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Independent Kyrsten Sinema won't change the US Senate
Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, DC shares his perspective on US politics.
What does Kyrsten Sinema caucusing as an independent mean for the United States Senate next year?
And the short answer is, according to her, not much.
Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema today told Democratic Party leaders that she would be no longer identifying as a Democrat, instead choosing to identify as one of the Senate's three independents. Functionally, this probably doesn't mean much because Sinema says this won't affect the functioning of the Senate. Meaning that committee ratios are still expected to favor Democrats next year, giving them more power to easily report nominations and conduct oversight, but also that she would support Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer as the majority leader next year.
Probably where this has a bigger impact is in Sinema's own reelection campaign in 2024. She now can avoid a party primary, which was expected to be from a very well-funded Democrat, as Democrats aren't super happy with Sinema for having frustrated parts of Joe Biden's legislative agenda over the last two years. She can now run as an independent in the swing state of Arizona, which is going to be a presidential battleground state with lots of money and attention paid there in '24. And her expectation, assuming she runs, will be to split the Democratic and the Republican votes in the state and win reelection.
Grading President Biden's first 100 days; 2020 US Census helps Sun Belt states
Get insights on the latest news in US politics from Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington:
How would you grade President Biden's performance in his first 100 days?
Well, Biden's done pretty well in this first 100 days. He's done a good job on what's the number one most important issue facing his administration and that's the coronavirus response. He hit his goal of 100 million vaccinations within the first month or so of his administration. And they increased that to 200 million vaccinations, which they hit on day 92. So that's a pretty successful start. They inherited a lot of that from President Trump to be fair. Operation Warp Speed set the US up for success and Biden delivered after he came into office. And of course, the second thing is his COVID relief package, which the US has taken advantage of a favorable funding environment to borrow trillions of dollars and get them into the hands of American small businesses and families and has really helped the economy through what has been a very bad year but could have been a lot worse if the government hadn't intervened. The bill has been very popular, and it set the stage for a follow on bill that Biden wants to deliver for big priorities for democrats later this year, potentially as much as $4 trillion in spending.
Less good are kind of the external challenges that he's been facing. He changed his mind on his refugee policy. He's got a major problem with a flood of immigrants at the southern border. That's really unsolvable. And there's been a rash of high-profile shootings that it's going to be really, really hard for the federal government to do anything about because of polarization and the lack of 60 votes in the Senate. So overall, I think you've got to give them a solid A, A- for his first 100 days and now is probably the time when it starts getting tougher as he starts planning even bigger long-term things.
Who are the winners and losers from the 2020 US census results?
Well, there's been a population shift over the last 10 years from kind of declining Rust Belt states to booming Sun Belt states. And you saw states like Texas, Arizona, Florida gain seats, but not as many as expected. Texas was thought to get three, but they only got two. California lost a seat for the first time ever. And because of this, you're going to see a steady shift of power to these southern Sun Belt states, which are largely controlled by Republicans who will, again, as they did in 2010, have the advantage in the redistricting process that will determine who controls Congress, gives them an edge up in the 2022 midterm elections, and really puts the Democrats' are already very thin majority in peril.
The Graphic Truth: COVID deaths — US states vs countries
Back in March and April, the most severe COVID-19 outbreaks were in Europe — specifically Italy, Spain, and France — as well as the Northeastern United States. In the months since, these areas have managed to flatten their curves through strict social distancing policies, but now the epicenter of the coronavirus in the US has shifted to some Southern states that resisted lockdown measures. Consider that the United States recorded an average of 744 COVID deaths in the seven days leading up to July 16, compared to 74 in the UK and 13 in Italy during that same period. Meanwhile, Latin American countries are now also facing some of the biggest outbreaks in the world. Here's a look at where COVID-19 deaths are rising fastest, broken out as a comparison between US states and other hard-hit countries.
Editor's note: An earlier version of this graphic mistakenly labeled the y-axis as rolling 7-day average of deaths per 100,000 people. In fact, the y-axis refers to the rolling 7-day average in deaths from the coronavirus (not per 100,000 people). We regret the error.