Kyrsten Sinema Isn’t the Only Senator to Switch Parties Mid-Term – By Molly Olmstead (Slate) / Dec 9, 2022
Several others have done so, and for remarkably similar reasons.
Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s announcement Friday that she’s becoming an independent shrinks the Democratic Party’s expected advantage ahead the start of the new term. There are plenty of questions left to answer, including if Sinema’s departure will mark a shift in her voting patterns (she claims it won’t). But despite the uproar, this is not the first time a sitting senator has changed parties mid-term, nor is it close to the most dramatic instance of such a swap.
If you include Sinema, 22 U.S. Senators have changed parties while in office. Some of these followed partisan shifts, such as South Carolina segregationist Strom Thurmond’s move to the Republican party in 1964, or Alabama’s Richard Shelby wrapping up the Southern exodus in 1994. Others were swept up by more historically bizarre political moments, such as Colorado’s Henry Teller’s defection to the Silver Republicans over the issue of silver monetization in 1896
But in more modern history, the moves have usually been recognizable as political maneuvers. Several were for campaign-related reasons. In 1999, New Hampshire’s Bob Smith left the Republican Party, frustrated that his presidential campaign never took off. He briefly joined the “Taxpayer’s Party,” then became an independent, and then dropped his presidential ambitions altogether. He rejoined the GOP less than a year after he’d left it, when the Committee on Environment and Public Works chair opened up, claiming he’d technically never changed his registration.
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