Part of what may be happening is that Sinema thinks that Arizona is a redder state than it actually is. That’s understandable insofar as Democrats have only started winning statewide races there with regularity recently. Sinema became the first Democrat to win an Arizona Senate race since 1988.

This feat, however, was repeated by Mark Kelly in 2020. Kelly won by basically the same margin against the same opponent as Sinema and in a tougher political environment. Biden, too, became the first Democrat to win the state on the presidential level since 1996…

If she’s trying to copy McCain’s ways, Sinema isn’t doing a great job. McCain usually voted with his party. In his final full year in the Senate, he voted with his party more than 90% of the time on party unity votes (i.e. those where at least 50% of one party voted a different way from 50% of the other party). This was about on par for him. McCain voted with his party less than the median senator, but not that much less.

Sinema is an entirely different legislator. She votes against her party far more than the median legislator on party unity votes, according to the CQ Almanac. From 2013 to 2019, she’s never voted with her party more than 75% of the time.