Senate Democrat Says Sinema’s Defection Changes Nothing, Some Experts Disagree

Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, then a Democrat now an Independent, during a hearing in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington on May 14, 2019. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Reactions have been mixed as to the significance of Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s (I-Ariz.) recent announcement that she quit the Democratic Party and registered as an independent, ranging from views that it changes “nothing much” to the move being “nothing but a Dem loss.”

Sinema said in a recent statement on social media and in an op-ed in The Arizona Republic that she was leaving the Democrats because she’s fed up with a “broken partisan system in Washington” that makes a priority of denying the rival party a win rather than “delivering for all Americans.”