There’s a simple solution to that - don’t re-elect Trump.
Works for me!
An article up in Politico today regarding how – despite national Democrats talking up investing in the Florida Senate race – they’ve pretty much stayed out. For some reason, of the two Democratic pick-up “opportunities” in the Senate, Texas is getting more attention and resources from the party.
It’s a shame, since Rick Scott should be the very definition of a vulnerable incumbent – he won his last race by 0.12% and he looks and acts like Mr. Burns from The Simpsons.
Tim Kaine randomly showing up on SNL was not on my bingo card. What is even more amusing is that nobody else will notice since Harris was also on. As long as he wins I’m good.
CNN’s latest assessment:
Absolutely no surprise, Andy Kim has won Bob Menendez’s vacant seat.
Also no surprise, Rick Scott is reelected in FL.
Cruz is leading Allred by eight points with 65% of the vote in. That’s gonna be nearly impossible to overcome. It also means the absolute most Democrats can hope for is a 50-50 Senate.
Oof, Tammy Baldwin and Bob Casey used to have big personal brands, but they’ve been almost completely overtaken by the national campaign. Along with Elissa Slotkin, they’re doing just better enough that they can still win even as Harris is on track to lose their states, but it will be a much smaller difference than any Democrat was hoping for. I guess that’s inevitable when the two presidential tickets were carpet bombing their states, but ticket-splitting really is almost dead now (except for fucking Susan Collins).
Jacky Rosen is running about even with Harris (who now seems very likely to lose Nevada), but thankfully, Sam Brown is well behind Trump, and may well fall short due to third party candidates and Nevada’s outre “none of these candidates” option. Jon Ralston thinks Rosen will win in the end.
Bob Casey is behind by around 68,000 votes with >95% of the votes counted, according to the NYT estimate.
Tammy Baldwin is behind by 54,000 with 94% in.
Elissa Slotkin is behind by 99,000 with 87% in.
Hopefully this isn’t the final reckoning that Senate Democrats have been evading for the last few cycles…
At least professional crazy person Kari Lake appears to be falling short. That’s one small piece of good news.
Gallego is ahead by 2 points and I haven’t seen any suggestion from people I follow that he’s in danger, but I remember how much of a red shift there was in the later-counted votes in 2020. I have no idea what’s expected this time around, and in any case they take days to count their votes.
Rosen is now down by under a thousand votes.
Baldwin is now in the lead and that’s unlikely to change.
Slotkin is still trailing Rogers, but she’s only down by a tenth of a point and there’s still enough vote out that she could make it.
Casey…I think he might be toast. He’s down by a full point. This has to be the shock result of the night for me. Everything else, even Trump, was totally foreseeable even a year out, but if you had told me then that Democrats would lose three seats I would have put Nevada and Arizona ahead of Pennsylvania.
Republicans will have a minimum of 52 seats in the Senate next session, possibly as many as 55-56 depending on how remaining Senate races play out. You might think that’s not that big a majority, and something that the Democrats could overcome in an election cycle or two. However, functionally (particularly if things end up on the higher end for Republicans) this means that Democrats have no hope of reclaiming a Senate majority in the foreseeable future without a significant shift in our politics.
Because there are so many more red states than blue states, the only way Democrats have been able to scratch out a bare majority in the chamber was through their three legacy seats in deeply red states, and all but running the table in the swing states (Democrats currently hold 9 of the 10 Senate seats across PA, MI, WI, AZ, GA). Those legacy seats are now gone, never to return. Just by being modestly successful with swing state seats, Republicans will have a lock on the chamber.
Don’t believe me? Here’s the 2026 map. Go ahead and tell me where the Democratic pickups are. Maine’s the only obvious candidate, while D seats in GA and MI will be at risk. How about 2028? The states have effectively sorted themselves politically, and this is to Democrats’ enormous disadvantage.
The Democratic Party needs a political realignment. Their current constituency is too inefficient in our federal system that gives outsize weight to rural states.
I’m not sure how they can go about doing that, but you are correct that they will likely remain a minority party, at least in the Senate, until they can build a different coalition.
Michigan and Wisconsin have been called for the Democrats, which leaves PA (slight R lead), NV (slight R lead) and AZ (D lead) uncalled. If the current leads hold, that would be a 54R-46D Senate.
And at least three prominent statewide races (I’m including NC governor with WI and MI senators) where there apparently was some ballot-splitting despite the common* wisdom that voters don’t really do that anymore.
*Common as in popular, but also common as in Dems and GOPers would generally both agree on the point (even if on little else at this point).
- Democratic Senator Jacky Rosen moved into the lead in NV overnight, up about 1% with 90% of the vote counted.
- Republican Dave McCormack is still up on Democratic Senator Bob Casey in PA by about half a percent, with 98% of the vote counted. The exact margin matters – Pennsylvania law requires an automatic recount if a statewide election is determined by less than 0.5%.
- Democrat Ruben Gallego still leading Kari Lake in AZ, although only about 68% of the vote has been counted.
With the Nevada flip, if current leads hold we’d be looking at a 53R-47D Senate.
I’ll take any result that doesn’t have Lake
Or a few folks who JUST voted for Trump (and left the rest blank), and many more who JUST voted for a Democratic senator (and left the rest blank). I guess you could call this a kind of mild, passive “splitting.”