“The censure in and of itself means absolutely nothing,” Mr. Marson said. “It’s a feckless move. However, Senator Sinema certainly has a broader problem than just a censure from the party faithful.”
Those problems include fierce discontent among Democratic voters, who have signaled that they might prefer a liberal alternative to Ms. Sinema, such as Representative Ruben Gallego, a Phoenix congressman some activists are hoping to draft into a primary.
The fund-raising group Emily’s List, a major supporter of Ms. Sinema in her 2018 run for Senate, has also threatened to pull its support, and she has recorded flagging numbers among her Democratic base in recent polls.
A new survey of Arizona voters, conducted this month, but not yet released, by OH Predictive Insights, a Phoenix polling and research firm, found a 30-point gulf in support for Arizona’s senators among Democrats. While 74 percent of Democrats said they had favorable views of Mr. Kelly, just 42 percent of Democrats felt the same about Ms. Sinema.
At the same time, the survey also found some evidence that Ms. Sinema could be vulnerable among the wider electorate as well. On the whole, by a nine-point margin, voters said they viewed her unfavorably, while they were about evenly split on their opinions of Mr. Kelly.
“To be under all this pressure for so long, and she hasn’t wavered — you’ve got to give a little credit for that,” said Mike Noble, the chief of research at OH Predictive Insights. “But she’s not going to be on a lot of people’s Christmas card lists next year.”