This week, Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) declined to rule out running against Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) in a Democratic primary race for her Senate seat. Gallego enjoys broad popularity among Democrats who’d like to see Sinema out of office on account of her obstruction of the Biden agenda. Besides her continued support for the Senate’s filibuster rules, which hand power to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Sinema has also established her opposition to key elements of an initially $3.5 trillion spending plan proposed by Democratic leaders. Amid negotiations among Democrats, the scope of that plan — which would support a broad range of initiatives, from fighting climate change to lowering prescription drug costs — has been reduced.
Oh boy, Rep. Gallego declines to rule out primary challenge to Sen. Sinema
"I think the sentiment that I'm hearing out there, voters in Arizona are upset with her, especially Democratic voters,"https://t.co/2wPYxivuRH@mkraju @arogDC
— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) October 21, 2021
Gallego commented as follows:
‘I think the sentiment that I’m hearing out there, voters in Arizona are upset with her, especially Democratic voters. I think they support the President’s agenda, and they hope that she will, in the end, support the President’s agenda, pass reconciliation — the Build Back Better agenda.’
“Reconciliation” refers to the originally $3.5 trillion spending package, which can be passed through a Senate procedure known as budget reconciliation, which means that it would be exempt from the filibuster rules’ requirement for the agreement of 60 Senators in the 100-member chamber before moving forward on most bills. Because of the current party breakdown in the Senate, passing the plan through budget reconciliation would mean that not a single Republican vote would be needed. Thus, Sinema isn’t helping bridge some looming gap with Republicans via her insistence on negotiating the size of the plan down — she’s standing in the way essentially on her own (alongside West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin).
Asked about potentially challenging Sinema in a Democratic primary, Gallego added as follows:
‘For me, all I care about is what happens between now and 2022. Those questions wait, wait… I think there’s a lot of time between now and 2024, a lot of time for the senator to put things right with voters in Arizona. And let’s hope she does it.’
In a recent survey, Gallego led Sinema in a hypothetical match-up with a whopping 62 percent of the support, compared to just 23 percent for the Senator. Sinema is not up for re-election until 2024, but a political action committee (PAC) called the Primary Sinema PAC has already been formed, providing a somewhat unified front for those who would like to see a Democratic primary challenge against Sinema.
