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      Will Joe Manchin Run for President? He Keeps Fueling 2024 Rumors.

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      The West Virginia senator, who announced Thursday that he would not seek re-election, has stoked chatter about a third-party run. But his allies have been tight-lipped about his plans.Almost since he arrived in Washington, Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia has complained about the partisan nature of the Capitol and insisted that Americans aren’t as politically divided as the people they send to Congress.With his announcement on Thursday that he will not seek re-election next year, Mr. Manchin again floated the possibility that he thinks the solution to America’s polarized politics lies in the mirror.“What I will be doing is traveling the country and speaking out to see if there is an interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle and bring Americans together,” Mr. Manchin said in his retirement video.He added, “I know our country isn’t as divided as Washington wants us to believe. We share common values of family, freedom, democracy, dignity and a belief that together we can overcome any challenge. We need to take back America and not let this divisive hatred further pull us apart.”What Mr. Manchin actually plans to do remains a mystery. His closest aides and advisers insist they don’t know. A conservative Democrat who has served as one of his party’s key votes in the Senate, he has long kept his own counsel on his biggest decisions and made up his mind at the last minute.Mr. Manchin has flirted this year with No Labels, a group that has made noise about running a centrist candidate for the White House. No Labels officials said Thursday that Mr. Manchin’s announcement had taken them by surprise, though they commended him “for stepping up to lead a long-overdue national conversation about solving America’s biggest challenges.”“Regarding our No Labels Unity presidential ticket, we are gathering input from our members across the country to understand the kind of leaders they would like to see in the White House,” the group said in a statement.Some allies of Mr. Manchin are skeptical that he will run for president. For one, it would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to run a credible independent or third-party campaign, and Mr. Manchin has never been a formidable fund-raiser on his own.Fellow Senate Democrats and their super PAC subsidized much of his 2018 re-election effort and were poised to do so again next year had he chosen to run. He did hold a fund-raising event for his political action committee last weekend at the Greenbrier, the West Virginia resort owned by Gov. Jim Justice, a Republican who is running for the state’s Senate seat.But the odds of him winning the presidency would be extremely long, especially at this relatively late date.“I wouldn’t say that he can’t or won’t run, but I know he hasn’t run for anything that he doesn’t want to win, ever,” said Phil Smith, a longtime lobbyist and official at the United Mine Workers of America and an ally of Mr. Manchin’s. “If you look at independent candidates for president, even well-known ones, those who started this late never got more than 2 to 3 percent of the vote.”Then there’s the question of Mr. Manchin’s age. He is 76, and would be running in a race with heightened attention and concern about the ages of President Biden, 80, and the likely Republican nominee, former President Donald J. Trump, 77.Mr. Manchin, a former West Virginia University quarterback, remains in good physical condition for a septuagenarian. In May, he completed a three-mile race in Washington in just over 40 minutes.One thing Mr. Manchin has always enjoyed since he won a special election to the Senate in 2010, when he was West Virginia’s governor, is the attention that comes with being a critical vote when Democrats control the chamber.That has often afforded him a platform that has made him popular among cable television bookers and centrist donors, while drawing the ire of the Democratic Party’s progressive activists. He said this summer that he was thinking “seriously” about leaving the Democratic Party.“If he sees that Biden continues to be the Democratic nominee and Trump the Republican nominee, I think he truly sees a huge slice of the American electorate, both Republican and Democratic, fed up with both of their parties’ nominees,” said former Representative Nick Rahall, a fellow West Virginia Democrat who has known Mr. Manchin for decades.For months this year, Mr. Manchin has cozied up to No Labels, which has so far secured ballot access in 12 states in its attempt to offer an alternative to Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump. The group’s president, Nancy Jacobson, has told potential donors that the group intends to select a Republican to lead its ticket, a decision that would exclude Mr. Manchin if No Labels maintains that position.One candidate openly teasing a No Labels run, Larry Hogan, the former Republican governor of Maryland, released a foreign policy video on Tuesday that looked and sounded like a campaign advertisement, denouncing the isolationism in his party and declaring himself “a Reagan guy.”Mr. Hogan appeared at a Bloomberg event last month and said that when he spoke with No Labels officials and donors, “most of them are now assuming it should be a Republican at the top of the ticket.”No Labels has methodically moved forward on its possible presidential campaign, unveiling a manifesto — a platform of sorts — in July and holding its own centrist events. They have featured a rotating cast of characters including Mr. Manchin, Mr. Hogan and Jon Huntsman Jr., a former Utah governor and moderate Republican.The group plans to raise $70 million before a convention in Dallas scheduled for April. But No Labels officials say they will decide whether to announce that campaign before then, possibly after Super Tuesday on March 5, when the Republican presidential primary contest may be all but over.The decision could come earlier, with the field of presidential candidates outside the major parties continuing to expand.On Thursday, Jill Stein, whose presence on the ballot in 2016 may have helped secure the White House for Mr. Trump, joined Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the iconoclastic vaccine skeptic, and Cornel West, the left-wing academic, as challengers to the Republican and Democratic nominees. Ms. Stein will seek to represent the Green Party, as she did in 2016.But No Labels’s drive to get a slot on the ballot in all 50 states appears to have stalled at 12. Thirty-four states allow a group like No Labels to claim a place-holder slot without a candidate, but 16 others and the District of Columbia require a ticket.“They’re not going to run a 50-state campaign,” said Mr. Smith, the lobbyist and union official. “They’re just not.”There will be no shortage of unsolicited advice for Mr. Manchin from Democrats when it comes to his plans.Matt Bennett, the co-founder of the centrist Democratic group Third Way, who is organizing efforts to stop Third Way and dissuade Mr. Manchin from joining their ticket, said he was “not worried” about Mr. Manchin running as an independent candidate.Rahna Epting, the executive director of the progressive group MoveOn, said Thursday that Mr. Manchin should “reject any overtures from No Labels’s dangerous ploy.” More

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      Jill Stein Announces Third-Party Bid for President

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      Ms. Stein will seek the Green Party nomination, a spokesman said. Her last two campaigns with the party were unsuccessful.Jill Stein, who ran unsuccessfully for president on the Green Party ticket in 2012 and 2016, will run again in 2024, she announced on Thursday — adding yet another name to the field even as the two major parties appear almost certain to nominate the same two candidates who ran in 2020.“Democrats have betrayed their promises for working people, youth and the climate again and again, while Republicans don’t even make such promises in the first place,” she said in a video announcing her candidacy, and accused both parties of being “a danger to our democracy.”A spokesman for Ms. Stein’s campaign, LeBeau Kpadenou, confirmed that she intended to again seek the Green Party’s nomination.That institutional backing would spare her some of the challenges in gaining ballot access that will be faced by two prominent independent candidates in the race: the progressive activist and professor Cornel West and the anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who left the Democratic primary last month.The group of third-party candidates could significantly complicate what looks likely to be a rematch between President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump. Some of Mr. Biden’s allies, worried that third-party candidates could siphon support from him in swing states and make a Trump victory more likely, have been working aggressively to undermine those campaigns.In 2016, Ms. Stein drew some 1.4 million votes, and some Democrats blamed her for pulling support from Hillary Clinton in critical states. Her 2012 bid, on the other hand, drew only about 470,000 votes and not much attention because ultimately the race between President Barack Obama and the Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, was not particularly close.Like Mr. West, Ms. Stein will be running to Mr. Biden’s left. In her announcement video, she called for an “economic bill of rights” that would include a guaranteed right to employment, health care, housing, food and education. The video interspersed images of demonstrations for action on climate change, abortion rights, transgender rights and more as she talked.She wrote in an accompanying post on X: “The political insiders always smear outsiders like us & try to shame voters who want better choices. So forget the politicians & pundits who tell you to ignore your struggle and keep voting for those who caused it.” More

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      RFK Jr. Reveals How Voters Are Dreading a Trump-Biden Rematch

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      Frustration with the two men likely to be the major parties’ nominees has led voters to entertain the idea of other options, New York Times/Siena College polls found.A looming rematch next year between President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump has left voters deeply dissatisfied with their options, longing for alternatives and curious about independent candidates like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., according to new polls of six battleground states conducted by The New York Times and Siena College.Both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump are viewed unfavorably by a majority of voters in these states, one-fifth of voters don’t like either of them, and enthusiasm about the coming election is down sharply compared with a poll conducted before the 2020 contest.That frustration and malaise have prompted voters to entertain the idea of other options. When asked about the likeliest 2024 matchup, Mr. Biden versus Mr. Trump, only 2 percent of those polled said they would support another candidate. But when Mr. Kennedy’s name was included as an option, nearly a quarter said they would choose him.That number almost surely inflates the support of Mr. Kennedy, the political scion and vaccine skeptic, because two-thirds of those who said they would back him had said earlier that they would definitely or probably vote for one of the two front-runners.The polling results include registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The findings suggest that Mr. Kennedy is less a fixed political figure in the minds of voters than he is a vessel to register unhappiness about the choice between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump.A Fifth of Voters in Battleground States Dislike Both Leading CandidatesRespondents’ opinions of President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump More

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      Cornel West’s Improvisational Run for President: ‘It’s Jazz All the Way Down’

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      Is the celebrity professor’s candidacy a wild variable in the 2024 presidential campaign or performance art? Yes, he says.Cornel West, the left-wing public intellectual and independent presidential candidate, stood on a rainy stretch of suburban highway in New York’s Rockland County. “Watch that truck!” he called out, holding up a United Auto Workers sign.A dump truck blew past, the spray from its wheels momentarily knocking Mr. West back on his feet and further soaking his already damp suit.It was not supposed to be like this. The week before, on Sept. 20, Mr. West had announced he was going to Michigan, the epicenter of a strike against the three unionized American auto manufacturers over wage increases. But then President Biden announced that he, too, would be going to Michigan, a crucial swing state, on the same day. Soon, Mr. West said, union officials urged him to delay his Michigan trip and in the meantime join workers picketing a local auto parts distribution center in Tappan, N.Y., instead.(A U.A.W. spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.)Still, Mr. West seemed determined to make the best of this Siberia of solidarity. “That’s it!” he shouted, fist raised, after the dump truck driver let out a low blast on his horn. “Now you know!”Even by the standards of outsider politics, Mr. West’s presidential campaign has been uncommonly chaotic. He has embraced and discarded political parties the way other people try on outfits before going to work. He has predictably infuriated Democrats, who fear that his campaign could draw a decisive number of voters away from Mr. Biden in 2024. But he has also irked activists from the Green Party, whose nomination he sought before announcing this month that he would run as an independent instead.That latest move is perhaps the most perplexing. Independent candidacies face far more hurdles than third-party runs. Mr. West’s decision threatens to transform his candidacy from a wild variable in the 2024 contest into a minor curiosity.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please More

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      Democratic Group Steps Up Warnings Over a No Labels Third Party Bid

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      A Third Way memo cites a recent polling presentation from a centrist organization, No Labels, which shows a hypothetical ticket scrambling the presidential race.The Democratic group Third Way has released a new broadside against the No Labels effort to field a third-party presidential ticket in 2024, citing a recent polling presentation that shows a hypothetical ticket scrambling a race between President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump.In a memo published Tuesday, Third Way — a center-left group — outlined what it described as a “radical new plan” by No Labels, a centrist organization, to force a contingent election by running a third-party candidate, which could cause no candidate in the race to receive 270 electoral votes. In that scenario, No Labels could theoretically bargain its electoral votes to one of the major-party candidates, or the House of Representatives would decide the presidency.The Third Way memo comes as allies of President Biden have aggressively moved to squash third party bids while warning Democrats that encouraging outsider candidacies might throw the election to Mr. Trump in what appears likely to be a rematch between the two men. The No Labels plan has been public for months, with the group’s chief strategist, Ryan Clancy, discussing preparations for a contingent election and the idea of using electoral votes “as a bargaining chip” in an interview with CNN in May. Third Way has largely taken the lead in pushing back against the idea of a so-called unity ticket, in which No Labels would secure ballot access for a centrist candidate.The key slide in No Labels’ presentation shows data from eight swing states from the polling firm HarrisX. In a two-man race, it says, Mr. Trump would lead in Arizona, Florida, Georgia and Wisconsin; Mr. Biden would lead in Pennsylvania; and Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina would be tossups, with Biden leads within the margin of error. If Mr. Biden won the tossups — or even the tossups minus Nevada — he would win the election, assuming every other state voted as it did in 2020.A No Labels ticket led by a Democrat would throw seven of the states to Mr. Trump, ensuring his election, according to the group’s data. But a No Labels ticket led by a Republican would lead in Nevada; be competitive in Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina and Wisconsin; and make Florida and Georgia tossups between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump.These numbers are something of a Rorschach test, and are open to interpretation. In its presentation, No Labels suggests that the data indicates a third-party ticket with a Republican at the top offers the best chance at besting both Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden, even though the five states where the group’s numbers show it being competitive are worth fewer than 60 electoral votes. No third-party candidate has ever come close to winning a modern American election.Third Way, whose memo was first reported by Politico, says that the slide reflects a plan that would ensure Mr. Trump’s victory and undermine democracy and voter confidence by deliberately employing faithless electors.No Labels could “cut a deal by promising their electors’ support to whichever major-party candidate they deem more worthy,” the memo says — or the election would be decided in the House, where each state delegation would have a single vote, meaning Wyoming would have the same weight as California. “This is a new path for their third-party effort, but the destination would be the same: the election of Donald Trump,” the memo says.Republicans control more state delegations now, but the delegations that would vote would be the ones elected in 2024.“The claim that No Labels has a secret plan to throw the 2024 election to the House of Representatives is a conspiracy theorist’s fever dream,” Mr. Clancy, the group’s chief strategist, said in a statement, arguing that it planned to “win the election outright in the Electoral College” and that the polling of the eight swing states — which together account for less than half the votes it would need — showed “the path for an independent ticket to win the White House is wider now than ever before.” More

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      The Real Danger in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Independent Run

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      Most of the concern over the independent presidential campaigns of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Cornel West and the No Labels party has focused on the risk that they could draw votes away from President Biden and throw the 2024 election to Donald Trump. That’s understandable, given what happened in 2000 and 2016.But there is another reason to fear these candidacies, and it’s right there in the Constitution: a contingent election decided by the House of Representatives, arguably the worst part of the Electoral College system.Ask people who don’t like the Electoral College — that’s roughly two-thirds of Americans — and they will point to its occasional habit of awarding the presidency to the candidate who comes in second in the popular vote. This fundamental violation of majority rule has happened five times — in 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000 and 2016. It nearly happened in 2020 and threatens to do so again in 2024.Don’t get me wrong: The wrong-winner scenario is unequivocally bad. Mr. Trump once called it “a disaster for a democracy,” before it delivered him to the White House. Yet it is not the most democratically offensive feature of the Electoral College. Few Americans are aware that under the Constitution, a candidate could lose the popular vote and the Electoral College and still become president. In fact, it’s already happened.How? By taking the election completely away from the people and giving it to the House of Representatives. This may sound far-fetched, but it is alarmingly plausible at a moment when the major-party candidates are relatively unpopular. No Labels (which is also the No Candidate party at the moment) seems to think that a contingent election is an entirely viable path to the White House — which is true, since it is virtually impossible to imagine any third-party candidate winning the old-fashioned way. But the group seems willfully oblivious to the chaos and destabilization that contingent elections provoked in the past and undoubtedly would again, especially in such a tense and polarized political climate. It is, as the best-selling author James Michener put it in a 1969 book on the topic, “a time bomb lodged near the heart of the nation.”The bomb goes off if an independent candidate like Mr. Kennedy manages to pick up a few electoral votes and prevents either of the two main candidates from winning an outright majority of electors (at least 270 out of 538). In that case, the American people no longer have a say in the biggest election in the land. Instead, under the 12th Amendment, the top three electoral vote getters advance to a second round, in which the House of Representatives “shall choose immediately, by ballot, the president. But” — and rarely in the history of democracy has a “but” been asked to do so much — “in choosing the president, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote.”Those votes in the past were decided by what a majority of a state’s delegation wanted, although the House can set different rules if it chooses. If the delegation is evenly divided, the state gets no vote. The point is, it doesn’t matter which party has more members in the House as a whole; all that matters is the happenstance of which party controls more state delegations. And right now Republicans control 26 state delegations and Democrats 22.One vote per state, with the presidency in the balance. Stop for a moment and consider the absurdity of this. North Dakota, whose single representative in Congress represents about 779,000 people, would have as much say in choosing the nation’s leader as California’s 52 House members, who together represent almost 40 million people. The two Dakotas combined (fewer than 1.7 million people, about the population of Phoenix) would wield twice as much power as Texas, with 30 million people. This is about as far from the principle of majority rule as you can get.The irony is that many founders expected this to be the standard way America would choose its presidents. As the plan took shape during the constitutional convention in 1787, Virginia’s George Mason predicted that the House would end up deciding 19 out of 20 elections. This wasn’t a bug in the system but a natural consequence of the lack of knowledge held by 18th-century Americans of politicians outside their home state. As a result, the thinking went, votes would be spread among a wide range of candidates, leaving most with some electors but none with a majority.This sounded reasonable at the time, but as soon as it happened, in the wild tie election of 1800, it nearly collapsed the young nation, and the founders quickly realized what a bad idea it was. Congress rapidly passed the 12th Amendment to avoid a repeat. Thomas Jefferson, who prevailed that year, later wrote to a friend that the House-election provision was “the most dangerous blot in our Constitution, and one which some unlucky chance will some day hit.” He was proved right in 1824, when a four-way race for the White House prevented any of the candidates from winning an outright majority. Andrew Jackson led in electoral votes and popular votes, but the House picked the second-highest vote getter, John Quincy Adams. Jackson’s supporters were furious. They called it a corrupt bargain, and for good reason: Henry Clay, the speaker of the House and one of the other candidates in the race, hated Jackson and strong-armed lawmakers to vote for Adams, who later chose Clay for secretary of state.The House has not decided a presidential election in the 200 years since, although it came close in 1968, during a tumultuous three-way race among Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace, the former Alabama governor who ran on the ultraright American Independent Party ticket. Nixon won but not before Wallace, an archsegregationist, captured 46 electoral votes in five Southern states.Now imagine that in 2024, a No Labels candidate or even Mr. Kennedy or Mr. West is able to peel off a few electors in, say, Maine or Alaska, states that pride themselves on their independent streaks. (Maine awards its electors by congressional district, making it even easier to pick one off.) It’s not a simple task, given the varied and sometimes strict ballot-access rules in many states. Many fans of Mr. Kennedy and Mr. West may never get a chance to vote for them. Still, No Labels has managed to secure a spot on the ballot in 11 states, including key battlegrounds like Arizona and North Carolina.Bottom line: It’s easy to assemble an electoral map in which no candidate reaches 270 electoral votes, sending the election to the House. That vote would not take place until early January 2025, after the newly elected Congress is seated, but even if Democrats regain a numerical majority in the House, Republicans are likely to hold and possibly expand their advantage in state delegations. In other words, assuming Mr. Trump is still a free man, he could be picked by the House to be the 47th president, even if Mr. Biden wins millions more popular votes and the most electoral votes.It is reckless fantasy for a group like No Labels to inject more choices into a system that is not designed to handle them. That may sound like democracy in theory, but in practice it produces the opposite: a greater chance of a candidate winning with the support of only a minority. That’s all the more likely when the two major parties are as closely divided as they are today.This isn’t an argument against more political parties. To the contrary, multiparty democracies can give voters a wider and healthier range of choices, better reflecting the diversity of the electorate.A huge, diverse country like the United States should welcome reforms like a proportional election system — and, while we’re on the subject, the elimination of the Electoral College in favor of a national popular vote. Until then, the quixotic campaigns by today’s professed independents aren’t just futile; they’re dangerous.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      The Spoiler Threat of R.F.K. Jr.

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      Mary Wilson, Stella Tan and Rachel Quester and Dan Powell and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicRobert F. Kennedy Jr. was once dismissed as a fringe figure in the 2024 presidential race. But this week, as he announces an independent run for the White House, he’s striking fear within both the Democratic and Republican parties.Rebecca Davis O’Brien, who covers campaign finance for The Times, explains why.On today’s episodeRebecca Davis O’Brien, a reporter covering campaign finance and money in U.S. elections for The New York Times.Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a leading vaccine skeptic and purveyor of conspiracy theories, has said he represents “a populist movement that defies left-right division.”Ryan David Brown for The New York TimesBackground readingRobert F. Kennedy Jr. told supporters he would end his campaign as a Democratic candidate and run as an independent, potentially upsetting the dynamics of the 2024 election.From July, five noteworthy falsehoods Mr. Kennedy has promoted.There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.Rebecca Davis O’Brien More

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      Would a 3-Way Arizona Senate Race Help Kari Lake? Her Party Isn’t So Sure.

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      Kyrsten Sinema, the independent incumbent, has not announced whether she will run for re-election. But as both parties in Arizona prepare for that outcome, Republicans are worried.Republicans are growing anxious that their chances of capturing a Senate seat in Arizona would be diminished in a potential three-way race that included Kyrsten Sinema, the independent incumbent.While Ms. Sinema hasn’t announced whether she will run for re-election, the race already includes Representative Ruben Gallego, a Democrat, and Kari Lake, a Republican scheduled to host her first campaign rally on Tuesday.Many political strategists had figured that a re-election bid from Ms. Sinema, who dropped her Democratic affiliation last year, would split votes in her former party and increase the odds that Ms. Lake, the controversial front-runner for the Republican nomination, would be sworn in to the Senate. Arizona, along with West Virginia, Montana and Ohio, has been seen as among the best opportunities for Republicans to pick up Senate seats next year and win back a majority.But private and public polling has suggested that Ms. Sinema is viewed much more favorably by Republican voters than by Democrats. Those surveys indicated that Mr. Gallego would benefit in a three-way race.“Some of the early conventional wisdom about this race assumed there would be more Democratic defections,” said Austin Stumpf, a Democratic consultant in Arizona. “But party unity among Democrats is hard to overstate. It’s a real phenomenon right now.”Republicans expressed their concerns as Ms. Lake, a TV-anchor-turned-conservative-firebrand, made an otherwise amicable visit to Washington last week. While she met with a half-dozen Republican senators, many of whom offered campaign assistance or asked to have their photos taken with her, conversations among aides revealed worries about current polling. One Lake adviser described being surprised by the level of “freaking out” by Washington Republicans.In response, Ms. Lake’s campaign has produced a nine-page internal memo aimed at reassuring the party that she stands to benefit the most from a three-way race. She was also expected to take aim at Ms. Sinema with some of her most withering attacks during her opening campaign event on Tuesday, according to people familiar with the planning, in an attempt to address the concerns that an independent bid by the senator could siphon off a significant share of Republican votes.The previously unreported memo relies largely on recent turnout trends in Arizona to point to built-in advantages for Republicans.While Republicans account for roughly 35 percent of registered voters in the state, they typically make up about 40 percent of turnout, according to the memo. Arizona’s unusually large bloc of independent voters accounts for 34 percent of the voter rolls, but makes up a smaller share of turnout, typically between 26 percent and 29 percent, according to the memo.That means that Ms. Lake — who struggled to unite Republicans during her unsuccessful bid for governor last year as she attacked fellow Republicans, falsely insisted that former President Donald J. Trump had won the 2020 election and later refused to accept her own defeat — should have “significantly more elasticity in shedding Republican voters” than Democrats, according to the memo. (First, Ms. Lake will have to win the Republican primary race; her early rivals include Mark Lamb, a right-wing sheriff and fellow Trump ally.)Kari Lake, who lost the Arizona governor’s race last year and has continued to dispute the results, is running for Senate. Mario Tama/Getty ImagesThe memo also calculates that if Mr. Trump captures another Republican presidential nomination — and wins roughly the same number of votes in Arizona next year as he did in 2020 — then Ms. Sinema’s best path to victory would require more than 600,000 Arizonans to split their ballots between him and the incumbent senator. That total would be about 35 percent of Mr. Trump’s votes.“This is incredibly unlikely in the Trump era of American politics,” the memo says, noting that split-ticket voting is “near all-time lows.”One of the private polls that showed Mr. Gallego leading the race, in part because Ms. Lake appeared to be losing Republican votes to Ms. Sinema, was from Chuck Coughlin, a longtime Arizona operative, according to people briefed on the survey. Mr. Coughlin declined to comment on specific findings in his poll, but said that while Ms. Sinema would be a significant underdog if she sought re-election, it would also be foolish to count her out.“Kyrsten is a monstrously strong campaigner, a very effective fund-raiser and has shown a lot of personal strength to do what she’s done in politics, and I don’t want to underestimate that,” Mr. Coughlin said. “All of that is going to be necessary and a lot more for her to be successful.”The ambiguity about Ms. Sinema’s plans for re-election has confounded political professionals across three time zones separating Arizona and Washington.Some of those who anticipate she will retire point to fund-raising numbers showing that Mr. Gallego has consistently out-raised her this year. Ms. Sinema is sitting on a considerable war chest of nearly $11 million, but the Arizona Senate race last year drew more than $230 million in spending from the two major-party candidates and multiple outside groups.Some of those convinced she will seek a second term pointed to a fund-raiser she hosted this year at the Phoenix Open. The annual golf outing attracts a mix of rowdy partygoers and avid golfers, far from the typical Sinema crowd. “That’s like nails on the chalkboard for Sinema,” said Barrett Marson, a Republican operative in Arizona.Others were encouraged about her prospects after an internal fund-raising prospectus surfaced last month that signaled she and her team were actively charting a path to a second term, telling donors she could win a competitive three-way race as an independent, which is practically unheard-of in modern American politics.“Kyrsten promised Arizonans she’d be an independent voice who wouldn’t answer to party bosses and would deliver real, lasting solutions to the challenges Arizonans face,” said Hannah Hurley, an aide to Ms. Sinema. “Instead of engaging in name-calling and stupid political insults, Kyrsten has worked with anyone to make Arizonans’ lives better and then get government out of the way — and that’s exactly what she’s done and will continue to do as Arizona’s senior senator.”Ms. Sinema’s path relies on an unusual coalition of voters, according to the document, which was first reported by NBC News: winning between 10 percent and 20 percent of Democrats, 25 percent to 35 percent of Republicans and 60 percent to 70 percent of independent voters in the state.The most difficult benchmark may be the projection among independents. Even Senator John McCain — who was famously popular among independent voters — won just 50 percent of that group in his sixth and final victory in the state in 2016, according to exit polls.Independents also figure to be a top target for Mr. Gallego, an engaging politician with an inspiring personal story who is running to be the state’s first Latino senator. His campaign projects that Latinos account for about 30 percent of unaffiliated voters in Arizona, and he was ahead of both Ms. Sinema and Ms. Lake in the one public poll that has tested all three candidates this year.Some public and private polling has shown that Representative Ruben Gallego, who is seeking the Democratic nomination, would benefit in a three-way race.Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times“Ruben is in a good spot and he knows it,” said Mike Noble, an Arizona pollster. He noted that early polls showed that people who had heard of Mr. Gallego generally liked him, while Arizonans tended to have negative views of both Ms. Lake and Ms. Sinema.Still, Mr. Gallego is running his first statewide campaign since first being elected to the state’s most liberal House district in 2014.He has collected a handful of endorsements from local officials and public encouragement from Yolanda Bejarano, the chairwoman of the Arizona Democratic Party, but the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Senate Majority PAC — which combined to spend nearly $40 million in the Arizona Senate race last year — have both remained silent on the prospect of a three-way race.Stan Barnes, a Republican consultant and former Arizona state legislator, said a potential three-way race offered a unique opportunity for voters because the top candidates would rely on compelling personalities as they pursued their own silos of voters.“It is about the most exciting thing I have seen in terms of politics in Arizona in the three decades I have seen,” Mr. Barnes said. More