Republicans are favored to win back control of the U.S. Senate in November, but how big of a majority could they win? Well, it will depend on a number of critical races that are at the moment too close to call based on the polls. One such race is in Arizona, where Republicans hope to retake the seat that Kirsten Sinema won in 2018.
But the key question that remains is whether Sinema is running for reelection or not.
Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) is already in the race, and Sinema, now an independent, has yet to officially announce a reelection campaign.
“As of today, she has more than enough time to qualify for the ballot,” Kirk Adams, who served as chief of staff to former Gov. Doug Ducey, told The Hill. “I think the issue is whether or not in this hyperpartisan, polarized environment, there’s room for a governing senator like Kyrsten Sinema.”
But Sinema has been mum about her plans. In response to questions from The Hill about the timing of a decision on a Senate run, Sinema dismissed it as a “waste of a question.”
There have been some hints that Sinema might still be considering a reelection bid. The Arizona Republic reported last week that Republican donors Eric and Macall Stenson were set to host a fundraiser for her Friday, though the timing of the event was thrown into question as the Senate stayed over the weekend to hash out Ukraine-Israel aid legislation.
But Sinema is grappling with logistical and political hurdles as she weighs her decision. As a registered independent, Sinema needs to collect roughly 42,000 signatures by the April 1 deadline to register — a feat that strategists say is possible as long as she has enough money.
She’d also have to piece together a unique coalition of voters in a potential three-way race, no easy feat considering she was censured by the Arizona Democratic Party in 2022 when she was still with the party after bucking some of its priorities.
The real problem for Sinema is that in a three-way race between her, Gallego, and Kari Lake, Sinema comes in a distant third. Even though she largely votes with Joe Biden and has voted to confirm every single one of his judicial nominees — even the most controversial ones — her rare resistance to key elements of his agenda resulted in her becoming one of the most unpopular senators in the country. It’s hard to see her actually jumping into the race, given that she is most certainly headed to defeat.
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“I think one of the reasons she’s … apparently not running is because you can’t find a poll that shows her doing well in that three-way race,” Stan Barnes, a former GOP state senator and Republican consultant, told The Hill. “And regrettably, I think the most recent exercise with the border deal that ended up going nowhere has hurt her reelection stock in Arizona.”
Pretty much the only thing she has going for her is her money advantage. “Sinema still maintains more than $10 million in the bank despite lagging in fundraising,” explains The Hill. “By comparison, Gallego raised $3.3 million last quarter with $6.5 million in the bank, while Lake raised $2.1 million during the same period and ended last year with more than $1 million in the bank.”
It’s unlikely that she can maintain that advantage for long, and it’s still hard to see how she can make up ground and take enough support away from both Gallego and Lake to be competitive in the race. Frankly, with the election less than nine months away, it’s hard to believe that Sinema will seek reelection. For sure, the longer we go without an announcement, the less likely it is that she’s actually going to run.