We are going to make Kyrsten Sinema the next senator from Arizona

Here is her twitter!

Old profile

She probably won't face Flake since he'll most likely be defeated in a primary.

Don't underestimate how strong incumbents are. The money hasn't started flowing yet. Ward will be under a constant stream of negative ads

r4 IDK once republicans think you're a traitor for criticizing orange hitler they don't forget.

Just got home from an Az dem party luncheon and one of the dem candidates for gov thanked trumpster. He said that for every tweet the trumpster sent out, two dems became activists. I've been going to these luncheons for about 10years and this was the largest turn out I've seen. Az maybe going purple to blue. We may possibly have 2 new dem senators in Washington in the near future. We just gotta get out the vote.

Encouraging news, r6.

r6 Arizona is clearly red, dems haven't won much there in the last 20 years. Having said that Trumps win there was underwhelming and I think Sinema offers us a legitimate chance to win.

I honestly don't know if vulnerable Flake or right-wing lunatic Kelli Ward would be a better opponent for her.

Kelli Ward. Being an incumbent is a massive boon in both fundraising and name recognition. You also get the benefit of status quo bias

R6 is Nancy Pelosi, after 6 Ketel One martinis

She's very cute but the split ends have got to go

Why does Meghan McCain talk like a valley girl? Do all people from Arizona speak that way?

She went from being a self-described "Green Party Socialist" in the early 200s and somewhat of a radical gadfly in the Arizona legislature to a moderate business-friendly democrat when she was elected to the House of Representatives.

She'll face the ultra-right and lose. Her opponent will run against Pelosi and immigration.

Hillary came much closer to winning in Arizona than she did in Ohio or Iowa.

She looks like a deplorable. Are we sure she's on our side?

She down with T?

She's a B herself.

Sinema will be easy to beat.

Flake flaked, so she won't be running against an incumbent.

I'm sorry, OP, I'm congenitally unable to have ANYTHING to do with Lesbians.

She looks annoying, but she's fucking gutsy for being an out bisexual and an out atheist politician. All of the pollsters moved this Senate race from leans Republican to toss up after Sinema declared. Granted, that was against Flake, but Keli "chemtrails" Ward is a loon and I'm sure Ward will go on an all out attack on whatever other Republican runs against her in the primary and with some luck will turn off Repugs and keep them home on election.

Fmr GOP congressmen Matt Salmon considering the race. He would be the "establishment" choice over Kelli Ward for sure. Not in office so not ideal, also unnacttractive. I think Sinema would still win.

Martha McSally is considering it (she's knows she will lose her Congress seat to Dem Kirkpatrick next year), but Club for Growth came out strongly against her today. She can't even win the primary. This chick screamed "let's do this" in a republican conference meeting right before they passed the house obamacare repeal bill.

Whatever McSally does I hope she loses big. She’s a one tune candidate just like McCain. All she cares about is the military machine.

Someone on another thread mentioned Mark Kelly as a possible candidate. That would be awesome, whether running for Flake or McCain’s seat. He has name recognition and the ever important right wing prerequisite, a military career. Unlike McSally, he was an astronaut, so he’s not all about the war machine. I’m still hoping the Dems can get both senate seats for Arizona.

R25 that would he real hard but it's possible. Demint is lurking on the GOP side.

Nevada's Dean Heller is the most vulnerable Republican senator up for reelection in 2018. The Democratic Party bosses-- Schumer and Reid-- picked the absolute worst opponent for him, conservative idiot Jacky Rosen. Could they out-do themselves in Arizona? Could they find someone worse than Rosen? Never underestimate the power of the DC Democratic Establishment to do everything wrong. In 2016, the table was uniquely set by fate for the Democrats to take back the Senate. Instead, Schumer, Reid and Tester handpicked the worst array of candidates imaginable and lost and lost and lost and lost. Patrick Murphy in Florida. Patty Judge in Iowa. Ted Strickland in Ohio. Katie McGinty in Pennsylvania. Ann Kirkpatrick in Arizona. All terrible candidates rammed down the throats of primary voters by the DC bosses running in must-win races. And each lost and left the Republicans in charge of the Senate.

2018 has a table set for the GOP, not the Democrats. Democrats have 9 vulnerable incumbents to defend in states Trump won: Bill Nelson (FL), Joe Donnelly (IN), Debbie Stabenow (MI), Claire McCaskill (MO), Heidi Heitkamp (ND), Sherrod Brown (OH), Bob Casey (PA), Joe Manchin (WV) and Tammy Baldwin (WI). Blue America is helping to defend the good ones up for reelection here, by the way. Meanwhile there are only 3 GOP seats even remotely possible for red-to-blue flips: Nevada, Texas and Arizona.

Yes, Arizona again. Ann Kirkpatrick was bad enough-- a pointless anti-inspiring conservative loser who couldn't even hold her own House seat. So Schumer-- from Brooklyn-- decided she should run statewide last year. It wasn't close. McCain crushed her 1,089,324 (53.4%) to 839,542 (41.1%). Arizona elections are won (and lost) in Maricopa County. She couldn't even creep up to 40% there. And Sinema is even worse than Kirkpatrick-- and worse than Patrick Murphy, Patty Judge, Ted Strickland and Katie McGinty.

Let's start with her ProgressivePunch scores. Of course they rate her an "F." Her lifetime crucial vote score is 35.28. And this session her score is a breathtaking 19.44. That's not just the worst among the Democrats. She has a worse score than 7 Republicans. Justin Amash (R-MI) has a 47.22. Walter Jones (R-NC) has a 32.35. What about her 538 Trumpanzee adhesion score? 46.2%-- the second most pro-Trump voting score of any Democrat (after Henry Cuiellar of Texas, who hasn't been an actual Democrat in over a decade).

Sinema is a lot more liberal than she votes. If she wins she'll take the Kirsten Gillibrand approach and vote fairly liberally. The reason why liberals keep losing elections is because they keep putting up far left candidates in relatively moderate or conservative states. Arizona ain't New York State.

Gillibrand had a moderate-conservative voting record when she repped a relatively conservative district. She is now one of the most liberal members of the Senate. I think the Sinema parallel is a good one.

I do wish the Arizona Democrats would run a winner. Sinema is too fringe.

Barring Mark Kelly jumping in, there aren't going to be any better candidates than Sinema.

If Sinema loses this, is she out of the House as well?

Yes, r32. She had to give up her House seat to run for the Senate.

Assuming Sinema loses (sob!), I only see three viable candidates for the special election in 2020 for McCain's seat. Mark Kelly, the astronaut (although nobody knows if he wants to run or if he has any political skill), Greg Stanton, the former Phoenix mayor who took Sinema's old House seat, and Sinema. I suspect Gallego (or even Grijalva) might want to run, but the Garcia disaster showed that a pro-immigrant Latino is simply non-viable statewide in Arizona. The good thing is that the GOP bench here is weak - Mcsally was probably the best candidate they had. The 2020 opponent will likely be a nutcase or hard-right asswipe. But really it comes down to the national mood. If the economy is good and Trump looks like a good bet for re-election, then we're probably fucked.

[quote]Mark Kelly, the astronaut (although nobody knows if he wants to run or if he has any political skill)

Are you serious?!

We now have a fucking 'president' with zero skills, political and otherwise! ZERO skills across the board.

That president also had millions of fans from his reality show, and as disgusting as he may be, he has a natural, awful sort of charisma. If you can't see that reflected in 2016 and the Senate races this year, then I don't know what to tell you. It's probably a moot point in AZ however, as I have never gotten the impression that Kelly wants to run for any political office.

McSally has increased her lead by 1,000 votes today. Has counting of the uncounted ballots began yet?

I don;t live in Arizona, but I sent in $50 to her campaign. I really hope she wins (even though her name is hilariously like a porn name).

Maricopa county (by FAR the largest number of uncounted ballots) starts today, and is supposed to start releasing the first results at 5pm our time - 7pm on the East coast. The votes that came in today and increased McSally's lead were rural counties. It's crazy all the bitching and whining. This happens EVERY election year in AZ (and California and other states that allow heavy mail-in voting too). You just don't usually notice because the results usually aren't in doubt so the races can be called on Election Day.

Mail-in ballots must be received by Election Day, but what's holding things up is that they have to be signature-verified before they can be counted. That can take WEEKS in some cases for a final count. I remember way back when AZ defeated a gay-marriage ban in 2006. It took us days and days before we knew the final result, all because of late mail-in ballots.

The Green party candidate took votes away from Sinema and led to the Republican winning.

r39 There's no proof of that. For all we know, Greens are people who are too liberal for the Democratic party, especially Democrats like Sinema, who's tried hard to paint herself as centrist.

In addition, you forget that Libertarians also run in elections and they typically perform better than the Greens, and it seems more likely that they "steal" Republican than Democratic votes. If DeSantis had received all the Libertarian votes in the Florida race, there wouldn't be a possibility of a recount in that state, now.

I only agree with you partly, r40. Yes, some Greens are hard-core liberals who reject the Democrats as not being liberal enough, but many others are pragmatic (not least of all the Green candidate herself who dropped out and endorsed Sinema), and in a close race that may have made a major difference, or at least made it closer going into the late ballot counts.

Anyone aware of what happened in 2016 (in crucial states) and still voting Green is basically letting Repubs win and therefore is VOTING FOR POLITICAL STATUS QUO.

"Democrats need to stop thinking about the Green Party as votes that belong to them. Sinema was Green Party activist at one point. They didn't vote for her because she abandoned any hint of her progressive roots to run as a centrist and military hawk."

Sinema has taken the lead as Maricopa votes are added to the totals. There are still many left from that county.

The republicans are suing to stop ballot counting in Arizona. Another form of voter suppression. I hope they burn I hell.

She is ahead now.

Is that Andrew guy at r43 twitter link single? He's def my type! 💙💙