March 5 (UPI) — Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema said Tuesday she will not seek a second term.
Had she run, Sinema — one of only three independent senators — would have been in a highly contested three-way race that would have included two other high-profile Republican and Democrat candidates.
“In 2017, I warned we were approaching a crossroads. Our democracy was weakened by government dysfunction and the constant pull to the extremes by both political parties,” Sinema said in her video announcement.
Sinema — who left the Democratic Party in 2022 to become a registered independent — faced U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., as a possible challenger in what would have been a three-way race in a tough re-election bid along with Republican and 2022 gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake.
Lake is favored by many to be Arizona’s Republican Senate nominee and possibly the state’s next senator.
“Americans still choose to retreat further to their partisan corners,” Sinema said on social media, adding that “the only political victories that matter these days are symbolic.”
At the time of her switch in political parties, Sinema told CNN how she “never fit neatly into any party box. I’ve never really tried. I don’t want to.”
“Removing myself from the partisan structure — not only is it true to who I am and how I operate, I also think it’ll provide a place of belonging for many folks across the state and the country, who also are tired of the partisanship,” she said in 2022 as to why she became a registered independent.
Sinema was a Green Party members before getting elected as a Democrat to congress in 2012 before her 2018 election to the Senate and was often a pivotal vote in the first two years of its 50-50 split when President Joe Biden took office in 2021.
Gallego thanked Sinema on social media, saying, “It is time for Democrats, independents and Republicans to come together.”
Lake, a former television personality, also thanked Sinema for her serving while noting how she had covered Sinema for a number of years.
“We may not agree on everything, but I know she shares my love for Arizona,” Lake said on X.
