Sinema would have lost the primary.

December 9, 2022
By Geoffrey Skelley

With his fellow Marines in Iraq, (click here) in 2005. Left to right: Gilbert Miera, Ruben Gallego, Jonathan Grant and Cheston Bailon.

...To some, (click here) Sinema’s party switch might not come as a surprise considering her moderate reputation. After all, she has the second-most conservative voting record in the Senate among Democrats,1 according to roll-call data from Voteview.com, with only West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin coming in to her right. Since joining the Senate, she’s taken public stances against Democratic efforts to abolish the filibuster and, along with Manchin, pushed her party to sharply reduce the outlays in budgetary legislation. Her positions have infuriated many Arizona Democrats, and the state party formally censured her over her 2022 vote to retain the filibuster, which helped block Democratic efforts to pass voting rights legislation....

...But there’s a solid chance Sinema’s 2024 electoral outlook played into her decision-making process. Sinema hasn’t said whether she plans to run for reelection, but there’s little question that her tendency to break with her former party has outraged much of the Democratic base that helped put her in the Senate in the first place. A Suffolk University/Arizona Republic poll of the state in September found that Democratic likely voters viewed her quite negatively, with 49 percent holding an unfavorable opinion and 30 percent a favorable one. Facing a potential primary challenge on her left from Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego, Sinema stood a real chance of losing renomination if she sought reelection as a Democrat (she might’ve been in trouble against a more center-left Democrat, too, like Rep. Greg Stanton). Tellingly, Yoshinaka’s study found the prospect of facing a highly competitive primary in one’s own party can play into leaving that party....