“She’s trying to be a moderate, because Arizona is a moderate state and the way you get elected here — or at least the way you have in the past — is to not be challenged in a primary and get your ass to the middle to try to keep enough swing voters in your camp,” said David Doak, a retired longtime Democratic strategist and ad maker living in Arizona. “Given the polarization — the leftists are more left now and the right-ists are more crazy now — your calculation needs to be different … Her calculation, I think, is off.”…

In Sinema’s case, the center to which she is clinging may have shifted. When Sinema defeated Republican Martha McSally in one of the most closely watched Senate races of 2018, the end game for Democrats in Arizona was to elect any politician with a “D” behind their name.

The landscape looks different now, on the heels of Biden’s 2020 victory and demographic trends that are driving Democratic gains in Arizona.

“The activists, the people who are going to knock on doors, those guys are done with her,” said Steven Slugocki, former Democratic Party chair in Maricopa County, the state’s population hub.