Republicans are now running ads to support Kyrsten Sinema’s campaign

Out Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) was elected as a Democrat but left the party in the middle of her term and has been fundraising from GOP donors as she prepares for a possible reelection bid against both a Republican and a Democratic opponent.

And now Republicans are openly supporting her independent campaign.

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The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSCC) paid for an ad attacking Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), the likely Democratic nominee in next year’s Senate race. The ad says that Gallego divorced his ex-wife while she was pregnant with their child in 2017. Several years later, he married lobbyist Sydney Barron, and they now have a child together.

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The ad is a lot more positive about Sinema, telling voters that she “voted with Biden’s agenda 100% of the time,” which glosses over the many times she thwarted Biden’s priorities in the Senate. The Senate’s filibuster rule – which Sinema has fiercely supported, much to the chagrin of Democrats – keeps many bills from coming to a vote if 60 senators refuse to end the filibuster, which means that most bills that actually come for a vote in the Senate will have some Republican support.

“Deadbeat dad, or liberal Democrat?” the ad asks even though there isn’t evidence that Gallego is actually a deadbeat dad and Sinema is literally not a Democrat.

Sinema and Gallego will face off against a Republican candidate, and some polls have shown that Sinema, as a third-party candidate, is peeling almost two votes off the Republican candidate as she’s taking from the Democratic candidate. Democrats in the state don’t like her – she was even called the “most detested” politician in the country once and refused to support down-ticket Democratic candidates in last year’s elections – but it appears that she has more support among Republicans.

This means that a three-way race might end in a Democratic victory if Sinema divides Republican voters more than she divides Democratic voters.

Since leaving the Democratic party earlier this year, Sinema has taken to insulting Democrats at Republican events. This has gotten her hundreds of thousands in campaign donations from Republican megadonors.

She has not yet announced her 2024 reelection campaign, though.