The clock is ticking for Kyrsten Sinema. And, as usual, people are getting fed up with her antics.
The bisexual senator from Arizona, who lives for bold fashion choices and high drama, is fast approaching the deadline to decide whether she’s going to run for reelection in the fall, and, of course, she seems intent on keeping everyone on edge by waiting until the very last minute to announce her plans.
The Democrat-turned-independent needs to gather roughly 42,000 signatures by April 1 to register for reelection. So far, she has been tight-lipped about what she intends to do, telling Face the Nation recently that she’s “laser-focused on the policy, on actually solving real problems” rather than answering “endless questions” about November’s election.
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And last month, when The Hill asked about her plans, she rolled her eyes and said, “Omigod, what a waste of a question.” Then her campaign refused to comment.
Meanwhile, the race between MAGA queen Kari Lake and pro-LGBTQ+ Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego, who are both vying for Sinema’s seat, is heating up, with the nonpartisan election newsletter Cook Political Report declaring it a “toss up.”
Naturally, people from all sides of the aisle want to know what the hell Sinema plans to do since it will have a major impact on this race and could ultimately be the deciding factor in whether Republicans flip the Senate.
The National Republican Senate Committee just endorsed the Arizona gubernatorial loser.
With a month and a half to go before the April 1 deadline, Sinema has her work cut out for her in gathering those 42,000 signatures. But strategists say it’s still entirely possible, as long as she has money in the bank, which she does.
According to the most recent financial reports, she has over $10 million in her war chest, although her fundraising numbers have gone way, way down. She raised just $595,000 in the last quarter of 2023.
Meanwhile, Gallego raised $3.3 million with $6.5 million in the bank, and Lake raised $2.1 million with a little over $1 million in the bank.
“As of today, she has more than enough time to qualify for the ballot,” Kirk Adams, who served former Gov. Doug Ducey as chief of staff, tells The Hill.
Democratic strategist Stacy Pearson adds, “She’ll have the money to remind us of the other things she’s gotten done — codifying marriage equality, passing meaningful gun legislation.”
The Arizona gubernatorial loser has aligned herself with the creator of one of the most racist political ads in modern U.S. political history.
That said, while Sinema might have cash on hand, she seems to be burning through it rather quickly.
Earlier this month, The Daily Beast reported that she’s been blowing roughly $100,000 a month on paying Tulsi Gabbard’s sister to be her private security detail.
She’s also spent over $200,000 in taxpayer money to pay for private planes since 2020, which is something she actually tried to ban just a few years earlier.
Oh, and she’s been dipping into her PAC to pay for first-class airfare, treatments at luxury spas in Paris, and rooms at five-star hotels in Madrid.
If Sinema does decide to run for reelection, she’ll most certainly lose her seat and possibly cost the Democrats control of the Senate. Recent polling on a hypothetical three-way match shows a close race between Lake and Gallego with Sinema trailing in distant third.
Stan Barnes, a former GOP state senator and Republican consultant, tells The Hill, “You can’t find a poll that shows her doing well in that three-way race. And regrettably, I think the most recent exercise with the border deal that ended up going nowhere has hurt her reelection stock in Arizona.”
Soooo, what’s gonna happen? That’s up to Sinema. The clock is ticking. But clearly she’s not in any hurry.
