For months now, “smart” people on the left and the right have claimed that Donald Trump would destroy the Republican Party’s chances of holding onto the Senate.
It’s now looking as though those predictions were premature.
Mike DeBonis of the Washington Post:
Democratic hopes of winning Senate fade as Trump proves less toxic for RepublicansDemocrats are now facing a tougher road to capturing the Senate majority as the presidential race tightens and Donald Trump is not proving to be the dramatic drag on down-ballot candidates that Republicans once feared.Trump’s resilience and faltering Democratic campaigns in battleground states mean the fight for the Senate has settled into a knuckle-to-knuckle brawl likely to result in a chamber that will be closely divided or potentially even tied.Democrats can still manage to win the four or five seats they need to claim the Senate majority, but the battle has shifted from purple states that Barack Obama twice carried — Ohio and Florida — to Indiana, Missouri and North Carolina, where Obama lost in 2012.While Democrats are continuing their efforts in select states to tie incumbent Republican senators to Trump, Republicans are looking to flip that script in those redder states, yoking Democratic candidates to their own unpopular nominee.
Here’s another report from Joseph P. Williams of U.S. News and World Report:
Republicans Could Keep Control of Senate – in Spite of Donald TrumpIt’s a dream scenario for Democrats that, in August, seemed on the brink of reality: Widespread predictions that the party would capture the Senate along with the White House, giving a newly inaugurated President Hillary Clinton a legislative partner in Majority Leader Charles Schumer, her former Senate mentor.Less than a month later, that fantasy has floated away like an end-of-summer breeze.Two major data- and statistical-analysis websites on Wednesday downgraded Democrats’ chances of wresting Senate control from the Republicans, from highly likely in late summer to something approaching a toss-up in early fall – with less than two months to go before the presidential election.The New York Times’ The Upshot blog on Wednesday declared its data suggests Republicans are slightly favored to maintain the Senate majority over Democrats, 53 percent to 47 percent. It’s a sharp drop from mid-August, when the blog had Democrats’ likelihood of winning at slightly better than 60 percent and Republicans’ chances at just below 40 percent.
And finally, John Gizzi of Newsmax:
Expert: Republicans Seem Likelier to Hold on to SenateAfter weeks of almost-unanimous predictions that Republicans would lose control of the Senate this fall, doubts are emerging that the Democrats can win.Democrats might just fall short of the five seats they need for a clear majority, a panel at the American Enterprise Institute heard last week.”Democrats have a chance at winning a tie in the Senate,” said Norman Ornstein, AEI resident scholar and longtime election analyst for CBS News and the BBC. And if Hillary Clinton wins the presidency, “Vice President Tim Kaine would cast the tie-breaking vote to give Democrats control.”
Of course, anything could happen between now and election day but it’s amazing how the narrative has shifted away from the Democrats in such a short period of time.
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