So how’s Kyrsten Sinema’s posturing playing with the voters who put her in office? According to a new poll, about as badly as you’d expect.
According to Morning Consult Political Intelligence tracking, Sinema’s approval rating fell from 48 percent to 42 percent among registered voters in Arizona between the first and third quarters of 2021, At the same time, her disapproval numbers rose from 35 percent to 42 percent during that time.
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Unsurprisingly, Sinema’s growing unpopularity is driven by Democrats who are fed up with her willingness to tank President Biden’s agenda. In just one quarter, Democratic voters are now 21 percentage points less likely to approve of the Arizona senator’s job performance than they were at the beginning of the year.
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It’s not just Sinema’s betrayal of her party’s priorities that are irritating Arizona Democrats. Sinema has rightly earned a reputation as someone who doesn’t even talk to her constituents.
She doesn’t host town halls or hold press conferences. She goes to such lengths to avoid talking to voters that she locked herself in a bathroom when activists tried to confront her.
It’s impossible to know what political game Sinema is playing. Maybe she’s setting herself to become Independent. Maybe she thinks that mimicking the late Sen. John McCain (R), a fellow Arizonan, will earn her the goodwill of voters. Or maybe she’s just so enamored of the spotlight that she will do everything possible to hog it.
Whatever game Sinema is playing, it sure looks like a losing one.
If Sinema thinks that Democrats will forget her antics, she’s sorely mistaken. If she thinks that Republicans will suddenly embrace a former Green Party activist who is an out bisexual, she’s in for a rude surprise. The only outcome she can count on is losing support from all sides.
And as the polls show, on that at least, she’s very successful.
