The 2024 United States Senate election in Arizona will be held on November 5, 2024, to select a representative for their state. Before the final election, the primary election is scheduled for August 6, 2024.
Kyrsten Sinema, the incumbent one-term centrist independents Senator, was first elected in 2018 as a Democrat with 50% of the vote succeeding retiring Republican Jeff Flake. Senator Sinema departed from the Democratic Party in December 2022.. Although She has not confirmed whether she will run for re-election, she filed paperwork in April 2023. U.S. Representative Ruben Gallego is seeking the Democratic nomination, while Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb is running for the Republican nomination, alongside Kari Lake, the party’s 2022 gubernatorial nominee. The uncertainty regarding Sinema’s intentions, the state’s purple lean, and the possibility of a three-way race make most analysts consider the race to be a tossup.
Arizona is now considered a formerly red but now purple state at the federal level. The state voted for Republican Donald Trump by 3.5 percentage points in the 2016 election and for Democrat Joe Biden by roughly 0.3 percentage points in 2020. In recend years, both partyes have seen success in the state. Democrats control the other U.S. Senate seats and the governorship after flipping the latter in 2022, while Republicans hold a majority of the state’s U.S. House seats and control the state legislature.
Kyrsten Sinema, the Senator of Arizona, was believed to be at risk of losing her position due to her opposition to several bills proposed by the Democratic Party. The most prominent was her disagreement with the Build Back Better Act, particularly the sections that aimed to lower prescription drug prices. Additionaly, she opposed increasing the minimum wage and filibuster reform. Potential polling showed that Sinema would lose to any of her potential challengers, with Ruben Gallego being a frontrunner to replace her. In January 2022, the Arizona Democratic Party voted to censure Sinema for the second time for voting against a carve-out to the filibuster in a Democratic-led effort to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.
During the congressional consideration of the Inflation Reduction Act in August 2022, Sinema did not immediately support the bill. She only did so after the Democratic leaders removed a provision on closing the carried interest tax loophole. This action raised concerns and calls for Sinema to face a primary opponent in her next election.
Finally, in December 2022,Sinema left the Democratic Party and registered as an independent party.