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Time to resolve as NO

https://news.yahoo.com/why-kyrsten-sinema-is-in-deep-trouble-190030007.html

@BRTD Her only chance is by winning a primary. A true independent would need to be vastly more popular to even have a chance. The few examples of indies winning is when they're not really indies (King, Sanders, Lieberman).

She may try to run in the Dem primary despite leaving the party- but she'll face Ruben Gallego, who's pretty formidable especially with hispanic voters. If this was her plan I'm not sure why she would leave the party. It's also plausible she'll run in the R primary, but I find it hard to believe she has much of a chance as an openly bisexual former green party activist. It seems most plausible, though, that she'll just run as a true independent.

P> she runs at all: 50%

given that she runs as a true indie p> that she wins: 0.5%

given that she runs, p> that she tries the D primary: 10%

given that she is in the D primary, p> that she beats Gallego: 5%

given that she runs, p> that she tries the R primary: 10%

given that she tries the R primary, p> that she wins: 5%

p> that she wins if she does end up on the ballot as a D or R: 65%.

Accounting for all of that I get about 0.7%, which seems about right. Market is way overpriced.

I brought this up from 16% to 33% yesterday. Incumbents have a very strong advantage with re-election rates well north of 80%. This race is weird, yes, but I'd have thought she's more likely to win than not. And when I think of senators going independent, I think of, e.g., Joe Lieberman who won, and to a lesser extent Angus King and Lisa Murkowski.

It seems like most likely it's a three-way race where the money seems close to even on any of the three parties, with a smaller chance one party chooses not to nominate someone, in which case she likely wins.

Am I missing something?

And her approval rating should go up now. 51 D seats means less pressure, she will pay more attention to her popularity with re-election coming up, and a R House means fewer controversial votes in the Senate.

@ZacharyFreitasGroff In US history (after about 1820), the number of three-way senate races that were reasonably even across the participants can be counted on one hand, and almost all occurred around the time of a shift in one or more prevailing parties. With how our current duopoly has extended their longevity with extensive gerrymandering, I think it's improbable that an incumbent independent with less than a 60% approval rating nets more than 10% of the vote.

@AndrewHartman much less one with about a 10% approval rating.

@BRTD One distinction of Sinema’s race is that it’s actually occurring in a swing state. An advantage of Lieberman was that, since it was Connecticut, he could actually run as an independent and have the Republican only get 10% of the vote. Whereas if Sinema and a serious Democrat are both running, it probably just throws the election.

@Conflux that's assuming that a non-negligible number of Democratic voters vote for the candidate with a 5% favorability rating amongst Democrats: https://twitter.com/DrewLinzer/status/1601289169338519552

@Conflux

this is not someone I'd bet on Democratic voters voting for over a Democratic candidate.

@BRTD Incumbency, moderate democrats, things change, etc - I’d be surprised if it was actually a three way race and Sinema got less than like 20%.

@Conflux these numbers are BEFORE her leaving the party. So things changed yes...for the worse. And it's obvious even moderate Democrats don't like her.

And who's she going to fundraise from? No ActBlue equivalent and corporate PACs can only give so much.

@BRTD She can course correct with senate votes to some extent. Idk, my impression before the party switch was that she was unpopular but fairly likely to get renominated and reelected anyway from incumbency, and my intuition in politics is that whatever’s currently in the news cycle is probably being overrated.

@ZacharyFreitasGroff if she was going to move left to placate Democratic voters then why not just stay a Democrat?

@BRTD Maybe she feels like this is more flexible, and uses her leverage more effectively, especially with a difficult primary on the horizon. But I’m not sure I would have done it if I were her, so I don’t know.

@BRTD Which poll is this? Most polls put her approval closer to 38% (Morning Consult), 37% (AARP), and 42% (Data for Progress).

@AndrewHartman not sure how gerrymandering is relevant to a Senate seat (spoiler: it isn't in the least). The duopoly's grip on power overall is much more maintained via ballot access suppression and other forms of institutional barriers - preventing third parties from getting on the ballot, keeping them out of debates, etc - than by gerrymandering, which only affects the House (not the Senate, Presidency, or Governorship).

@Conflux that sounds like pretty galaxy brain thinking and I haven't seen any reason to believe it'll work. If Sinema was just some genius politician playing 4D chess she'd at least not be the single most unpopular Senator I'd wager.

@ForrestTaylor Civiqs. Regardless those are still bad numbers.

Sinema is way more politically savvy than people give her credit for. Just like Joe Manchin, she will be reviled by the left wing of her party, but will sit in that Senate seat until she dies or retires.

@MattP Well, she has an approval rating in the teens.

@MattP I was under the impression she just went independent? Which, generally speaking, is the last gasp of an unpopular pol who's on the cusp of retiring (forcibly or no) anyway.

@AndrewHartman Right. Presumably if she runs against a Democrat and a Republican, the Republican just wins. So her best chance would be to get cross-endorsed by the Democrats or something, but everyone hates her now. I guess I should be betting this even lower.

@Conflux Only in the Civiqs poll. Most polls put her approval closer to 38% (Morning Consult), 37% (AARP), and 42% (Data for Progress).