Sen. Kyrsten Sinema Is Facing A Vote Of ‘No Confidence’

Alex Henderson reports, Kyrsten Sinema had a curt response to major dissent brewing among her home state Democrats:

Although Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona is generally well-liked by independents and Never Trump conservatives in her state, the decidedly centrist Democrat has been a frequent source of frustration to the progressive wing of her party — and her office had a curt response when the Arizona Democratic Party, in a vote of over 80%, passed a resolution to pledge a vote of “no confidence” if she fails to reform the filibuster or support a reconciliation bill on infrastructure.

Forbes‘ Andrew Solender reports:

Sinema spox, asked if they have a response to this threat of a no confidence motion from her state party: “We do not” https://t.co/ywv4PjnccU

— Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) September 26, 2021

Two major voting rights bills, the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, have been passed by the U.S. House of Representatives but now face an uphill climb in the U.S. Senate — where Democrats have a narrow majority but not enough votes to meet the 60 or more votes required by the filibuster. Sinema, like Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, is adamantly opposed to abolishing the filibuster and has maintained that Democrats will be glad to have the filibuster when Republicans have a Senate majority again.

Some Democrats have proposed keeping the filibuster but creating an exception for voting rights; that way, a voting rights bill could be passed with a simple majority rather than needing 60 votes. Sinema, however, is opposed to creating such a [carve out] exception.

Josh Marshal was on MSNBC today to discuss his analysis at Talking Points Memo, Poisoning The Well:

We are now down to the crunch time on the Biden agenda. And we don’t know how it will turn out. But there are two aspects of the story which have been quite damaging for the Democrats. They’re worth discussing.

The first is one we’ve discussed before but in a different context. It’s largely a press failure. But it’s one Democrats could do more to fix. For months we’ve had this intra-party debate presented as one between “progressives” and “moderates.” Often that gets personalized as AOC and Bernie versus Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema. This is demonstrably false.

The overall package is supported overwhelmingly by Democrats in both chambers and pretty much across all factions. There are some quibbles about SALT taxes and the scope of the climate package. Some more middle-of-the-road Dems resist making some of the social programs permanent. Those are real and potentially consequential differences. But they’re all negotiable. The important point is that this package is the consensus position, supported by virtually everyone. It is after all the President’s agenda. Literally. And, as much as these labels confound more than they clarify, President Biden isn’t from AOC’s wing of the party.

The reality is that this package is the consensus position supported overwhelmingly, close to universally, among congressional Democrats with the exception of two senators and maybe a dozen members in the House.

It’s more than just inaccurate. It’s highly damaging for Democrats in general. If this is an argument between the party’s left wing and “moderates,” lots of people are going to think that’s a disagreement where you want to at least split the difference. After all AOC and Bernie are democratic socialists and Fox News is clear that they’re totally scary people. That’s not a dig at either one. It’s just obvious that if you want to sell this agenda you want to sell it as Joe Biden’s agenda rather than AOC’s agenda. And that’s convenient because it is Joe Biden’s agenda!

Put it another way, if the Democratic party is having an argument about whether it’s agenda is too extreme or too expensive, well … that’s a good way to signal, at least to a lot of people, that it is probably is too extreme or too expensive. You’ve got Republicans and Fox News and even [GQP-biased] Politico and Axios to make that argument. You don’t need Democrats validating it.

This is why the misleading coverage matters. If it’s the entire Democratic party wrestling with two hold-out senators that’s very different. And that actually is what’s happening. Part of the problem is that “progressives” and “moderates” are convenient and understandable shorthands. Even we use them here sometimes, if only because that’s the terminology everyone understands. There’s no good term for “everybody,” which is basically what we’re talking about here. It’s “everybody” versus Manchin and Sinema.

Mostly this is bad press coverage. But bad journalism is like the weather. Whining about it only accomplishes so much – and it’s not much. You need to deal with it. And here Democrats haven’t dealt with it terribly well.

Now to another point. We don’t know what will happen in the midterms. A Republican wave is possible. And having the President’s whole agenda go down in flames is a good way to make that much more likely. Who goes down in a wave election? Not the folks in safe seats. It’s the “moderates,” the folks from the marginal districts. We know this. But this gets us to a paradox about “moderate” positioning.

If the public decides the Democrats’ agenda is too extreme or if the Democrats decide it’s too extreme and the whole agenda blows up the first to the electoral slaughterhouse are the “moderates.” So spending months telling people the agenda is too extreme or too costly or is driving inflation is pretty counterproductive. It’s a really good way to convince people those things are true. And while there are many factors driving the President’s declining popularity, I guarantee you that is a big factor.

Now, obviously politicians need to be able to say what they think and oppose what they think is bad policy or simply things they believe their constituents will oppose. They can’t be in a position where they have to support what they believe is extreme because otherwise voters will also conclude it’s “extreme.” It’s absurd to think that you need to get behind an electorally toxic message like “defund the police” because saying it’s bad policy or bad politics will turn people against it.

Politics is complicated. But there’s a clarifying element in this case. In the current intra-party debate, very few of the qualms from the “moderates” have been based on policy. It’s been about positioning. They wouldn’t concede that point of course. But the details of the debates themselves tell the story. To the great frustration of the White House, the Manchiner mini-faction hasn’t been willing to put out any counter-proposals. Their explanations of what they oppose or why they oppose it changes almost daily. That’s because it’s not about policy. Manchin and Sinema and Gottheimer are trying to get distance from the party’s proposals in order to define themselves as “moderates.” The explanations change because they’re mostly just rhetorical backfill to explain the need to say no to a bunch of stuff. It’s not about particular policies in most cases, it’s a positioning strategy. Indeed, most of the policies are quite popular. It’s about positioning. It’s about saying no to half the stuff, pretty much whatever the stuff is, because that defines you as a “moderate.”

Positioning is okay. That’s part of politics. But as we noted above, the biggest hits for defining the party’s agenda as extreme will be for the moderates and the positioners. It would be different if it were rooted in real ideological differences or perhaps better to say real differences over policy. But in this case mostly it’s not.

Sen. Sinema aka “Pharma Girl” should just take that well-paid lobbyist job with Big Pharma that she is angling for and resign now, and allow Arizona Democrats to put forward the names of three Democrats to fill her vacant Senate seat with a real Democrat who will do what Arizona voters were led to believe they were voting for when they elected her, under false pretenses.

She will not win a Democratic primary after this. Josh Marshall earlier explained, “Sinema’s Been Flagging All Year with Democrats; But She’s Built a Strong Constituency with Partisan Republicans.” A Democrat Only Republicans Can Love:

I saw a few people questioning the Data for Progress poll I which I used as the basis for yesterday’s post about Kyrsten Sinema cratering at home among Democrats. So I decided to dig into some other polling data. Data for Progress is a progressive-aligned organization, as the name suggests. And some skepticism is always warranted when the pollster is in some way an interested party. But Data for Progress is a respected outfit. And my review of data from other pollsters over the last year bears that out. Their numbers are consistent with what other pollsters have found. But there were some more details that helped fill out the picture.

Back in March (March 8th-12th) an Arizona Public Opinion Pulse (AZPOP) poll found a similar picture to what we discussed yesterday. Sinema had very anemic support among Democrats – just 50% favorability – and she wasn’t doing well with independents either. Just 36% of independents viewed her favorably. This came just after Sinema had declared her support for the filibuster and helped tank a minimum wage increase. (Favorability is different from approval. This poll only had the former. But for these purposes it’s a close enough approximation.)

Two months later (May 3rd-5th) Sinema was doing better in a poll from the same pollster. The damage from the events of February, as the pollster noted, were beginning to dissipate. Her favorability had risen slightly with Democrats – 54% vs 50% two months earlier. She did only marginally better with independents than Mark Kelly. The big difference was that suddenly she’d gotten a lot more popular with Republicans. Kellys’ net favorability among Republicans was -42%. But Sinema was a much more respectable net -11%. Fox viewers had a net -5 point favorability for Kelly but +17 points for Sinema.

A pattern was starting to develop. Despite her public presentation of independence and push for bipartisanship Sinema wasn’t particularly popular independents. It was Republicans who seemed to like her a lot, at least compared to other Democrats. A pretty straightforward conclusion is that they liked her not so much for being a ‘moderate’ but for her tendency to stick it to her own party.

That tendency was in even sharper relief six weeks later (June 17th to 23rd) in another poll from Bendixen & Amandi. By now Sinema’s approval among Democrats had barely budged. Just 47% of Dems approved her performance as Senator. Only 46% of independents approved. But she had a new superpower. Her approval among Republicans was an eye-popping 54%. Only 32% disapproved. In an era of polarization that’s an astonishing 22% net approval from the opposite party.

The notable thing is that Sinema had no great advantage with independents. Her ace in the hole was Republicans, Fox News viewers. She’d built a constituency of partisan Republicans who really like her because she’s constantly wrongfooting her own party.

Democrats should not financially support someone whose whole shtick is to troll her own party. This is a betrayal of the very people who worked so hard to elect her in 2018. The party apparatus should be foreclosed to her. It is not being a “maverick” as the disingenuous editors of The Arizona Republican keep telling her (to benefit Republicans).

If you’re Sinema there’s certainly a very different way to look at those numbers. Virtually every other elected official has outsized support from their own pretty and minimal support from the opposite party and some mix with independents. That’s the story of polarization. But Sinema’s support is pretty similar in each group. In the Bendixen poll it’s a mere 8 point difference between the highest approval (Republicans at 54%) and the lowest (independents at 46%). What better example of bipartisanship and independence could there be, right?

But of course, parties nominate candidates. And there’s are DefCon 1 numbers for a primary. In Arizona, independents can vote in the Democratic primary. So that could help. But remember – Sinema’s even a bit less popular with independents. What Sinema appears to have done is assemble a coalition of tepid support from Democrats and outsized support among Republicans who love her sticking it to Democrats. Another way to look at it is illustrated in the Bendixen poll. Kelly and Sinema had almost identical overall approval numbers – Kelly with 51% and Sinema with 50%. But Kelly’s support was about evenly split between those who “strongly support” (24%) vs “somewhat support” (27%). Only 12% “strongly support[ed]” Sinema.

Sinema’s support is evenly spread but shallow everywhere – a mix of tepid support from Democrats and surprisingly strong support from Republicans who almost certainly won’t ever vote for her.

The Data for Progress poll came a month later. But it tells a similar story, a candidate who is so ripe for a primary challenger that she’s close to falling off the tree. And this is all before the last eight or nine weeks when she’s worked her level best to scuttle Joe Biden’s presidency and bust the cross-party deal on infrastructure and reconciliation that has kept the party moving forward all year.