2016 U.S. Senate elections

Politics & Elections
1

The Republican Party currently controls the U.S. Senate with 54 Senate seats. The Republicans took control of the U.S. Senate in 2014. The Democrats are looking to take back the Senate. The Democrats are defending 10 seats. while the Republicans are defending 24 seats. **They are currently six senators **that are retiring at the end of 2016:
-Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.)
-Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.)
-Harry Reid, Senate minority leader (D-Nev.)
-Dan Coats, (R-Ind.)
-Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), 2016 Republican presidential candidate
-David Vitter (R-La.), 2015 Republican gubernatorial nominee (lost to John Bel Edwards)

They are a couple of competitive Senate seats, including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, Colorado, Florida, New Hampshire, Illinois.

Democrats think that they can pick up Illinois, Wisconsin (Mark Kirk and Ron Johnson), a chance at Pennsylvania (Pat Toomey), Rob Portman (Ohio), Kelly Ayotte (New Hampshire), and maybe even Missouri, Louisiana, or Indiana if the Democratic candidates do a good job.

Mitch McConnell, the current Majority Leader wants to be Leader for another two years, while Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y), was chosen as the replacement for Harry Reid as Democratic Leader.

Who wins the Senate in 2016? Does it matter? Will presidential coattails be a cause in the 2016 Senate elections?

2

Coattails will matter. I don’t see any scenario where Republicans win the White House and then lose the Senate, although losing seats is inevitable. Tammy Duckworth, you can write her in as next Senator from Illinois, and Russ Feingold is almost certainly making his well deserved return to the Senate.

If Clinton wins, then it gets interesting. In that scenario, it depends on how Democratic Senate candidates approach the major issues of the President and the Democratic nominee. Do they repeat their strategy of running away from the national party or do they embrace it? The latter strategy would enable them to ride Clintons’ coattails, the former would probably result in disappointment for the Democrats.

There’s also the primaries in a few states, where Democratic base voters are threatening to act like Tea Partiers in places like Florida and nominate someone like Alan Grayson for Senate. In Pennsylvania there’s some turmoil as well, with Sestak trying to run again but the national party not wanting him because he’s all mavericky and unpredictable.