Kyrsten Sinema Donors Jump Ship Amid Her Holdout on Social Spending Bill

Some donors who have supported Senator Kyrsten Sinema in the past are now looking to support other Democratic candidates who could challenge her in the 2024 primary.

The move comes as the Arizona senator continues to face backlash for her resistance to top Democratic priorities. Along with Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, she angered party colleagues last week when they voted against changing the Senate's filibuster rule to pass voting rights legislation.

Every Senate Democrat was needed to vote in favor of weakening the rule to produce a tie in the evenly split upper chamber of Congress. Vice President Kamala Harris would have cast a tie-breaking vote in support of the move.

In addition, Sinema has yet to commit her support to Biden's social and climate spending bill, the Build Back Better Act, which passed in the House and remains stalled in the Senate.

One past Sinema donor, who declined to be named, told CNBC, "I have given up really trying to understand Sinema's motivations for the way she votes."

"And at a certain point, I don't care. I just know if there is an alternative I will back them. And I know other people feel that way," the donor said.

Even before the filibuster vote, there had been talks about a primary challenger to Sinema, such as U.S. Representative Ruben Gallego of Arizona's 7th District.

Trey Beck, a philanthropist and top party donor, has said he intends to financially back a primary candidate against Sinema, according to a CNBC report. He contributed to her 2018 campaign but has since become one of the donors to speak to Gallego about the possibility of a 2024 primary.

Sinema Donors Dropping
Some donors who have supported Senator Kyrsten Sinema in the past are now looking to support other Democratic candidates who could challenge her in a 2024 primary. Above, Sinema speaks during the infrastructure bill signing... Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

In a letter sent to Sinema last week ahead of the filibuster vote, 70 top donors decried her resistance to the filibuster change and the impact it could have on voting rights in the U.S.

"We are terrified about our prospects as a democracy if we do not pass the Freedom to Vote Act and John Lewis VRA Act. We appreciate your support of these bills, but they will die without your action on Senate rules. Bipartisanship works only if it is reciprocal," the letter said.

The letter also said that some of the donors who signed it gave the maximum allowable donation to Sinema's 2018 campaign "in the belief that, among other things, you would protect our country from the grave authoritarian threat that even then confronted us and is now more acute."

The donors also threatened to "back alternatives for your seat who will do the right thing for our country" and even suggested that their contributions to her 2018 campaign should be returned.

"Our democracy is in mortal danger. Please help us protect it before it's too late," the letter concluded, then listed the names of the 70 donors who signed.

Luis Miranda, Jr., the father of actor and playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda and one of the donors who signed the letter last week, has also talked with Gallego about the possibility of a primary, his spokesman told CNBC.

Another donor who contributed to Sinema's 2018 campaign, and asked to remain unnamed, told CNBC that Gallego had been informed he would receive the person's support.

Laphonza Butler, the president of Emily's List, which focuses on getting abortion rights politicians into office, said in a statement that the PAC has not endorsed or contributed to Sinema since 2018. Butler wrote that because of the senator's filibuster vote and its impact on the voting rights legislation, Sinema "will find herself standing alone in the next election."

The statement continued, "Electing Democratic pro-choice women is not possible without free and fair elections. Protecting the right to choose is not possible without access to the ballot box. So, we want to make it clear: if Sen. Sinema can not support a path forward for the passage of this legislation, we believe she undermines the foundations of our democracy, her own path to victory and also the mission of EMILY's List, and we will be unable to endorse her moving forward."

Newsweek reached out to Sinema's office for comment but did not hear back before publication.

Update 01/26/2022, 4:15 p.m. ET: This story was updated with a statement from Emily's List.

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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

About the writer


Zoe Strozewski is a Newsweek reporter based in New Jersey. Her focus is reporting on U.S. and global politics. Zoe ... Read more

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