The stakes for Democrats in their extraordinary public schism over whether President Joe Biden should withdraw from the 2024 presidential race extend far beyond the White House. A decisive defeat at the top of the ticket could cost Democrats control of the U.S. Senate for the rest of this decade and cement Republican dominance of the Supreme Court for a generation.
So far, Democrats’ concerns about the presidential race’s impact on the Senate have been muted because public polls have almost consistently shown their candidates still leading in key states where Biden fell behind former President Donald Trump. But recent history raises profound questions about whether Democratic Senate candidates can continue to levitate as far up the presidential ticket as polls now show.
Throughout this century, but especially in the last decade, it has become increasingly difficult for Senate candidates of either party to win in states that typically vote for the other side in presidential elections. In both the 2016 and 2020 election years, Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine was the only candidate in a total of 69 Senate races to win in a state that voted the other way in the presidential election.
This year, Democrats are holding an unusually large concentration of Senate seats in states that now appear to be in danger for them in the presidential race. If Democrats lose a substantial number of these seats this year, it could be very difficult for them to regain the Senate majority before those same seats come up for grabs in 2030. That’s because very few of the other Senate seats Republicans currently hold are in states where Democrats have a realistic chance of winning, absent a dramatic shift in their political balance.
In turn, expanded GOP control of the Senate, coupled with a Trump return to the White House, would give the party ample time to nominate and confirm much younger replacements for Samuel Alito (74) and Clarence Thomas (76), the two oldest and most conservative justices on the Supreme Court, and perhaps also Sonia Sotomayor (70), the longest-serving justice nominated by Democrats.
“Because of the big sorting of states … Democrats have a narrower path to a Senate majority than Republicans, which means this year is crucial,” said former Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana. “The margin for error [pour les démocrates] is not high, and the consequences will be felt for another six years.” If the presidential and Senate elections go badly for Democrats, Bayh added, Republicans “could change the judicial branch of government for a generation.”
The vulnerable Democratic Senate seats this year fall into three broad categories.
The first includes three states that Trump won in 2016 and 2020 and is virtually certain to win again — likely by a substantial margin. In this group, both parties concede that the GOP will win the West Virginia seat vacated by incumbent Sen. Joe Manchin, who is now an independent but still caucuses with Democrats; veteran Democratic Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Jon Tester of Montana, who survived tough reelections even as their states moved right, face significant challenges this year.
If Republicans win just two of those three states, they will still take control of the Senate (without offsetting Democratic wins in GOP-held seats, which is unlikely). But if Democrats lose just a combination of the three 2020 Trump states, they would remain close enough to the GOP in the House to maintain realistic hopes of winning back the Senate in 2026 or 2028.
Biden pitches himself to major donors as Democrats’ best bet against Trump
The real risk for Democrats is that their losses could extend beyond the narrow circle of heavily red states — especially if the presidential race goes badly. Democrats are defending five additional Senate seats this year in swing states where most polls now show Biden trailing, or at best, in contention. That list includes Democratic Sens. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Jacky Rosen of Nevada, as well as Reps. Elissa Slotkin and Ruben Gallego, who are chasing open senators.
To read more: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/07/09/politics/senate-races-biden-analysis/index.html
Similar articles
