Former Mormon Kyrsten Sinema's road from green energy Democrat to rebel ... trends now
It is customary for members of Congress to ride aboard Air Force One when the president visits their state.
But when President Joe Biden made the trip to Phoenix Arizona on Tuesday, he was not accompanied by Kyrsten Sinema, the state's enigmatic senator.
Not so Rep. Ruben Gallego. He made sure everyone knew he was aboard by tweeting a picture from the plane's boardroom - a useful profile boost for a man weighing a primary challenge to Sinema for the Democratic Party nomination.
On Friday the reason for Sinema's absence became clear, she was leaving the party, killing off the prospect of what would have been a well-backed primary challenger.
In so doing, she did what critics say she does best: She made a grand gesture in breaking with her party on a point of principle, while doing what was best for her own political future.
And in a week when victory in Georgia meant Biden could celebrate having 51 seats in the Senate, she had made the story all about herself. Again.
The first openly bisexual member of Congress, an Ironman triathlon competitor, who grew up in a Mormon family, and whose idiosyncratic clothes and hair won her a write-up on the style pages of the New York Times has a habit of defying expectations.
Perhaps until now.
Ironman triathlete, openly bisexual member of Congress, who moved from green politics to centrist Democrat to thorn in Joe Biden's legislative agenda, Kyrsten Sinema has long defied easy categorization. On Friday she entered the next phase of her political life, announcing she was quitting the Democratic Party to sit as an independent
Fashion writers said she wore her maverick status on the outside - complete with collection of colorful wigs, including this lavender item she paired with agreen dress for a vote in Congress in May 2020
'She's extremely predictable if you look at it from her point but few people in D.C. think like her,' said political strategist Brad Bannon, who saw an astute calculation by a senator who knew the extra Democratic vote from the Georgia result meant she had lost some of her leverage.
'This move is an attempt to stay relevant in the Senate and position herself for her re-election campaign against a strong Democratic candidate who could have beat her in a primary.'
Her middle class to living-in-a-gas-station to law school and Congress story has become well known since she was elected to the Senate in 2018.
She was born in 1976 to a middle-class family in Tucson.
Her father practiced law while mother Marilyn cared for the three children.
But the family's fortunes changed and her father lost his job in the 1980s recession. Her parents divorced in 1983.
Her mother remarried and took Sinema and the two other children to Florida, and it was there that the family squatted in an abandoned gas station from the ages of eight to 11, according to AZCentral.
Sinema has spoken about her mother relying on food stamps when her parents got divorced and when her family was homeless.
Her parents and step parents were Mormon and she grew up in the faith.
Vice President Mike Pence administers the Senate oath of office to Kyrsten Sinema during a mock swearing in ceremony in the Old Senate Chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington
Sinema pictured in October 2021 when she was locked in negotiations with the White House over Biden's $3 trillion spending
