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Arizon’s ex-Democrat Sen. Kyrsten Sinema will reportedly run for Senate in 2024 as an independent — setting the stage for a potential three-way race in the Grand Canyon state.
Sinema, who’s yet to announce her 2024 campaign but left the Democratic Party and filed to run as an independent in December, will forgo the Democrat and GOP nomination process as she seeks re-election, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
The report was based on pictures of a slideshow mapping a moderate 2024 run — apparently taken at a shared workspace in Phoenix, where the Senator and her team met to discuss the next steps.
According to pictures of two slides obtained by The Post, Sinema may not have yet discussed her plan with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) or the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, leaving both scrambling to back another candidate in a tight race.
“A three-way race in Arizona is a nightmare scenario for Democrats. Schumer’s hold on a slim majority is getting weaker every day,” one national Republican strategist told The Post.
Sinema, 46, plans to have a baseline poll, opposition research and focus group feedback finished by Sept. 30.
Her full campaign staff and 2024 polling schedule are set to be completed by Dec. 31.
Another slide presents Sinema’s campaign message as the “independent voice for Arizona.”
“As Arizona’s senior senator, she’s committed to ignoring partisan politics, shutting out the noise and delivering real results helping everyday Arizonans build better lives for themselves and their families,” the slide states.
The centrist senator’s decision could open the way for both Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) and failed Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake to enter the race unopposed.
Offices for Sinema and Schumer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The DSCC also didn’t immediately comment.
Sinema has apparently cozied up to GOP donors at events in the past year by mocking her former colleagues as a bunch of “old dudes … eating Jell-O.”
“Old dudes are eating Jell-O, everyone is talking about how great they are,” she said at one reception in Washington, DC, according to Politico.
“I don’t really need to be there for that. That’s an hour and a half twice a week that I can get back.
“I spend my days doing productive work, which is why I’ve been able to lead every bipartisan vote that’s happened the last two years.”
Sinema still caucuses with Democrats and often casts deciding votes to pass legislation with the party’s razor-thin 51-49 majority in the Senate.
Along with fellow centrist Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Sinema helped pass President Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure deal.
She has also been a staunch defender of the Senate filibuster, which both Biden and Schumer have called to be abolished.
“It’s our job to keep that pressure so that we stay right in the middle of public policy, protect the critical middle part of our country,” Sinema said at a farm bureau event with the Arizona Chamber of Commerce on Thursday, according to The Journal.
A February poll by OH Predictive Insights found Gallego ahead of Sinema and other Republicans in at least eight potential match-ups — four of which showed Sinema running as an independent.
The DSCC hasn’t yet endorsed Rep.Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), though its chairman, Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) told The Journal the lack of an endorsement is standard practice at this point in the year.
“It’s early, we haven’t been endorsing in races,” he said.
Lake, a former TV anchor and far-right candidate who lost the 2022 Arizona governor’s race, is the likely Republican frontrunner if she enters the race, despite embracing allegations of election fraud in her race and the 2020 presidential election.
To get on the ballot, Sinema must gather more than 40,000 signatures from nonaffiliated voters by the end of April.
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