Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona announced Dec. 9, 2022 that she was leaving the Democratic Party to become an independent, throwing a wrench in the party’s plans for their expanded Senate majority.
Sinema was elected to the Senate from the Grand Canyon State in 2018 and has drawn as much attention for her eye-catching outfits and hairdos as her politics.
But the 46-year-old has made clear she’s not to be taken lightly or underestimated — whether through her determined commitment to the Senate’s legislative filibuster, as one of the architects of a $1.2 trillion infrastructure deal, or helping negotiate legislation codifying the right to same-sex and interracial marriages.
Born in 1976 to a Mormon family in Arizona and raised by her mother and stepfather in Florida, Sinema became a social worker after graduating from Brigham Young University and cut her teeth in Arizona activist politics. During the 2000 presidential campaign, she was the Green Party’s local spokesperson and her views during this period would be familiar to supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
A 2018 Wall Street Journal story recounted a letter from Sinema that was published by the Arizona Republic newspaper in 2002. It read, in part: “Until the average American realizes that capitalism damages her livelihood while augmenting the livelihoods of the wealthy, the Almighty Dollar will continue to rule.”
Sinema also organized rallies and protests opposing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, telling a local radio host at the time that she welcomed participation from “Libertarians, Democrats, Republicans, Greens, independents, anarchists, socialists, communists, whoever wants to come. They’re all welcome.”
At a February 2003 rally organized by a group Sinema co-founded, fliers were distributed calling for an end to “US terror in Iraq and the Middle East.” The flier included a drawing of three skeletons — one dressed as a soldier, another dressed in a top hat holding a dollar bill and another dressed in a suit.
When CNN reported on the fliers during Sinema’s 2018 Senate race, her campaign claimed Sinema did not design or approve the fliers.
Sinema joined the Democratic Party in 2004 and experienced her first electoral success that same year, winning a seat in Arizona’s House of Representatives. Her activist work continued, as she organized pro-immigrant marches and campaigned to defeat a proposed amendment to the Arizona Constitution that would have outlawed same-sex marriage.
Sinema is openly bisexual, but does not like to discuss her orientation, particularly in relation to her political views. “I don’t have a story to tell,” she told an interviewer in 2013. “I don’t think this is relevant or significant. I’m confused when these questions come up. I’m not a pioneer. I’m just a regular person who works hard. Nor am I a poster child. I’m not forging away or pioneering. I don’t understand what the mystique is.”
After three terms in the Arizona House, Sinema was elected to the Arizona Senate in 2010, then resigned her seat after less than a year in office to run for Congress and represent Arizona’s new 9th District. She won again, narrowly defeating Republican nominee Vernon Parker.
Arriving on Capitol Hill, Sinema showed her moderate side, joining both the conservative Democrat Blue Dog Coalition and the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus. The website FiveThirtyEight found that over Sinema’s last two years in the House, which coincided with Donald Trump’s first two years as president, she voted with his position 62.6% of the time.
Undeterred by that record, then-Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) recruited Sinema to run against Republican Martha McSally for the seat being vacated by the retiring Republican Jeff Flake. Sinema again tacked her message to appeal to moderate voters, at one point telling USA Today that Trump was “not a thing” in the race and “not a part of what I think my constituents are worried about or think about.”
That strategy paid off, as Sinema became the first Democrat to represent Arizona in the Senate since 1995. In her first two years as a senator, FiveThirtyEight found she voted with Trump’s position just 26.2% of the time, but did back the 45th president on issues like the USMCA trade agreement, the nomination of William Barr to be attorney general and opposing the repeal of an Environmental Protection Agency emissions rule.
“Everyone knows that I am very independent-minded,” Sinema told Politico in October 2019. “And that it’s not super useful to try and convince me otherwise.”
That independent streak extends to fashion, such as when Sinema presided over the Senate wearing a hot-pink shirt bearing the words “Dangerous Creature“, or when she wore a zebra-striped coat and a purple wig to fellow Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly’s swearing-in. At a White House news conference announcing the infrastructure deal last year, Sinema stood out in a sea of blue and gray suits by wearing a sleeveless red dress that concealed a crutch helping her recover from a broken foot she sustained running a marathon.
As her term went on, Sinema became notorious for standing firm against the left wing of the Democratic Party. In March 2021, she gave a dramatic thumbs-down disapproval to Sanders’ proposal to make a $15 national minimum wage part of a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, earning a rebuke from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, among others.
But Sinema and Manchin’s public opposition to removing the legislative filibuster and enabling any legislation to pass the Senate with a mere 51 votes has made them the two most-scrutinized lawmakers in Washington, causing President Biden to incorrectly claim the two voted more with the GOP’s position than with his own.
Despite the blowback, Sinema held firm to her conviction, saying on the Senate floor in January of this year that ending the filibuster would do nothing to solve what she called the “underlying disease of division infecting our country.”
“It is clear two-party strategies are not working, not for either side, and especially not for the country,” she said. “So it’s comfortable for members of each party, particularly those who spent their career in party politics, to think that their respective party alone can move the country forward. Party control becomes a goal in and of itself.”
That speech was praised by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who told reporters that Sinema had “saved the Senate as an institution” and months later called her “the most effective first-term senator I’ve seen.”
Sinema is up for reelection in 2024 and could face a three-way fight against a Republican nominee as well as progressive Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego. Despite the challenge, she appears willing to take her chances.
“[I]f anyone previously supported me because they believed, contrary to my promise, that I would be a blindly loyal vote for a partisan agenda,” she wrote in an Arizona Republic op-ed announcing her party switch, “or for those who believe our state should be represented by partisans who push divisive, negative politics, regardless of the impact on our state – then there are sure to be others vying for your support.”
