands, unflinchingly, by her.

Wrong on all counts, but thanks for playing

Literally nothing in your post is true.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

I really doubt Sinema is a fundraiser for other Democrats given she didn’t campaign for anyone else in Arizona this cycle.

She isn’t, what TimTurner asserted about her fundraising is both factually incorrect.  By which I mean that there is objectively no basis in reality for the claim that Sinema has been some sort of fundraising rockstar for the DSCC.  She went around raising money for *herself* from hyper-partisan Republican mega-donors like Ken Langone and the Koch Brothers at secret closed door events, but the DSCC never saw a cent of that (nor would I want them to be receiving a cut of her bribe to help kill critical pieces legislation that would transform America for the better).  

I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that Sinema’s re-election is being funded in no small part by Republican mega-donors given that we’re talking about someone who explicitly told Susan Collins, Rob Portman, and John Thune in early 2021 (March 2021 IIRC) that literally the only reason she wasn’t switching parties to flip control of the Senate back to the Republicans was that she didn’t think it was possible for an openly bisexual non-theist to win a Republican primary in Arizona.

For that matter, TimTurner’s claim about Schumer unflinchingly supporting Sinema isn’t true either.  I couldn’t find anything recent about Schumer allegedly supporting her re-election (although I wouldn’t be surprised if he nominally does so in the most apathetic way possible like how he nominally supported Hillary in 2008 while working tirelessly behind the scenes to get Obama to run).    

I do know that when asked at one point whether he would explicitly commit to supporting Sinema if she faced a primary challenge, all Schumer would say is “the DSCC is will always work to re-elect our incumbents” (or words to that effect).  He made a point of refusing to say “I support Senator Sinema’s re-election” when directly asked to do so.  That’s basically Caucus Leader speak for “b/c of my position I can’t publicly endorse the primary challenger to a member of my caucus, but I hope the primary challenge is successful and won’t be lifting a finger to help said incumbent since I want them to lose their primary.”

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

I really doubt Sinema is a fundraiser for other Democrats given she didn’t campaign for anyone else in Arizona this cycle.

She isn’t, what TimTurner asserted about her fundraising is both factually incorrect.  By which I mean that there is objectively no basis in reality for the claim that Sinema has been some sort of fundraising rockstar for the DSCC.  She went around raising money for *herself* from hyper-partisan Republican mega-donors like Ken Langone and the Koch Brothers at secret closed door events, but the DSCC never saw a cent of that (nor would I want them to be receiving a cut of her bribe to help kill critical pieces legislation that would transform America for the better).  

I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that Sinema’s re-election is being funded in no small part by Republican mega-donors given that we’re talking about someone who explicitly told Susan Collins, Rob Portman, and John Thune in early 2021 (March 2021 IIRC) that literally the only reason she wasn’t switching parties to flip control of the Senate back to the Republicans was that she didn’t think it was possible for an openly bisexual non-theist to win a Republican primary in Arizona.

For that matter, TimTurner’s claim about Schumer unflinchingly supporting Sinema isn’t true either.  I couldn’t find anything recent about Schumer allegedly supporting her re-election (although I wouldn’t be surprised if he nominally does so in the most apathetic way possible like how he nominally supported Hillary in 2008 while working tirelessly behind the scenes to get Obama to run).    

I do know that when asked at one point whether he would explicitly commit to supporting Sinema if she faced a primary challenge, all Schumer would say is “the DSCC is will always work to re-elect our incumbents” (or words to that effect).  He made a point of refusing to say “I support Senator Sinema’s re-election” when directly asked to do so.  That’s basically Caucus Leader speak for “b/c of my position I can’t publicly endorse the primary challenger to a member of my caucus, but I hope the primary challenge is successful and won’t be lifting a finger to help said incumbent since I want them to lose their primary.”

Do you have a citation for the most fascinating bolded bit (which is gossip that I have not been exposed to before)?  Thanks.

I read it in This Will Not Pass (technically, heard it since I was listening to the audiobook).

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

My bold prediction is that Sinema runs as an Independent and we get a three-way race between her, Gallego, and whoever the GOP nominates

Entirely possible she does this in an attempt to split the Democratic vote and help her fellow Republicans.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

I think Sinema is going to try to run as a Republican, her moves in the past year just make no sense otherwise. I doubt she could win a GOP primary though, even with establishment R support.

Maybe if DeSantis wins the primary and puts his support behind her, though. Otherwise Sinema is toast - she’s DOA against Gallego in a Dem primary.

Sinema vs Gallego in 2024 would be a pure tossup imo, Gallego would be Lean D against anyone else (Schweikert maybe?).

She voted twice to convict Trump. She is DOA in a Republican primary.

If you had read my post you’d have noticed that I specifically said she’d only have a chance if DeSantis were to become the nominee / presumptive nominee. I agree that in a Trump world she’s donezo in an R primary.

Though it is an interesting question: is she more donezo in an R or a D primary in 2024, regardless of the candidate? I think she’s got a better chance if DeSantis is the nominee in an R primary, and a slightly better chance in a D primary if Trump is the R nominee. She’s got somewhat poor chances regardless, though, which is a shame - she’s one of the best senators if not the best. I will fully support her regardless of the party banner she runs under in 2024.

More likely to lose the Democratic primary

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Also is Sinema really at much risk for losing a primary challenge? In 2014 winter McCain was like net -20 with Republicans. AZ GOP censured him and his opponent was a right wing base candidate Kelli Ward (sound familiar). In the end though he ended up winning his primary election with 51% of the vote. Primarying out a sitting senator is much harder than it seems.

Yes, she has virtually no path to victory in the primary or the GE

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

This is clearly a tactical move on her part.  It's obvious that she's extremely vulnerable to a Democratic primary challenge, and she certainly knows that.  But if she's an independent, she probably figures that the Democrats won't run a candidate against her because a 3-way race would hand the seat to the Republicans, and Democrats would rather have an allied independent Sinema than a Republican.

We’re better off being rid of her even if it means Republicans get to rent this seat for another term.  That said, I think there’s a very real chance she hurts the Republican nominee far more than she does the Democratic nominee in a three way race.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

https://twitter.com/MarcACaputo/status/1601284645559357441?s=20&t=oOK0XBoucD...

Conventional Wisdom: Kari Lake and Blake Masters win in 2022

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Sinema's only hope is if the democrats nominated someone like Martin Quezada and republicans nominated Andy Biggs/Mark Lamb. Then she could successfully frame herself as the "sane" option. If the democrat is a generic democrat like Stanton or even an establishment friendly progressive like Gallego she's doomed

The other thing here is that both Gallego and Stanton are likely to prove broadly acceptable to most Democrats.  So you’re unlikely to see a ton of left-wing protest votes against Stanton or a ton of moderate protest votes against Gallego assuming a reasonably competent campaign and no major unforeseen skeletons in the closet.  Even a Stanton vs. Gallego primary isn’t gonna leave the loser’s supporters going “screw this, now I’m voting for Sinema.”  She’s too widely despised to even make a good protest vote option.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

If Sinema runs as an anti-Biden candidate then she takes more votes from the Republican, easily.

But I thought 2024 was supposed to be a choice election, not a referendum?
Also Sinema is more anti-Trump than she is anti-Biden. She didn't vote to convict Biden twice after all, that alone will make it impossible to get any sort of Republican support.
Sinema will take from moderate registered Rs and independents who vote Democrat in most races in the past 5 years

No one who was ever open to voting for a Democrat is going to vote for Sinema at this point.  Also, any general election with Trump on the ballot will inevitably be a referendum on Trump.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

If Sinema runs as an anti-Biden candidate then she takes more votes from the Republican, easily.

But I thought 2024 was supposed to be a choice election, not a referendum?
Also Sinema is more anti-Trump than she is anti-Biden. She didn't vote to convict Biden twice after all, that alone will make it impossible to get any sort of Republican support.
Sinema will take from moderate registered Rs and independents who vote Democrat in most races in the past 5 years

No one who was ever open to voting for a Democrat is going to vote for Sinema at this point.  Also, any general election with Trump on the ballot will inevitably be a referendum on Trump.

And if he’s not the ballot will make it a referendum on Biden.

If he’s not on the ballot, then it’ll be about abortion and (to a lesser degree) other issues.  That issue hasn’t lost any salience.  2024 is not going to be a referendum on Biden and trying to make it into one is a losing strategy for Republicans.  People don’t care about Biden enough for it to be a referendum on him.  Democrats have consistently been pretty meh about him and it’s clear he doesn’t animate the Republican base the way Hillary or Obama did.  Republicans still hate him b/c he’s a Democratic President, but it is in the generic way they hate all remotely prominent Democrats.  

Biden has no scandals for Republicans to latch onto, much less any the public cares about.  And no, Republicans whining about Hunter Biden nothingburgers like a broken record or embarrassing themselves by making up idiotic conspiracy theories about how “Biden was a foreign agent as VP and our proof is that…umm…umm…umm…” are not Biden scandals.  No one cares about Hunter Biden and even if we lived in an alternate world where the public did, Hunter Biden being a schmuck has nothing to do with Joe Biden.  And the conspiracy theories of the week from congressional Republicans just make Republicans look dumb, desperate, and delusional.  Then again, if House Republicans were smart, they wouldn’t have made a violent domestic abuser (Comer) to be the face of their Evil Biden fanfic committee.  But I digress…

The point is that a referendum on Biden was always unlikely, but at this point it’s clearly not in the cards and Republicans are only fooling themselves if they think it will be.

The other issue is, if not Trump, then who?  DeSantis is a considerably weaker candidate than Trump, despite Republican donor class wishcasting to the contrary.  Mike Pence is hated by pretty much the entire party rank and file at this point (the focus group comments he gets from #NeverTrumpers to Trump diehards are universally scathing).  Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Tom Cotton aren’t running.  Tim Scott, Chris Christie, and Nikki Haley aren’t serious candidates and would have no shot even if Trump and DeSantis sat out 2024 (obviously that means a much more crowded field).  That Vivek guy is a joke-tier nobody who the media gives unmerited attention to generate filler content.  No one in the Republican Party is interested in buying what Chris Sununu is selling.

Ultimately though, this is a moot point b/c Trump is going to be the Republican nominee.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

https://politicalwire.com/2023/06/27/pelosi-to-host-fundraiser-for-sinemas-opponent/

Pelosi is doing a fundraiser for Gallego’s campaign!

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Is there any timetable when Sinema finally makes a decision? Wikipedia just says she filled paperwork, though that's not necessarily a confirmation of a campaign. I find it hard to believe one can be delusional enough to believe there's a shot to win. And any campaign staffer/pollster telling her there's a bath isn't worth his money.

I think it depends on her ego. I don't think she cares at all about helping to get Lake elected to the Senate, but I do think that she'd be uncomfortable with getting 5% of the vote in her reelection campaign.

Her buddies on the right (McConnell, Cornyn, etc) seem to want her to be re-elected. At first, I thought she would love to spoil the race and help a republican get elected.

But her buddies probably don't want someone as unhinged and mental as Kari Lake in their caucus. They'd honestly probably rather have Gallego than Kari Lake in the senate chamber, stirring the pot.

Kari Lake (and Blake Masters) would probably be right at home in the House where they can join the Freedom Caucus.

I guess McConnell is pretty out of touch. The problem is that they're probably only going to win three Senate seats next year (and that's not certain if they keep clowning around), which sets them up to easily lose the Senate in 2026 if Trump is president and given how 2022 went maybe even make the Senate a tossup with a second Biden term. They need every seat they can get, so throwing any Republican support behind Sinema would practically guarantee Gallego's victory as opposed to just supporting Lake and hoping enough dead-ender McCain Democrats spoil their ballots and vote for Sinema to throw the election to the GOP. Like I said, Senate Republicans seem to be very delusional about their best course of action in 2024 so we'll see. Nothing would surprise me.

I mean, honestly, they’re only really guaranteed Manchin’s seat.  Ohio and Montana are both very good opportunities for them, but neither is a done deal by any means (especially if Moreno and Rosendale respectively end up getting nominated, the latter being pretty clearly favored to win the primary if he actually pulls the trigger on a second Senate campaign).

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Is there any timetable when Sinema finally makes a decision? Wikipedia just says she filled paperwork, though that's not necessarily a confirmation of a campaign. I find it hard to believe one can be delusional enough to believe there's a shot to win. And any campaign staffer/pollster telling her there's a bath isn't worth his money.

IIRC it's pretty hard to get on the ballot as an indy, so I assume Sinema's decision will come down to if she thinks she can make the ballot. She's arrogant enough to think she could win but not dumb enough to run if it looks like she can't even make it on the voting ballot.

No Labels has ballot access in AZ now IIRC.

No, it’s very unclear.  There’s ongoing litigation about this and it’s anyone’s guess how that’ll all shake out iirc.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

https://twitter.com/DailyCaller/status/1710097797767196959

That’s not the win she thinks it is.  Gallego comes as very calm and thoughtful.  Lake comes off as a deranged jacka** and the sort of weirdo who spends their whole day shoving pictures of dead fetuses in people’s faces as they are trying to get to work.

Gallego objectively comes off far better here.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Hearing rumblings that Sinema may file to run in the Dem primary. I don't know if it is her floating a trial balloon but there is apparently a poll in the field listing her in primary against Gallego.

Gallego would win that primary easily.

She would have $10M and the DSCC would be obligated to support her as an incumbent, I think she would make it close. Which is why I think she's seriously considering switching back.

The DSCC wouldn’t do much to help her and she’d get annihilated

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Likely D -> Lean D

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Say what you will about Sinema. She was effective as a bridge, and I don’t know which Democrats are going to be that liaison to getting things done once her and Manchin leave next year.

A bridge between whom?  Herself and fellow Republicans?  She was worse than useless, she was proactively harmful and destructive at every turn.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

What a shame that one of the most effective, bipartisan, and hardworking, no-nonsense Senators I have EVER seen was forced out due to hyperpartisanship. No one has had a more successful one-term Senate career IMO. She is an absolutely brilliant legislator and was extremely instrumental in bringing people from all sides of the political spectrum together to pass good, longstanding legislation.

I had a feeling this was coming, but it's devastating nonetheless. When she won in 2018 I envisioned a long career as a leading Senate moderate for her, which was perfect for a purple state like Arizona. Instead, the leftist activists and their damn purity tests decided she wasn't good enough.

I hope she runs for President under No Labels or for Governor of AZ one day.

Enjoy Senator Kari Lake, y'all. Sinema woud've won easily if Gallego didn't get in.

Imagine actually believing this

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Enjoy Senator Kari Lake, y'all. Sinema woud've won easily if Gallego didn't get in.

I think this is satire but just in case, Sinema was 3rd place in every single poll. She was losing a lot. This is why she decided not to run

She knew she would lose the Democratic nomination, so she went independent hoping to win as a third party in the general. Than she realized there was no magical center to elect her as an independent senator. So she is dropping out, she doesn't want to give Dems the satisfaction of removing her. To spite them

My point is Sinema would've won a Sinema vs. Lake race, but Gallego just HAD to get in there and challenge her.

And Gallego will beat Lake too meaning the seat flips from Republican (Sinema) to Democrat (Gallego).