Sinema independent bid could boost Democrats in Arizona Senate race: poll

An independent Senate bid from Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) could help Democrats win her seat in 2024, according to a poll released Tuesday. 

The Emerson College poll found that Sinema may hurt the Republican nominee for Senate more than Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), who has declared his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for the seat. 

The poll showed Gallego and Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb (R) tied at 42 percent each in a hypothetical head-to-head between them. But Gallego leads in a three-person race with 36 percent of the vote, to Lamb’s 29 percent and Sinema’s 21 percent. 

A similar situation is true if the GOP nominee is professional speaker and mechanical engineer Brian Wright, according to the poll. Gallego leads Wright by 3 points, 41 percent to 38 percent, in a head-to-head matchup, but he leads with 37 percent of the vote to Sinema’s 26 percent and Wright’s 25 percent in a three-way race. 

“It appears Senator Sinema pulls more support from Republican voters than Democrats on the ballot. About 21% of Republicans would vote for Sinema with Lamb on the ballot, and 34% of Republicans would support Sinema with Wright on the ballot,” Emerson College Polling Executive Director Spencer Kimball said in a release. “By contrast, Sinema only pulls about 8% of Democratic support from Gallego.” 

Pollsters found that white voters are evenly split between Gallego and Lamb with 32 percent each, while 23 percent support Sinema. Gallego had a plurality of Hispanic support with 44 percent. 

The poll also found that voters who supported President Biden in 2020 are more solidly behind Gallego than those who supported former President Trump are behind Lamb as the Republican nominee. More than 70 percent of Biden voters support Gallego, but 57 percent of Trump 2020 voters support Lamb and 27 percent support Sinema. 

Sinema was originally elected to the Senate as a Democrat in 2018 but left the party in December. She has not yet said whether she will run for reelection. 

Former Arizona GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake has strongly hinted that she might launch a run for the Senate seat, and early polling has shown her with a significant lead in a hypothetical Republican primary. 

The Emerson poll was conducted among 1,337 registered voters between Aug. 2-4. The margin of error was 2.6 points.