Senator Kyrsten Sinema’s approval rating drops as Democrats accuse her of blocking Biden’s agenda

Senator’s approval ratings with registered voters of Arizona fell to 42 per cent from 48 per cent this year

Not backing US president Joe Biden’s Build Back Better campaign and the Green New Deal may have put a dent in US senator Kyrsten Sinema’s approval ratings, a new report showed.

Ms Sinema’s approval ratings with registered voters of Arizona fell to 42 per cent from 48 per cent between the first and third quarters of 2021, according to Morning Consult Political Intelligence tracking. People disapproving of her have risen from 35 per cent to 42 per cent in the same time span.

This disapproval stems primarily from Democratic voters. At 46 per cent, they are now less likely to approve of the Arizona senator’s performance than they were earlier this year.

At least 14 per cent of Democrats in Arizona still support and “strongly’’ approve of Ms Sinema, but it is unlikely to be enough to drum up support and bring the senator back to her administrative seat if she were to run for re-election in 2024. This figure stood at 28 per cent in the first quarter of this year, the survey showed.

Democrat senators Ms Sinema and Joe Manchin have opposed the budget reconciliation package. The bill includes big-ticket priorities like universal pre-kindergarten education, paid family and medical leave, home and community-based care for elderly people and people with disabilities, and needs a 51-vote majority to overcome a filibuster. The bill was also set to include a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants but the Senate parliamentarian ruled that Democrats could not add immigration provisions to their package.

Ms Sinema announced that she did not support the $3.5 trillion price tag in July. But unlike fellow conservative Democrat Sen Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who proposed slimming the bill down to $1.5 trillion, Ms Sinema has not given out a number that she would accept.

Over the past few weeks, several groups have confronted her regarding her stance on the social spending bill.

A video released on Monday showed that Ms Sinema was questioned at the Reagan National Airport in Washington DC by the chief of staff at Green New Deal Network. “Do you want to cut climate priorities? Is it elder care that you want to cut, or is it child care?” Kunoor Ojha asked the Arizona senator, urging her to explain why she would not back the bill.

She was also confronted by some immigrant activists on Monday outside a classroom at Arizona State University, where she teaches. The students, “sick of the political games”, accused her of not meeting the communities that elected her.

The activists tweeted a video of the group following Ms Sinema into a restroom over the weekend, showing them confronting the senator about her lack of willingness to support the Democrats’ massive social welfare legislation. One activist named Blanca mentioned how her family was the victim of Arizona’s stringent immigration law passed in 2010.

But Senator Sinema released a statement on the incident and said that those who filmed her outside the restroom were engaging in “unlawful protests”.

“It is unacceptable for activist organisations to instruct their members to jeopardise themselves by engaging in unlawful activities such as gaining entry to closed university buildings, disrupting learning environments, and filming students in a restroom,” Ms Sinema said in a statement.