--- title: Sinema Embraces Her Role as Republicans’ Favorite Democrat description: Kyrsten Sinema got a hero’s welcome from Mitch McConnell on the Kentucky Republican's home turf. To those in her party, she is a chaos agent. canonical: https://time.com/6217570/kyrsten-sinem-republicans-favorite-democrat-mcconnell/ author: Philip Elliott article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2022-09-27T21:36:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T14:49:18.732Z article:section: Politics og:title: Sinema Embraces Her Role as Republicans’ Favorite Democrat og:description: Kyrsten Sinema received a hero’s welcome from Mitch McConnell on the Kentucky Republican's home turf. og:url: https://time.com/6217570/kyrsten-sinem-republicans-favorite-democrat-mcconnell/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcde6f1ab99030778/698a35f1096a947c336ad022/GettyImages-1242347753.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Democrats Drop Carried Interest To Pave Way for Tax Vote og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Sinema Embraces Her Role as Republicans’ Favorite Democrat twitter:description: Kyrsten Sinema received a hero’s welcome from Mitch McConnell on the Kentucky Republican's home turf. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcde6f1ab99030778/698a35f1096a947c336ad022/GettyImages-1242347753.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Kyrsten Sinema Embraces Her Role as Republicans’ Favorite Democrat > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement.  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Sep 27, 2022 9:36 PM UTC  Senator Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat from Arizona, walks through the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 6, 2022. Senator Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat from Arizona, walks through the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 6, 2022. Ting Shen—Bloomberg via Getty Images  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Sep 27, 2022 9:36 PM UTC _This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up_ [_here_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/signup?nln=dc-brief&source=dc%5Fonsite) _to get stories like this sent to your inbox._ He likes bourbon. She, wine. He’s been in the Senate for nearly four decades. She, since 2019\. But, at the end of the day, both Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema are big fans of an upper chamber gummed up by arcane rules. Sinema made the [pilgrimage](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/09/27/mitch-mcconnell-praises-kyrsten-sinema-genuine-moderate-dealmaker/10438249002/) on Monday to Kentucky to speak at the McConnell Center at the University of Louisville, a familiar stop for Senate institutionalists to pay a polite nod to the chamber’s top Republican and master of its byzantine nature. And, once at McConnell’s alma mater, she was treated to a Brink’s truck of praise for her unwillingness to fall in line with the rest of her Democratic Party. It wasn’t [entirely](https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/26/politics/mitch-mcconnell-kyrsten-sinema-democrat-praise/index.html) magnanimous. “She is, today, what we have too few of in the Democratic Party: a genuine moderate and a dealmaker,” McConnell said in his introduction, which also described her as “the most effective first-term senator I’ve seen.”If obstruction is a proxy for efficacy, then there’s little room for argument. Sinema helped to [tank](https://www.vox.com/2022/1/23/22897566/kyrsten-sinema-voting-rights-filibuster-backlash-censure) changes to Senate rules that would have allowed for a simple-majority to advance certain measures that her party considered priorities. In turn, preserving the Senate tradition of lawmakers killing legislation by simply threatening to filibuster it [derailed](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/19/us/politics/senate-voting-rights-filibuster.html) a voting rights proposal. She also wasn’t on board for President Joe Biden’s infrastructure packages or [an effort](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/03/06/sinema-thumbs-down/) by the progressive wing of her party to boost the minimum wage to $15 an hour. In turn, she got a hero’s welcome from a host who similarly [enjoys](https://www.npr.org/2018/06/29/624467256/what-happened-with-merrick-garland-in-2016-and-why-it-matters-now) thwarting Democrats’ best-laid plans, including a Supreme Court nominee in 2016. Typically, Democrats make the trip to McConnell’s turf when they’re on the mend or readying their next acts; then-Vice President Biden made the [hike](https://louisville.edu/mcconnellcenter/news/archived/countrys-best-days-are-ahead-biden-tells-uofl-audience) in 2011, while Sen. Amy Klobuchar paid a [visit](https://www.whas11.com/article/news/local/senator-amy-klobuchar-guest-lecture-mitch-mcconnell-university-of-louisville/417-9937ba93-743f-4414-82d4-a3e928759a08) earlier this year to discuss the virtues of bipartisanship. But now, just weeks before the midterms, Sinema was on campus to serve up an event that suggested her fellow Democrats were on the verge of losing power in Washington, while lapping up praise from McConnell, who would use control over the chamber to stymie the balance of Biden’s first term. “As you all know, control changes between the House and the Senate every couple of years. It’s likely to change again in just a few weeks” Sinema said. Such a statement is as [plausible](https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/vitalstats%5Fch2%5Ftbl4.pdf) as it is unhelpful—and predictable, given the Senator’s recent track record. Sinema is a Democrat, but a wholly unreliable one. She and Sen. Joe [Manchin](https://time.com/6198779/joe-manchin-democrats-fate-biden/) trade the crown for being the most vexing member of the Democratic Party in the Senate, often willing to buck colleagues. But Manchin has a rational argument for being contrarian; he represents West Virginia, the second-most Trumpian [state](https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/results/president) in the country and is possibly the last Democrat to stand a chance to win statewide. Sinema, meanwhile, hails from Arizona, a [state](https://time.com/5933278/arizona-republican-party-trump/) that Biden won and is trending bluer by the week; she has less reason to fear her constituents than Manchin. Sinema’s comments come as Democrats are [fighting](https://time.com/6214483/why-the-polls-may-be-feeding-liberals-another-blue-mirage/) with every ounce to defend narrow majorities in the House and the Senate. Her fellow Arizona Democrat, Sen. Mark Kelly, is in a tight fight to stay in Washington. Dozens of House Democrats are struggling to shake the conventional wisdom that they’re cruising toward a thumping. Donors are still pumping cash into races, Biden’s poll numbers seem to be rebounding [slightly](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/), and Republicans aren’t coasting toward gavel-wielding majorities just yet. But instead of campaigning for Democrats, Sinema is palling around with McConnell, who stands to halt Democrats’ agenda for at least the next two years. On top of all of that, Sinema is renewing her calls for a stronger filibuster. Sinema [suggested](https://www.wsj.com/articles/kyrsten-sinema-calls-for-reinstating-senate-filibuster-for-presidents-nominees-11664221162) in Louisville that 60 votes should be required for approving anything, including judges and executive branch nominees. The optimism needed to believe the federal government could continue to function under such a system requires lawmakers to believe all of their current and future colleagues—of both parties, to be fair—will respect those they disagree with, and won’t resort to procedural tricks to delay and defer every chance they get. At this point, no presidential administration expects to get all of their team past the Senate. Picking one or two sacrificial nominees is now an official Senate sport, in which otherwise qualified individuals are held in limbo as petty payback. It’s why Neera Tanden is now managing the flow of paper across Biden’s desk rather than running the Office of Management and Budget—because of mean tweets. Sinema is often interpreted as an heir to the late Sen. John McCain’s _maverick_ [spirit](https://time.com/5379600/donald-trump-john-mccain-arizona-senate/). But McCain had principles and priorities. Perhaps the most accurate [diagnosis](https://www.azcentral.com/story/entertainment/media/2021/10/03/snl-cold-open-kyrsten-sinema/5931497001/) of Sinema’s agenda came from the unlikely quarter of _SNL_: her goal is little more than chaos. And, for a few hours this week, that meant giving her political opposite McConnell a speech that he could circulate with glee. After all, here was one of the most (perceived to be) honest Democrats suggesting a GOP takeover was in the offing. And while Sinema joked that even their bar orders were at odds—“He drinks bourbon. I drink wine” she told the crowd amiably—their goals were not. But perhaps only one of them fully understood there was but one winner when they both bellied up to the bar. _Make sense of what matters in Washington._ [_Sign up for the D.C. Brief newsletter_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/signup?nln=dc-brief&source=dc%5Fonsite)_._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6217570/kyrsten-sinem-republicans-favorite-democrat-mcconnell/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6217570/kyrsten-sinem-republicans-favorite-democrat-mcconnell/"},"headline":"Kyrsten Sinema Embraces Her Role as Republicans’ Favorite Democrat","datePublished":"2022-09-27T21:36:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T14:49:18.732Z","description":"Kyrsten Sinema received a hero’s welcome from Mitch McConnell on the Kentucky Republican's home turf. To those in her party, she is a chaos agent.","url":"https://time.com/6217570/kyrsten-sinem-republicans-favorite-democrat-mcconnell/","keywords":["The D.C. 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