Senator Kyrsten Sinema from Arizona has just announced she’s leaving the Democratic Party this morning.
She will be registering as an independent, but says it won’t affect her work in the Senate.
Here’s more from the New York Post:
Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema announced Friday she had registered as an Independent, leaving the Democratic Party just days after it won a hard-fought run-off race in Georgia to secure 51 seats in the Senate.
“I have joined the growing numbers of Arizonans who reject party politics by declaring my independence from the broken partisan system in Washington,” she wrote in an op-ed for local media outlet Arizona Central.
In an interview with Politico published Friday, the iconoclast first-term senator she would not caucus with the Republican Party.
“Nothing will change about my values or my behavior,” she said.
If that holds, Democrats could still maintain greater control in the closely divided chamber.
“I don’t anticipate that anything will change about the Senate structure,” Sinema said. “I intend to show up to work, do the same work that I always do. I just intend to show up to work as an independent.”
In a separate interview with CNN‘s Jake Tapper, Sinema said she doesn’t care about the criticism she may face for leaving the Democratic Party.
“I’m just not worried about folks who may not like this approach,” she said. “What I am worried about is continuing to do what’s right for my state.”
Democrats had held the Senate 50-50 with Vice President Kamala Harris holding a tie-breaking vote.
Senator Raphael Warnock’s victory in Tuesday’s runoff against Herschel Walker in Georgia had handed them their 51st seat. Sinema said Warnock’s reelection “delighted” her.
Sinema said her decision to register as an Independent stems from a sense that she has “never really fit into a box of any political party” — and it comes as a growing number of her constituents are also rejecting both the Republican and Democratic political labels.
Two other current senators — Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine — are registered independents but generally caucus with Democrats.
She’s obviously not going to caucus with Republicans, which means she’ll be caucusing with Democrats so this doesn’t really change much in the Senate.
What it may emphasize is that she’s not always going to be a reliable vote for Democrats on everything, but that’s not much of a change either because that’s already been the case.
So at the end of the day I think this is more of a cosmetic change than a substantive change. But who knows, it may lead to some interesting battles in the next two years.
UPDATE: This may actually have a big impact on the Senate race in 2024 when she’s up for reelection. Will Democrats let her be the nominee or run against her?
They can either run their own nominee and likely lose bc she would siphon enough votes in a tough state to blow up their chances. Or they can stand down and basically get behind her bid even tho she is an unpopular weak candidate and sucks in general.
— Krystal Ball (@krystalball) December 9, 2022