Arizona Dem Seeking to Replace Sinema in Senate Raised Almost $4M in 1st Quarter of 2023

In March, my colleague Bonchie laid out Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema’s gut punch of Senate Democrats in remarks she made at an event for GOP lobbyists, which did nothing to endear the now-Independent lawmaker to her former caucus mates. Ever since she voted with West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and Republicans against Joe Biden’s bloated mess known as the “Build Back Better” bill, the distance has only grown between Sinema and the progressive horses she rode in on.

Bonchie queried where this might lead in the 2024 Senate race for her seat, writing:

Of course, the other side of this is that Sinema has admitted she’s just using the Democrats for committee clout. How will they respond? Certainly, they won’t allow her to be the Democrat nominee on the ballot in 2024, right?

That’s a great question. One Democrat who seeks to take advantage of the rift between Sinema and other Democrats is progressive Ruben Gallego, a U.S. representative for Arizona, who announced in January his run to replace Sinema in the Senate.

Now, the first-quarter numbers of 2023 are in for Sinema and her potential Democrat opponent…and it’s not looking all that rosy for him. Especially considering how much the incumbent Sen. Sinema still has in her war chest. I’ll get to that in a minute.

The Hill:

Arizona Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego broke a record for Hispanic Senate candidates in his first quarter of fundraising to compete for Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s (I-Ariz.) seat.
Gallego netted $3.7 million in his first official fundraising quarter, making his launch more successful than that of any Latino Senate candidate in history.
…
“Ruben Gallego’s fundraising numbers are just the latest example of the strength of his candidacy. I think it also helps solidify him as the Democratic nominee, and will keep other Democrats who were thinking of running out of the race,” said Chuck Rocha, a campaign strategist who’s running Gallego’s Latino outreach.
According to his campaign, Gallego received more than 106,000 individual donations over the first quarter.

There’s a lot to sift through there, including the dubious “record” milestone of Hispanic Senate candidate donations, which The Hill felt the need to mention twice above the fold. As we’ve seen, the Left only cares whether a candidate is from a minority group if they’re a Democrat–just ask Virginia’s Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears and AG Jason Miyares.

There was also this codswaddle about Gallego running “a fast-paced, bombastic” campaign, to scare off other Dems from entering the race:

Gallego is currently the only Arizonan running for the Senate seat next year and is counting on a fast-paced, bombastic launch to scare off any Democratic contenders — and potentially to discourage Sinema from running as an independent.

Did they mean when Gallego recently made quite a clown of himself in mid-March in the wake of the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, when he tried to blame an unrelated vote Senator Sinema made…in 2018?

But there’s an even bigger elephant in the room for any Democrat—including Gallego–hoping to “discourage Sinema” from doing whatever she darn well pleases in ’24: (emphasis mine)

Gallego’s campaign touted the haul, comparing it to Sinema’s quarterly numbers, as reported by Politico, which said she will report a $1.7 million increase to her now-$9.9 million war chest.

There’s also the fact that Hispanics and other minority voters have been overwhelmingly jumping the Democrat ship since 2018, something which recent polls have continued to reflect. It’s possible they’ll turn out for a Republican candidate. Thanks for playing, though.