November 12, 2018

Kyrsten Sinema Just Officially Beat Martha McSally to Be Arizona’s Next Senator

This is the second Democratic pick up in the Senate.

Matt York/AP

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On Monday night, Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema officially defeated Republican Rep. Martha McSally to be Arizona’s next senator. The campaign to replace retiring Republican Sen. Jeff Flake proved incredibly tight and put the country on edge over the past week; on election night, McSally had the lead and it looked like she might win, but a week of continued counting ultimately gave Sinema the edge. She will be the state’s first female senator, and her win marks a significant victory for Democrats in a battleground state that President Donald Trump narrowly won two years ago. 

McSally, a former fighter pilot, called Sinema to concede the race on Monday, thanking supporters in a video on Twitter. 

Notably, since Election Day, McSally has not followed the lead of other Republicans in Arizona and across the country who have been making allegations of voter fraud, as the party has seen its leads shrink or as races have been forced into recounts. As Politico reported, “Top officials with the White House and Republican National Committee, who’ve been prodding the McSally campaign to amp up its efforts, have expressed frustration that the Arizona congresswoman hasn’t tried to drive a message that there’s something amiss with the vote count.” McSally’s lack of participation didn’t stop President Trump from alleging fraud: 

Throughout the campaign, both candidates appeared uncomfortable with their place in their respective parties. McSally had rejected Trump in the final weeks of the 2016 election, though she has embraced his platform over the past two years. (It was McSally who told her colleagues during the push to repeal the Affordable Care Act to get the “fucking thing” done.) But she refused to ever say who she had voted for for president.

Sinema, for her part, moved hard to the center from her early days as a progressive firebrand in the state legislature. This year, she declined to endorse the Democratic nominee for governor, David Garcia, and in the closing days of the race, backed Trump’s decision to move 5,000 troops to the southern border.

For such a marquee race, it was waged, in the end, with smoke and mirrors. McSally declined to say she’d make abortion a litmus test for Supreme Court nominees, and Sinema waited until the last minute to say she’d vote against Brett Kavanaugh. McSally and her allies tarred Sinema—in the face of all evidence to the contrary—as a socialist radical and hammered the Democrat’s opposition to the war in Iraq. When Sinema hammered McSally over her vote to roll back protections for people with pre-existing conditions, McSally simply lied and said she never did.

Arizona proved a winnable race for Democrats, and they’ll get another chance soon enough to try to solidify their gains; the special election for the seat formerly held by John McCain is coming up in 2020.

Listen to our reporters explain the on-going tussle over every vote in key battleground states, on this week’s episode of the Mother Jones Podcast:

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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