The notion of replacing them with Democrats who will more actively support progressive ideas may be appealing at first, but it is a colossally stupid idea that would be a gift to the Republicans. The reason for this is simple; both Manchin and Sinema would be extremely difficult to defeat in a primary, but any candidate who beat them from the left in a primary would almost certainly lose in a general election to the Republican.
Joe Manchin represents West Virginia, one of the most conservative states in the country. In the November election Donald Trump, Republican Governor Jim Justice and Republican Senator Shelley Moore Capito all won in West Virginia with well over 60% of the vote. Manchin, a former governor who was first elected to the Senate in 2010, is currently the only Democrat who holds statewide office there. It is clear that Manchin is able to win because of his personal popularity in West Virginia as well as his moderate politics --and equally clear that a more progressive Democrat would struggle to even compete in such a conservative state.
Arizona is a bit different from West Virginia. In 2020, Joe Biden flipped the state into the Democratic column -- the first time a Democratic presidential candidate carried the state since 1996, while Democrat Mark Kelly defeated Martha McSally in a close Senate race. Arizona now has two Democratic senators for the first time since 1953. A primary campaign against Sinema could jeopardize that.
Arizona is currently best understood as a battleground state that is trending Democratic, rather than a safely Democratic state like California or Hawaii. For that reason, Democratic candidates must still be able to appeal to independent voters and even some Republicans. A Democrat significantly left of Sinema would struggle to do that.
In general, defeating an incumbent in a primary is difficult, but not impossible. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2018 and Jamaal Bowman in 2020 both demonstrated that progressive challenges to moderate incumbents can be successful. However, both of those races were for House seats not for the Senate.
Senators are significantly more difficult to dislodge in primaries. The last three Democratic senators to lose in primaries were Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter in 2010, Connecticut's Joseph Lieberman in 2006 and Alan Dixon in Illinois back in 1992.
Even if a progressive challenger to, for example, Manchin were somehow able to win, the victory would likely be Pyrrhic. In the general election the new progressive Democratic candidate would be drubbed by the Republican in the general election, who would attack the new nominee as being too far left and a socialist. These attacks do not work against Manchin because he is a known centrist commodity in West Virginia.
The dynamic in Arizona would be similar, but not quite as dramatic. Even if Manchin and Sinema beat back these primary challenges, which they would likely be able to do, they would be forced to spend resources and defend themselves and their records in a primary campaign, making them weaker in the general election against their Republican opponents.
Primary challenges from the left against moderate or conservative Democrats are a good progressive strategy in safe Democratic districts where the primary winner is all but guaranteed victory in the general election. This was the case with the successful primary challenges by Ocasio-Cortez and Bowman.
If progressives want more progressive Democrats in the Senate, they should consider either running someone against Dianne Feinstein, the oldest sitting senator who will be 91 years old in 2024 but has filed papers to run again, or ensuring that a progressive wins that seat if Feinstein, as is more likely, does not run again. There is no risk in that strategy because Feinstein represents California, a state that is so heavily Democratic that even a Democrat to the left of Feinstein could easily get elected.
A wiser approach might be to focus on 2022, when neither Manchin or Sinema will be on the ballot. Instead, the most important thing progressives could do, with regards to the Senate, is to work to make sure Senators Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Mark Kelly of Arizona, who both narrowly won in the last election and will be back on the ballot in two years to run for a full term, get reelected. This is not as exciting or disruptive as running an outsider progressive primary campaign against a sitting US senator, but it is much more essential for the success of progressive political goals.
Senators Machin and Sinema, because of their positions as conservative Democrats, will be very powerful in the coming years. They can make demands to get what they want on key legislation and will suffer few, if any, negative political consequences from withholding their support for parts of Biden's agenda.
There is no doubt that progressives will find themselves angry and exasperated with these two senators in the coming months and years. However, running primary campaigns against them, and almost certainly paving the way for Republican victories in the general election, is only going to make it more difficult to pass any kind of progressive legislation.
"Opinion" - Google News
February 06, 2021 at 11:14AM
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This would be a costly mistake for progressives - CNN
"Opinion" - Google News
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