What Kyrsten Sinema’s party switch means for the Senate

– I’ve registered as an Arizona independent. And I know some people might be a little bit surprised by this, but actually, I think it makes a lot of sense. You know, a growing number of Arizonans and people like me just don’t feel like we fit neatly into one party’s box or the other. – Senator Kyrsten Sinema announced that she is leaving the Democratic Party and she’s registering as an independent in Arizona. It’s been since 2009 since a senator has switched party affiliations, but it’s also a little bit of a deflating moment for Democrats. They just

won a 51st seat with Senator Raphael Warnock in Georgia. She has declined to kind of get into the why and the when of her announcement. It obviously comes after the midterms. It comes after even the runoff. In Arizona, a lot has changed. There’s a Senate race that Mark Kelly just won again. There’s a governor’s race that Democrat Katie Hobbs also won. That changes some internal politics that may be affecting Sinema’s decision. She has not said there’s any political reason for why she’s changing parties. – What I think is important about this decision and this move

is that I’ll be able to show up to work every day as an independent and not be, you know, stuck into one party’s demands of following without thinking. – Sinema’s decision to leave the Democratic Party puts the Senate seat

there a little bit more in jeopardy for Democrats because if she is going to run as an independent in 2024, which she hasn’t announced yet, but if she does seek re-election, that could potentially split the vote there and empower a Republican to win that seat. The Democrats have two members now who caucus with them but are

independents. That’s Angus King and Bernie Sanders. They attend the weekly lunches, they vote with Democrats most of the time, and there’s some question about whether Sinema will play a similar role. She has not said she will officially caucus with Democrats, but she has said she won’t be with Republicans. – I intend to maintain my position on my committees and keep doing the work that I’ve been doing for Arizona. So I don’t think that things will change in terms of how I operate or the work that I do in the United States Senate. – The party

switch kind of raises questions about Sinema’s vote going forward. It’s never been a sure thing for Democrats to know that Senator Sinema is going to vote with them. That’s part of, you know, why she’s had a complicated relationship with the party the past two years. Over on the House side, that’s flipping Republican. So the next two years probably aren’t going to be a fertile time for big bipartisan deals. House Republicans have made it clear they want to block a lot of President Biden’s priorities. So, in a way, Sinema being a little bit more of a

wildcard than usual doesn’t change the state of play on the Hill that much.