Activists who helped elect Kyrsten Sinema launch CrowdPAC to fund a primary challenger [View all]

Arizona activists have launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise money for a potential 2024 Democratic primary challenger to Sen. Kyrsten Sinema if she does not vote to end the filibuster or continues to obstruct President Joe Biden's agenda.

A committee of Arizona organizers who have helped turn the state blue since 2018, when Sinema narrowly won her seat, launched the conditional fundraiser to pressure the senator to stop undermining her party's agenda. Sinema opposes the Democrats' $3.5 trillion spending bill, balking at both the price tag and key measures like drug pricing reform and tax hikes on the wealthy and corporations. She has also vehemently defended the filibuster, which has prevented any progress on the Democrats' voting rights legislation as well as a minimum wage increase, immigration reform, gun violence measures, police reform, LGBTQ protections, protections for workers' right to unionize and other bills that have already passed the Democratic-led House.

"It's time to send a message that she can't ignore," the group's CrowdPAC page says. "Either Sen. Sinema votes to end or reform the Jim Crow filibuster this year or we fund a primary challenge to replace her with someone who will."

State Sen. Martin Quezada, a Democrat who is backing the effort, told Salon that for sitting lawmakers, "the only thing that really gets you motivated to start seriously considering changing your views on things is if you are facing a threat to your seat."

https://www.salon.com/2021/09/29/activists-helped-elect-kyrsten-sinema-launch-crowdpac-to-fund-a-primary-challenger/