Historically high levels of illegal immigration have made border security a major issue heading into the 2024 election season.
For Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), the Arizona Democrat-turned-independent, this moment also represents an opportunity to build her image as a bipartisan deal-maker who can get things done in a divided Congress months ahead of a critical deadline in which she must decide whether she will run for reelection as an Independent in a battleground state.
The senior Arizona senator is part of a working group, including Sens. James Lankford (R-OK) and Chris Murphy (D-CT), who are crafting an agreement on border security measures that could unlock GOP support for aid to Ukraine and Israel. The group of negotiators was unable to come to a compromise ahead of the new year, breaking for holiday recess without a deal in hand, despite staying in session for an additional week in December.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) pledged “swift action” on the legislation in January. Congress has not passed major legislation on immigration in 30 years, and that task will become even more difficult once lawmakers return on Jan. 8, as they juggle a handful of other priorities during yet another shutdown fight. Lawmakers have less than two weeks to pass four government funding bills and then another eight before the deadline on Feb. 8.
Lankford, the lead Republican negotiator, said Sinema has been a crucial part of the team, as she represents a state on the front lines of trying to manage a major influx of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.
“She’s very knowledgeable, very engaged. She’s passionate about this, and right now, she is at the epicenter of the biggest part of the border crossings that are actually happening,” Lankford said to reporters right before senators left Washington for the holidays. “She doesn’t bring the hypothetical; she brings here’s what happened last night in Lukeville, Arizona, and here’s what’s happening in my town.”
“So for everyone else, this is theory, but for her, it’s very real,” Lankford added.
Sinema has organized several bipartisan and bicameral trips to the border throughout the year. Lankford and Murphy joined her on a trip at the beginning of this year, and they have been collaborating ever since on changes to immigration laws.
“Senator Sinema is a daughter of the border. She grew up down there; she has seen first-hand the impacts of the federal government’s failure to address this issue,” said John LaBombard, a former aide to Sinema. “If she is able to make more headway than she has already done, which is she has already done a lot of this to make Arizonans lives better on a substantive policy platform, the politics will follow.”
The most recent discussions are continuing remotely even though lawmakers are not physically in the nation’s capital and have focused on establishing a new expulsion authority at the border and changing rules related to asylum. They said they intend to keep working until a framework is officially established. Lawmakers are closer to reaching a deal but are still working through several large issues, according to those familiar with the negotiations.
Negotiations hit a breaking point earlier this month after Republicans demanded aggressive steps be taken to decrease the flow of immigration, such as scaling back the federal government’s power to allow certain categories of immigrants to remain in the country temporarily for humanitarian reasons. While many Democrats said they opposed making radical changes to legal immigration in the country.
“We are closer than ever before to an agreement,” Murphy said to reporters last week, detailing his plan to take off a day and a half for Christmas before getting back to the talks.
Sinema has spent the last couple of years working across the aisle to cut deals with Republicans, playing a central role, primarily as a result of Democrats’ narrow control of the Senate.
She and Sens. Murphy, John Cornyn (R-TX), and Thom Tillis (R-NC) struck a major deal on gun legislation last summer after mass shootings at a Texas elementary school and a New York grocery store. She worked with Sen. Todd Young (R-IN) as the architect of a major semiconductor law that passed in July 2022. In August 2021, Sinema and former Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) reached a deal on a $550 billion infrastructure package funding the nation’s roads, public transit, water, and broadband. She also helped enact a law protecting same-sex marriage, adding religious freedom provisions.
Sinema, who served three terms in the House and as a state legislator before her Senate election, was a social worker before her public service, an experience LaBombard said she taps into during negotiations on Capitol Hill.
“She comes to the table with a very clear-eyed, pragmatic idea. Of actually listening to all the sides, getting an accurate assessment of where they are, and where they might be able to get to, and then very clearly negotiating and identifying the steps needed to get them there,” he said.
The 47-year-old lawmaker, elected to the Senate in 2018, has proven to be a thorn in the Democrats' side, even before officially switching her party affiliation last year. She and retiring Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) kept Washington in suspense over the last two years as they repeatedly withheld votes for Biden administration priorities.
She and Manchin killed an attempt by other Senate Democrats to temporarily waive the “filibuster” rule, obstructing Democrats’ push for significant voting rights reforms. She also forced the Biden administration to abandon their original Build Back Better Agenda, which included plans to close a tax loophole that benefits wealthy hedge fund managers and high-income earners.
Even before officially leaving the Democratic Party last year, her actions emboldened her left-leaning critics at home and on Capitol Hill. The Arizona Democratic Party voted to censure Sinema in January 2022 over her opposition to changing the filibuster.
Sinema still has not officially decided whether she will run for reelection, but if she should decide to pursue an Independent bid, she would likely face Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), a progressive Democrat who announced his bid in January, and Kari Lake, a polarizing conservative who lost the gubernatorial election last year.
In a state that is 34% Republican, 34% independent, and 30% Democratic, according to Arizona data, some believe Sinema’s deal-making credentials could be a major advantage in an upcoming election.
“She’s working on issues that are electable — whether that be infrastructure, economic development, immigration, and I think that could translate into essentially votes,” said Cesar Chavez, a former Democratic state lawmaker, and Sinema ally.
What exactly a Sinema third-party run for Senate looks like is still unclear. Technically, she still has five months to announce a decision. She must gather the necessary signatures to qualify to appear on the Arizona ballot for the November election by April 6, 2024.
“As someone who has worked very closely with the senator, I would advise her to run. Arizona elected her for a reason,” Chavez added. “It’s not because necessarily the waters are blue, or they’re no longer red, but it’s an electorate that is fed up with partisan politics, partisan rhetoric and they want solutions.”
“I think for someone who has brought so many solutions to the state of Arizona, that person would continue to be both reliable and apt to win reelection,” he said.
However, her path to a second term could be an uphill battle. Recent polling has shown her consistently in last place in a three-way race between Gallego and Lake. A recent poll from Noble Predictive Insights shows Gallego leading the hypothetical three-way Senate race with 39% support, followed by Lake with 33%, and Sinema in last place, with 29% support. The polling also suggested Sinema could siphon away twice as many Republican voters as Democrats.
The Arizona Independent is also up against the party machines that activate come a presidential election year.
“If you’re Sinema, you’re not on either ticket. You’re not endorsing Biden. You’re not endorsing Trump. They’re not endorsing you,” said Roy Herrera, a prominent Arizona election attorney who supports Gallego in an interview over the summer.
“For Sinema to win, she’d have to get a big chunk of Republicans theoretically. With Trump historically getting over 90% of the Republican vote in Arizona, what I struggle with is thinking about who is going to be the Trump-Sinema voter, because there has to be those people in order for her to win,” he added.
Garrett Ventry, senior adviser to Kari Lake, questioned the Arizona senator's interest in border security — less than a year before the 2024 election.
“She has been in Congress for over a decade. She repeatedly voted against President Trump's border wall. She supported sanctuary cities when she was a member of the House,” Ventry said in a phone interview with the Washington Examiner. “So this again, is someone who has not been serious about securing the border ever.”
Sinema declined an interview request with the Washington Examiner. When she was asked by reporters on Capitol Hill last week if her reelection bid would hinge on a successful border deal, she quipped: "Dumb question."