Liberal activists might have chased Sen. Kyrsten Sinema into a bathroom, but they will not succeed in chasing her out of the Democratic Party.
Sen. Joe Manchin is not switching parties either, no matter how many West Virginia Democrats kayak up to his houseboat, where he lives in Washington when Congress is in session, to pressure the 74-year-old former governor to support President Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion domestic spending package in its current form. Sinema, 45, is equally unflappable despite liberal threats to oust her in a Democratic primary if she continues opposing the existing draft of Biden’s “reconciliation” bill.
The reason is simple: On key cultural and policy matters that influence political partisanship, Manchin and Sinema are out of step with the Republican Party.
“Red-state Democrats choose the party and stick with it because it’s the best place for them and what they care about, and usually for reasons that the other parties can’t match,” said a Democratic strategist with experience running races in GOP territory. “That doesn’t mean Kyrsten Sinema wants to be followed into the bathroom.”
Liberal activists showed up at Arizona State University, where Sinema teaches a class, to protest her opposition to Biden’s “Build Back Better” spending package, the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill. When Sinema waved them off and headed into a public restroom, female protesters followed her, filming the senator as she closed the stall door and saying, “We knocked on doors for you to get your elected … we need the Build Back Better plan right now.”
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Manchin has faced similarly aggressive tactics: a caravan of kayaks outside his houseboat.
West Virginia liberals have been searching desperately for ways to compel the stubborn senator to back $3.5 trillion in reconciliation spending and abandon his demand for legislation that spends no more than $1.5 trillion, caps a raise in corporate taxes below Biden’s proposal, and preserves the federal prohibition against spending tax dollars to fund abortions. “This is an investment,” one protesting kayaker shouted. “This is not spending.” Like Sinema, Manchin appears unmoved.
So, why not exit the Democratic Party and eliminate the pressure altogether? For Manchin especially, joining the GOP would make plenty of political sense. Former President Donald Trump won West Virginia with just under 70% of the vote last year. The senator won reelection in 2018 by less than 20,000 votes; a party-switch might be just what he needs to guarantee another term. With Trump’s endorsement, Manchin might be unbeatable.
To be sure, the political calculus is more complicated for Sinema. Arizona is trending Democratic — Biden narrowly defeated Trump there last year in an election that saw Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly oust Republican incumbent Martha McSally. However, Sinema might nonetheless accrue some immediate political benefits — for instance, no primary threat from the left and a few years to establish herself as a Republican. The strategy might pay off if Trump blessed the move.
That neither senator has even flirted with the idea is telling. “While it would be simple to switch parties, it would be hard to imagine because Manchin and Sinema ran for Senate to govern, not grovel to Trump,” said David de la Fuente, a political analyst with Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank in Washington.
Other than their prominent opposition to the $3.5 trillion reconciliation package, Manchin and Sinema regularly vote in lockstep with their party. In 2019 and 2020, with Trump in the White House, Manchin voted with the Republican chief executive 33% of the time and Sinema 26% of the time. That’s comparable to liberal stalwart Sens. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent. They voted with Trump 23% of the time, per FiveThirtyEight.com.
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Activists on the Right and Left are never happy about the fact that there is no such thing as a majority in the House and Senate that does not comprise some centrists. Indeed, Senate Democrats are clinging to a 50-seat “majority” made possible only by Vice President Kamala Harris’s tiebreaking vote. They would not control the floor or committees or be in a position to pass any reconciliation bill without both Manchin and Sinema.
“I know it’s sometimes difficult to understand, but Sen. Sanders is only chairman of the Budget Committee because of those two,” said Democratic operative Jim Manley, former Senate leadership aide.
