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By Anna Skinner
Associate News Editor
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Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona no longer identifies as a Democrat after announcing this week that she registered as an independent, but assured voters that her job would remain the same.
Some political polling experts believe her approval rating, which is already low, will also remain the same despite Sinema moving into a more neutral party. Sinema was elected to the Senate in 2019 with 50 percent of the vote, according to Ballotpedia. However, her approval rating has declined since she took office. Meanwhile, many Arizonans are displeased with the senator's obstruction to President Joe Biden's economic agenda, including his Build Back Better Act.
Many polls anticipate that Sinema, who hasn't announced if she plans to run for reelection in 2024, would lose by a large margin in her next election.
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According to a Data for Progress poll published in October 2021, the senator has been slated to lose a reelection campaign for years. The poll identified Sinema as having the "highest unfavorability rating of any elected Democrat tested in the state".
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An AARP poll published in September showed that Sinema had the highest unfavorable rating among Democrats at 57 percent, followed by Republicans at 54 percent and independents at 51 percent. Her highest unfavorability rating came from Hispanic voters ages 50 and older at 59 percent. None of the voter categories polled showed a higher favorability rating than 41 percent, however the highest rating did come from independents. Meanwhile, a poll by Courier Newsroom/Data for Progress that was published in August showed that Republicans are the only party where Sinema held a favorable rating.
Nate Silver, founder of opinion poll analysis website FiveThirtyEight, shared a photo of the AARP poll acknowledging that none of the political parties seemed to favor the Arizona senator.
"Sinema was not very popular with anyone, I'm not sure whether today's move increases or decreases her chances of winning another term (I actually suspect decreases) but they were low to begin with and they remain low," he tweeted Friday.
Sinema announced her move in an exclusive interview with CNN on Thursday. Yet despite Sinema joining fellow independents Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Senator Angus King of Maine, Democrats are still expected to maintain their 51-49 vote majority in the Senate.
In her interview with CNN, Sinema assured voters that her job would remain the same.
"I don't think anything will change about how I do my job," she said. "Arizonans sent me to the United States Senate to be an independent voice for our state, and I'll continue doing that."
The senator added that she switched parties because she no longer wanted to be a member of a party that required its members to "unthinkingly support" all of its viewpoints.
Sinema has a long political history, and her recent announcement isn't the first time she has switched parties. At the beginning of her political career, Sinema identified as a member of the Arizona Green Party before switching to Democrat in 2004 where she's remained until now.
Newsweek reached out to Sinema for comment.
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