Arizona Senator Mark Kelly Won’t Say If He’d Back Sinema in Democratic Primary

W hen Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer held a doomed vote last month to override the rules regarding the Senate filibuster, he didn’t just make life difficult for Arizona’s senior Democratic senator Kyrsten Sinema. He also put Mark Kelly, Arizona’s junior Democratic senator, in a difficult spot.

First, Kelly was forced to choose whether to side with his maverick home-state colleague or toe the party line. Kelly avoided taking a position until the last possible moment, when he sided with Schumer.

Now, Sinema faces a likely Democratic primary challenge in 2024 backed by Senator Bernie Sanders, and Kelly, who needs the vote of every moderate he can get this November, won’t say if he would support his fellow Arizona senator in a Democratic primary.

“You know, I got an election this year. I’m not even focused on that election,” Kelly told National Review on Tuesday when asked if he would back Sinema in a Democratic primary. “I’m focused, as I know Senator Sinema is, on doing the job here for folks that we represent.”

Schumer himself dodged last week when asked if he would back Sinema in a 2024 Democratic primary. “I am focused on 2022, getting things done, and winning the election in 2022,” Schumer told CNN. “I’m not at all focused on 2024 right now, and neither should anyone else be. That’s just how you lose in 2022.”

According to Democratic Arizona congressman Ruben Gallego, “more than one” Democratic senator has encouraged him to challenge Sinema in 2024. Bernie Sanders said last week that it’s “not my job to tell Arizona or West Virginia what to do but if the people in those states want new leadership, I’d be prepared to support them.”

While Mark Kelly won’t say if he’d support Sinema in 2024, his campaign did release a statement saying that Kelly “does not support” the Arizona Democratic Party’s censure of Sinema. And on Tuesday, Kelly praised Sinema for her work on the bipartisan infrastructure bill. “I will say that Senator Sinema was really critical to getting that infrastructure bill passed,” Kelly told National Review while explaining that he’s so focused on policy he can’t say if he’d support Sinema in a primary.

Kelly, who is serving out the final two years of the late senator John McCain’s term, faces his first election for a full six-year term this November. Democrats face considerable headwinds nationwide, and Kelly only won the special election in November 2020 by 2.4 points at the same time that Joe Biden carried the state by 0.3 points.

Whether Kelly can continue to dodge questions about supporting Sinema remains to be seen. For now, he seems more worried about alienating progressives than alienating moderates. That might change after April 4, the deadline for candidates to file for this year’s Democratic Senate primary in Arizona.