After Democrats managed to win a one-seat majority in the Senate following the loss of Trump-backed Georgia Republican candidate Herschel Walker to incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock, another influential Democrat has blown up the balance of power.
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, in an op-ed published Friday, said she had left the Democratic Party and re-registered as an Independent.
“Americans are told that we have only two choices – Democrat or Republican – and that we must subscribe wholesale to policy views the parties hold, views that have been pulled further and further toward the extremes,” Sinema wrote in the op-ed.
“Most Arizonans believe this is a false choice, and when I ran for the U.S. House and the Senate, I promised Arizonans something different,” she continued. “I pledged to be independent and work with anyone to achieve lasting results. I committed I would not demonize people I disagreed with, engage in name-calling, or get distracted by political drama.”
Fox News noted further:
Sinema went on to accuse mainstream political parties in the U.S. of worrying more about blocking each other out than the well-being of their constituents.
The senator has been the target of extensive intra-party mudslinging for not falling in line with the rest of her party on key issues — most notably, refusing to abolish the filibuster.
“When politicians are more focused on denying the opposition party a victory than they are on improving Americans’ lives, the people who lose are everyday Americans,” Sinema wrote in the op-ed.
She added, “That’s why I have joined the growing numbers of Arizonans who reject party politics by declaring my independence from the broken partisan system in Washington. I registered as an Arizona independent.?”
It’s not clear yet whether Sinema intends to caucus with Democrats, but her decision to leave the party and re-register as an independent could influence another moderate Democrat — Joe Manchin of West Virginia — to do the same.