Election 2020: Democrats Zeroing in on Four States in Effort to Flip the Senate
Arizona, Colorado, Maine, and North Carolina
With all the Wuhan coronavirus news, leftist powerplays, and shutdown edicts, we haven’t focused as much on the upcoming election. On November 3, we’ll be electing not just a president but also deciding who controls both houses of Congress.
Republicans, obviously, want to keep control of the Senate, while Democrats are eager to win it. The Republican Senate majority stands at 53 to 47, including two Independents who caucus with the Democrats (socialist Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Maine Sen. Angus King).
Therefore, Democrats need to flip four seats, three if they win the White House. While it seems likely that Republicans will keep their majority, it’s by no means certain. Republicans are defending 23 seats, while Democrats are defending only 12.
Fivethirtyeight reported on March 30, 2020:
Republicans started the cycle with the advantage, but Democrats have had reason for optimism of late. New polls have shown Democratic challengers ahead of GOP incumbents, the party is recruiting strong candidates, and, perhaps most importantly given the tight correlation between presidential and Senate voting, former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democrat who has polled the best against President Trump, has become the party’s likely presidential nominee.
The most likely outcome is still that Republicans maintain control of the Senate, though perhaps with a reduced majority: The status quo favors them, and most of the states where the Senate will be decided lean red. (As a refresher, Republicans currently have 53 Senate seats to Democrats’ 47,1 meaning Democrats need to flip four seats, on net, to take control — or three if they also win the vice presidency.) But Democrats have expanded the map to the point where they have a lot more pick-up opportunities than Republicans do, so they have a lot of upside.
. . . . Competitive U.S. Senate seats up for election in 2020, as rated by three major election handicappers:
Of these, Democrats are reportedly focusing of four states: Arizona, Colorado, Maine, and North Carolina.
With 200 days to go until Election Day, the Democrats’ path to a Senate majority currently hinges on four states: Arizona, Colorado, Maine and North Carolina, where Republican incumbents are fighting off challenges from well-funded Democratic opponents.
Democrats need to flip three or four seats, depending on which party wins the White House in November, to take control of the Senate. But one of their incumbents up for reelection this year, Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.), is in serious political jeopardy, meaning that Democrats will likely have to take at least four Republican-held seats — and hold back GOP challenges in nearly a dozen other states — to win a majority.
. . . . Democrats’ softest target may be in Colorado, where Sen. Cory Gardner (R) is facing changing political headwinds and a challenge from John Hickenlooper, the state’s popular former Democratic governor and the prohibitive front-runner in a crowded primary field.
The party is also confident of defeating Sen. Martha McSally (R) in Arizona. McSally already lost a bid against Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) in 2018 and took office only after Republican Gov. Doug Ducey appointed her to fill the seat vacated by the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
And in Maine, Democrats have it out for Sen. Susan Collins (R), a four-term senator whose vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2017 amid sexual misconduct allegations touched off a flurry of anger from the left. She’s widely expected to face Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon, the Democratic front-runner, in November.
Democrats are also looking to oust Sen. Thom Tillis (R) in North Carolina. He’s set to face off against national Democrats’ candidate of choice, Cal Cunningham, in November, and recent polls suggest a tight race.
Not only are Democrats pouring money into these four states with the hope of flipping the Senate, but Republicans are also flooding the states with cash to hang on to their majority.
The Hill continues:
The Senate Leadership Fund, the super PAC aligned with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), booked a combined $43.7 million in fall ad reservations across the four battleground states late last month, along with another $32.6 million in Iowa and Kentucky.
And just this week, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, invested some $33 million in advertising across seven states: Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Montana and North Carolina.
Meanwhile, Senate Majority PAC, the super PAC aligned with Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), booked more than $56 million in fall ad reservations across the four key states, plus an additional $13.1 million in fall ad reservations in Iowa.
Democrats are not limiting their sights to these four states, however, and are making plays in Republican-leaning states, as well.
Democrats believe they can also bring a handful of races in more Republican-leaning states into play, including Montana, where Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock is taking on Sen. Steve Daines (R); Texas, where MJ Hegar and state Sen. Royce West are locked in a runoff for the Democratic nomination to challenge Sen. John Cornyn (R); and Kentucky, where Democrat Amy McGrath raised nearly $13 million in the first quarter of 2020 for her bid against McConnell.
Democrats also see an opportunity in Georgia, where Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R), who was appointed late last year to fill the seat of retired Sen. Johnny Isakson (R), is facing a challenge from Democrat Raphael Warnock as well as from Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), a steadfast Trump ally who’s running to the right of Loeffler.
Those races are likely to prove significantly more challenging for Democrats than the four core races in Arizona, Colorado, Maine and North Carolina, and party operatives are aware that they’ll have to choose their battles carefully as they look to regain the Senate majority.
“This isn’t a numbers game. This isn’t the House map,” one Democratic operative familiar with Senate campaigns said. “You’re talking about a very targeted set of races that we need to get back to the majority.”
For President Trump to continue appointing judges and further his agenda should he win a second term, he’ll need at least the Senate. Ideally, he’d win both houses of Congress, and we won’t be subjected to four more years of the Democrat impeachment circus. Including a potentially very different outcome if the Senate is under Democrat control and the Majority Leader is Sen. Chuck Schumer.
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Comments
That’s 12 Democrat seats they’ll lose then.
Especially if we make sure every citizen in those States knows about this.
Trump Says He’ll End Obama-Era Funding To Chinese Lab That May Have Spawned The Coronavirus
President Donald Trump said Friday he will end federal funding for the Wuhan Institute of Virology that some are claiming spawned the coronavirus.
At the daily coronavirus task force news conference, the president was asked why the National Institutes of Health would include the Chinese laboratory in a $3.7 million dollar stipend to conduct research.
“The Obama administration gave them a grant of $3.7 million. I’ve been hearing about that. We’ve instructed that if any grants are going to that area, we are looking at it literally about an hour ago and also early in the morning,” Trump said.
https://dailycaller.com/2020/04/18/donald-trump-end-funding-china-lab-coronavrus-covid-19/
Well, don’t worry: we’ve got the GOP on it. So start worrying.
Better yet: don’t worry, and give every penny of your political donations to PDJT’s campaign, and starve the GOP. Let PDJT direct the money.
HEAR HEAR!!!!!!!
McSally is the most vulnerable. The idiot lost an easily winnable election because she was a poor candidate, and then she got handed a seat anyway.
Collins is also in trouble because of her wishy-washy crap pissing off BOTH Democrats and Republicans.
However I would love to see polls of Michigan in the last couple weeks after Whitless’ power trip. My sense is that her insanity has put Gary Peters is in trouble.
McSally’s opponent also has a massive war chest. A couple months ago, he had almost twice as much as any other candidate, incumbent or challenger, with almost as much as both Mitch McConnel (#2) and McSally (#3) combined. He runs frequent feel good ads, that don’t attack her personally. I have flipped a number of people by asking if they knew who his wife is (gun grabber Gabby Giffords). Once they know, they know not to vote for him. Serious stealth candidate, running with good ads, his experience as an astronaut, and completely burying his marriage.
Don’t ignore Montana. Last I knew, Schumer had recruited popular Dem governor Steve Bullock to run against Daines. He is the one Dem who could flip the seat in an election year, when Trump is likely to easily carry the state with double digits.
The ‘18 election was Arizona’s first one done with vote by mail. McSally’s defeat was due more to ballot harvesting after election night than a poor campaign.
Arizona is *the* swing state for 2020. The Southwest has been trending blue, and a good chunk of Arizona’s vote, as it is with the Southwest in general, is based in the suburbs, which have been anti-Trump and thus flipping blue.
Texas is always on the verge of flipping. LBJ was loved by god-fearing county and city folk in equal measure. Don’t get angry at me for saying so because it’s true – and Texans damn well know it to be so.
I could see a modern-day aristocrat like Cindy McCain campaigning for democrats in Arizona.
If McConnell loses but republicans retain the majority? Will republicans replace McConnell with the majority whip (his name escapes me) or……..?
It’s John Thune, and it’s likely he’d be voted leader if McConnell loses. I hope he doesn’t, though, he’s very effective as leader.
If there’s anybody who knows how to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, it’s the GOP.
They majored in it at college.
What about the states they are bond to lose after this Fiasco?
So they’re either counting on Doug Jones winning re-election, or the Audacity of Grope getting into the Oval Office.
Heheheheyeah, good luck with that scenario, Chucklehead.
Speaking as an Alabamian, I’m certain that Doug Jones has not the proverbial snowball’s chance in Hell of retaining his Senate seat. The only reason he’s in the Senate is because Roy Moore was the candidate nobody with a brain wanted representing us.
Really, guys, no worries there.
.
With all that’s going on in Michigan, don’t discount John James’s senatorial race. If Trump carries Michigan again, it’ll help James’s second attempt for Senate.
God help us if the bastards get away with this.
And in Maine, Democrats have it out for Sen. Susan Collins (R), a four-term senator whose vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2017 amid sexual misconduct allegations touched off a flurry of anger from the left.
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That should read “Amid fake,phony politically partisan lies about sexual misconduct”.
Republicans had better wake up fast. President Trump would be impeached instantly, on day 1 if Democrats ever take the Senate and hold the House.
Well… maybe not. It takes 66 Senators to impeach a president, no? Say goodbye to all these judicial appointments if the Senate flips though.
Right. No. It takes 66 senators to convict after the House impeaches him.
67 Senators. 66 is less than 2/3 of the Senate.
This is why the 2018 election was a disaster for the GOP in the Senate. Yes, they netted up two seats… that year they won over two-thirds of the seats up, including many “red” states. They needed to grab at least half-a-dozen more in order to compensate for seats they’s likely lose in 2020 and 2022.
The composition of the Senate seats up in 2020 and 2022 are the flip opposite with the GOP defending about 2/3 of the seats with almost no chance to pick-up seats.
In 2020, AZ, CO, and ME are likely gone. This leaves, after picking up AL, only 51 GOP Senators. That leaves little to no margin for error in any other state.
2022 will be even worse. Aside from the GA and AZ seats coming up for a full term (so potential GOP pick-up there if the Dems get it in 2020) there is no real pick-up opportunity for the GOP, while the Democrats will likely focus on targeting open seats in WI and NC, as well other seats.
The chance of the GOP staving off Democrats in both elections is slim, and not a bet I’d make. Interestingly, if Trump wins re-election, we might get a flip of what happened in 2000 with the Dems picking up the White House but the GOP retaking the Senate, which would result in about thirteen days for Trump and the GOP Senate to push through any judicial vacancies that arise, including one or more possible SCOTUS vacancies.