Mark Kelly‘s triumph in Arizona after a tough campaign against Trump-endorsed newcomer Blake Masters means Democrats retain control of the Senate. But not all Democrats in Arizona are completely happy, having accused the state’s senior Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema of not having contributed to Kelly’s success.
Interviewed by MSBNC, Democratic Rep. for Arizona’s 7th congressional district Ruben Gallego said that during the race Democrats fought as a team but “Senator Sinema was nowhere to be found.”
He said: “We did not see her at one public event for anybody and when we had some of these races that are really in the mix right now, she could have been a very good surrogate to help out a lot of our candidates, but she did nothing. Because she only cares about herself.”
Gallego had previously criticized Sinema on social media, responding to a tweet by the senator calling for voters to be patient before the final results of the elections by sarcastically thanking her.
“Thanks for all your help this year,” the U.S. Marine combat veteran replied to her tweet.
Newsweek has reached out to Gallego and Sinema for comment.
Sinema, who’s originally from Tucson but spent much of her childhood in Florida, started her career in the Arizona Green Party before joining the Democratic party in 2004. In 2012, the 46-year-old was elected to the House of Representatives and in 2018 she won the Senate race to replace the retiring Jeff Flake.
Sinema was the first woman to represent Arizona in the Senate, and the first openly bisexual woman to be elected in either the House or Senate. She’s currently the highest-ranking Democrat in the state.
Her absence from the state’s campaign trails was noted by local media. The non-partisan newspaper Arizona Capitol Times wrote that Sinema was “noticeably absent” from the campaign trail and wasn’t “stumping for her party’s nominees in extremely close statewide races.”
According to AZ Central, Sinema was invited to attend a rally held in early November with former president Barack Obama but declined.
A spokesperson for Sinema—Hannah Hurley—told the Arizona Republic newspaper that the senator donated $10,000 to Kelly’s campaign and made public statements supporting both Kelly and gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs.
The winner of the gubernatorial race has yet to be announced, with Trump-endorsed Republican candidate Kari Lake trailing the 52-year-old Phoenix-born Hobbs, who currently has 50.5 percent of the vote.
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