Well, I disagree that the Senate could ever be more important than the Presidency, but certainly if Republicans take the Senate, they can make it an absolute shit show. Say what you will about McConnell, but he recognized that government shutdowns and manufactured debt limit crises were a political loser and he was masterful at getting his factious caucus on board with his strategies. The next Senate Republican Leader is unlikely to have as much ability to coral votes, especially if the Rs end up with a bare majority in the Chamber.
Regardless, Biden and Schumer need to be focused like a laser on filling every last judicial vacancy before the end of this session.
Does it matter that much who holds the House if the Republicans control the Senate and the Democrats the White House? Very little is going to get to the President’s desk in either case, and I have a feeling most of it will be some combination of (a) naming of post offices and (b) Yet Still Even Another Extension To The Continuing (and Continuing, and Continuing…) Resolution for the Budget.
In this scenario (Democrat in the White House, Republican Senate Majority) it still matters who controls the House for a couple of reasons. It will give the party that controls 2 out of those three more bargaining power to shape things that have to pass like a debt limit increase and the budget (even a continuing resolution usually has some budget tweaks thrown into it).
But the real value to Republicans of taking both chambers of Congress is that they can pass constant messaging bills and force Harris to veto them. Democrats would still have the filibuster in the Senate, but there are things that cannot be filibustered like budget reconciliation and Republicans could well nuke the filibuster using the process previously used to eliminate it on nominations.
Thank you for this response. Life got away and I was unable to return to the thread. Your answer is more fulsome than mine would have been, anyway.
@That_Don_Guy, my greatest worry over Republicans keeping the Senate is the judge-gaming they will continue to do. Harris will be unable to get a single judicial appointment through the Senate, and if a SCOTUS vacancy should become available, they will pull the same shit to keep Harris from making an appointment as McConnell pulled for the Scalia and Ginsburg replacements.
If that happens, we’ll never get rid of this horrible SCOTUS.
Absolutely. They’re not going to forget that magic sauce. Especially with both Alito and Thomas having indicated that they’re eager to retire under a Republican administration that can replace them with much younger, worse versions.
Quick question for those who follow this stuff more than I do. If the Democrats lose the Senate in 2024, what are the chances of getting it back in 2026?
Well, it’ll obviously depends on how much they lose the Senate by. Republicans could plausibly pick up anywhere from 1 to 7 or 8 seats this cycle. In 2026, 20 Republican held seats and 13 Democratic held seats will be up for election. Looking at the map, though, the only likely Democratic opportunities are Maine and North Carolina, while Democratic incumbents in Georgia and Michigan could be at risk.
At a glance it doesn’t look promising for Democrats. The only possible at-risk seats for the GOP seem to be Collins in Maine, Tillis in NC, maybe TX? The rest seem solid GOP to me.
Democrats in general just have a harder time because they have far fewer “safe” seats. I count at least 5 Democrat-held seats that might be in play. Maybe more if Harris wins and there is an anti-incumbent backlash (which isn’t unheard of in a midterm).
33 seats are up in 2026…20 republican, 13 democrat.
up for 2026 are:
alabama - tuberville
alaska - sullivan
arkansas - cotton
colorado - hickenlooper
delaware - coons
georgia - ossoff
idaho - risch
illinois - durbin
iowa - ernst
kansas - marshall
kentucky - mcconnell
louisiana - cassidy
maine - collins
massachusetts - markey
michigan - peters
minnesota - smith
mississippi - hyde-smith
montana - daines
nebraska - special election 2024 ricketts?
new hampshire - shaheen
new jersey - booker
new mexico - lujan
north carolina - tillis
oklahoma - mullin
oregon - merkley
rhode island - reed
south carolina - graham
south dakota - rounds
tennessee - hagerty
texas - cornyn
virginia - mark warner
west virginia - capito
wyoming - lummis
so far hickenlooper, ossoff, ernst, cassidy, markey,smith, hyde-smith, ricketts, booker, durbin, cassidy, markey, and cornyn have announced as incumbents.
opponents
peltola is considering for alaska.
whitfield has announced for arkansas.
carter, car, jones, raffensperger, loeffler and kemp have announced interest in georgia.
lahood has announced interest in illinois.
bruce has filed to run in south carolina.
Warner in VA - the GOP won the governorship there in 2022. I feel like if Harris wins the presidency that could be in play.
Lujan in NM. Yes, Democrats have moved NM into a strong lean, but in a bad year I could see that being in play.
Smith in MN was the other one I put in the “in play” category. But NH should probably go there too.
So I could easily see Democrats having to put up an actual defense in GA, MI, MN, NH, VA, and maybe even CO and NM if there is a strong anti-Democratic year.
Would they lose all of those? Nah. But on the flip side the only ones the GOP even has to defend at all are Maine (and then only if Collins retires, IMO) and maybe NC.
People are much more willing to go cross-party in governors races than senators. It is isn’t impossible some of those states would be in play in a strong republican year, though I think the GOP would have to do a much better job of fielding quality candidates than they have recently. There are a lot of states that should be in play this year like Ari and Penn that aren’t due to poor candidate quality. I don’t get why you think this is one sided though. Texas, Alaska, Iowa, and Montana are similar states in the other direction if is a strong year for Dems.
Well, we could use the 2022 PVI - that’s the most recent data we have. Using the list upthread, we have the following state tilts:
Held By
State
PVI
Dem
Massachusetts
D+15
Dem
Rhode Island
D+8
Dem
Illinois
D+7
Dem
Delaware
D+7
Dem
New Jersey
D+6
Dem
Oregon
D+6
Dem
Colorado
D+4
Dem
New Mexico
D+3
Dem
Virginia
D+3
GOP
Maine
D+2
Dem
Minnesota
D+1
Dem
New Hampshire
D+1
Dem
Michigan
R+1
Dem
Georgia
R+3
GOP
North Carolina
R+3
GOP
Texas
R+5
GOP
Iowa
R+6
GOP
Alaska
R+8
GOP
South Carolina
R+8
GOP
Kansas
R+10
GOP
Mississippi
R+11
GOP
Montana
R+11
GOP
Louisiana
R+12
GOP
Nebraska
R+13
GOP
Tennessee
R+14
GOP
Alabama
R+15
GOP
Kentucky
R+16
GOP
South Dakota
R+16
GOP
Arkansas
R+16
GOP
Idaho
R+18
GOP
Oklahoma
R+20
GOP
West Virginia
R+22
GOP
Wyoming
R+25
You can set the bar where you like for “in play”, but even if we go pretty wide and say +6 that gives you Dems trying to hold OR, CO, NM, VA, MN, NH, MI, and GA (8 states) and the GOP defending ME, NC, TX, IA (4 states).
And if you go super tight and only declare things that are in “opponents territory” as “in play” then you have one GOP seat (Collins, who is a bit of a special case) and 2 Democratic ones (MI and GA).
ETA: I will add that it’s possible that AK is shifting, and maybe TX. If Trump wins you could definitely see a swing towards the Democrats in the mid-terms. But that’s a future I’m not sure I want to think about right now.
One of the (to me) dispiriting trends over the last couple of decades is how politically aligned states have become in the Senate. It used to be that you had a significant number of Senators in the chamber that bucked their state’s political lean – even states with a significant lean. The 60 seat majority Democrats enjoyed when Obama first came to office included Senators from Alaska, Montana, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Indiana, Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana. All of those seats are now Republican save Jon Tester’s. It’s worked the other way too, with Susan Collins being the only remaining New England Republican in the Senate.
Unfortunately, this trend works to Democrats’ disadvantage. Only 19 states have a Democratic-leaning PVI. To build a Senate majority, they need to hang onto all of their states and disproportionately win Republican-leaning swing states. It makes it functionally impossible for Democrats to attain more than a 2-3 seat majority in the chamber, whereas a great year for Republicans could net them 5 or 6 seats or more.
Yeah, the problem is having control of the chamber is so important. It would probably do some good to have more people like Larry Hogan in there, but the difference between 49 seats and 50 is just enormous in terms what you can get done.