Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema announces that she will henceforth be registered as an independent and not as a Democrat. This could reduce Democratic room for maneuver in the Senate.
” I declare myself independent of Washington’s flawed partisan system. “, announced Kyrsten Sinema in a video. Until the resounding announcement of the elected 46-year-old, the White House openly savored the results, much better than expected, from the Democrats in the very recent midterm elections.
From 51 seats out of 100 in the Senate, the Democratic camp has fallen to 50, its level before these midterms. Knowing, however, that the Republicans have 49. Kyrsten Sinema’s decision was applauded in the conservative ranks who now hope to count on his vote on the most disputed texts.
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On a strictly parliamentary level, the decision of the senator from Arizona showers Joe Biden’s hopes of governing with more elbow room for the rest of his term. But it does not radically change the situation either. The other chamber of Congress, the House of Representatives, has it swung Republican side after the midterm elections, already putting Joe Biden in a precarious position.
A free electron
The euphoria therefore falls among the Democrats of the Senate. Kyrsten Sinema explains that this will not change much in his positioning and the balance of forces. The White House is taking note of this, but that is precisely the problem. Because since the beginning of Joe Biden’s mandate, the senator has been a pebble in the party’s shoe, indicates our correspondent in Washington, Guillaume Naudin. The former environmental activist turned centrist Democrat often thwarted Democratic plans that didn’t sit well with her or her generous donors.
Along with fellow West Virginia Joe Manchin, she dramatically narrowed the scope of Joe Biden’s plans. For this, the progressive branch, the left of the party, is very angry with her and plans to challenge her nomination for 2024 by imposing on her a primary that, according to local polls, she could well lose.
By defining herself as an independent, she hopes to convince the Democrats to leave her the field free, as they do for example with another independent, Bernie Sanders, in Vermont. The risk otherwise would be that an extremist Republican would be elected, and in a state as contested as Arizona, this is a real problem for the Democrats.
(And with AFP)