Can the D's get 50 Senate seats?

Politics & Elections
1

I don’t know the answer to the question in the title, but thought to post a list of the 34 Senate races in 2020 here to help visualize exactly what’s needed to get to 50.

Democrat, sure thing, all popular incumbents
DE Coons
IL Durbin
MA Markey
NJ Booker – if Booker runs for higher office, will Ds still have a lock?
OR Merkley
RI Reed

Democrat incumbent, victory most probable
NH Shaheen
NM (Udall retiring)
VA Warner
MI Peters - first-termer in danger?
MN Smith - first-termer in danger?

Two seats occupied by Rs whom Ds may be favored to upset.
AZ McSally (unelected) – Mark Kelly plans to run against her. Must win for the Ds!
CO Gardner (1st term) – who should Ds run against him?

To win 50 seats the Ds need to win all the above races AND two (2) from The critical Eleven races, shown in pink. I’ve tried to sort them very roughly by decreasing likelihood of D victory.

If AZ or CO is lost, the D’s need 3 seats from the following sub-list of 11, but the D’s are underdogs in each case.
NC Tillis
ME Collins (has the popular woman sullied herself by embracing right-wing lies and hatreds?)
GA Perdue – is Abrams the only one who can beat him?
AL [Jones – see note below]
IA Ernst
KS Roberts, retiring
MS Hyde-Smith
KY McConnell
TX Cornyn – could Beto beat him?
MT Daines
TN Alexander, retiring

Republican, sure thing, almost all popular incumbents
AK Sullivan
AR Cotton
ID Risch
LA Cassidy
NE Sasse
OK Inhofe
SC Graham
SD Rounds
WV Capito
WY open?

To make the seat counting more straightforward, the Alabama seat should be counted as Republican:

[SPOILER] As a lark, spurred by their hero announcing he could kill in broad daylight and still get elected, the Rs ran a child molester for a two-year Senate seat. The D got a whopping 18% of the white evangelical vote! While 80% of the white evangelicals held firm and came out in favor of child molestation this wasn’t enough to beat the moral vote. Having learned their lesson, the evangelicals will probably nominate a scumbag who only hits on girls 16+, thus reclaiming their Senate seat.

Sure, we’d like to dream of an Alabama where Jones wins re-election, but for the purpose of the list, Jones is the one incumbent Senator heavily favored NOT to win re-election.[/SPOILER]

2

McConnell ain’t going nowhere. I’d say the same thing about Cornyn too to a lesser degree.

3

It’s possible. I’d guess it’s a tossup at this point.

4

I’d say the Dems are slight underdogs in the quest for 50 Senators. And no Senate control means that a Dem President would be effectively handcuffed, and the 2022 midterms would likely suck for the Dems.

So winning the Senate is every bit as important for the Dems as winning the Presidency - arguably even more so. Which is why it pisses me off to see Bennet and Bullock and Beto and Hickenlooper running for President.

5

Comments on the OP’s list:

  1. Bump Mark Warner up to the D ‘sure thing’ list. Running against him is political suicide at this point.

  2. Bump MS, TN, and KY down to the R ‘sure thing’ list.

  3. I agree that AL belongs on the pink list. Though if Roy Moore manages to win the GOP nomination, it might be a tossup.

6

Getting good candidates in those uphill Senate races is the most important thing the Democratic Party can do in 2019. (Even more important than impeachment, and as you guys know, I’m extremely pro-impeachment.)

CO - Hickenlooper, give up the Presidential run, dude
MT - Ditto for you, Bullock
AL - Jones, obviously
GA - sure would be nice if Abrams reconsidered
TX - not sure Beto’s even a good Senate candidate anymore; how does MJ Hegar look?
ME - Collins’ favorability has taken a nosedive since last year; need a candidate though
IA - Dems beat R’s in House vote last November. Again, do they have a candidate?
KS - seems to be returning to semblance of sanity at last. But same refrain.
NC - don’t know NC politics at all, would like to hear LHoD’s take.

7

I’d like to see Steve Bullock run for the Senate, but he’s been pretty clear that he has no desire to be in any legislative body anywhere, regardless of what happens to his presidential campaign, so I don’t think that’s going to happen.

I’m not sure I’d even rate it as a tossup in that case. If Trump had been on the ballot in December 2017, I think Roy Moore would be a senator today.

8

(I’ll respond to input and revise the list occasionally, while keeping the original colors to minimize confusion.)

Democrat, sure thing, all popular incumbents
DE Coons
IL Durbin
MA Markey
NJ Booker – if Booker runs for higher office, will Ds still have a lock?
OR Merkley
RI Reed
VA Warner

Democrat incumbent, victory most probable
NH Shaheen
NM (Udall retiring)
MI Peters - first-termer in danger?
MN Smith - first-termer in danger?

Two seats occupied by Rs whom Ds may be favored to upset.
AZ McSally (unelected) – Mark Kelly plans to run against her. Must win for the Ds!
CO Gardner (1st term) – @ Hickenlooper: Please run!

To win 50 seats the Ds need to win all the above races AND two (2) from The critical Eight races, shown in pink. I’ve tried to sort them very roughly by decreasing likelihood of D victory.

If AZ or CO is lost, the D’s need 3 seats from the following sub-list of 8, but the D’s are underdogs in each case.
NC Tillis
ME Collins (has the popular woman sullied herself by embracing right-wing lies and hatreds?)
GA Perdue – is Abrams the only one who can beat him?
AL [Jones – see note below]
IA Ernst
KS Roberts, retiring
MT Daines – hope Bullock changes his mind and runs
TX Cornyn – can anyone beat him?

Republican, sure thing, almost all popular incumbents
[COLOR=“Magenta”]MS Hyde-Smith
KY McConnell
TN Alexander, retiring
AK Sullivan
AR Cotton
ID Risch
LA Cassidy
NE Sasse
OK Inhofe
SC Graham
SD Rounds
WV Capito
WY open?[/COLOR]

9

Hard to see how anyone could look at that list and conclude “it’s a tossup” or that “the Dems are slight underdogs” … it’s a freakin long shot. Inside straight level.

Planets need to align just right.

First there needs to be strong candidates and many of the best possibilities have thrown their hats into no chance presidential runs instead, or just said no.

Then the candiates need to run great campaigns preferably coupled with missteps by the opposition.

And you need a blow-out in the presidential race with the D nominee spending some time in the key states of that list. No chance without coattails.

Meanwhile MI is now a bit less probable with a strong R candidate in the race.

And while NC looks very promising right now, ME is a bit less so.

Assuming wins of all of “most probable” and “favored to upset” and in both NC and ME, a real good run if that, far from “a toss-up”, which of the next races are looking as other than very very unlikely to win? Best chance in Iowa is the recently announced Greenfield, who is best known “for her botched campaign for the state’s third district in 2018” …

The fact that losing the Senate again is so likely and that pulling off an upset there requires, among other things, a presidential race blow-out, is yet another reason why having the strongest possible presidential nominee matters even more.

10

Not if the hotshots who could win a Senate seat continue to run for the White House.

11

Cornyn is a sure thing. There’s no way he loses.

I will say this: Kentucky’s Senate race could be very interesting. I don’t think McConnell loses outright, but Matt Jones is a formidable opponent, assuming he actually does run. It’s also a crucial race for Trump because if the economy starts to sag, McConnell will do what he can to a) save his own ass first, and b) save the Senate majority, which would mean putting distance between himself and Trump.

12

Alabama belongs in the red group. It took a miracle for Jones to pick up that seat, and it’d take another miracle for him to hold it. And don’t say “incumbency advantage”: That’s mostly just because people are consistent, and so the same people who liked a candidate enough to elect him once will like him enough to elect him again. Jones didn’t win because the people liked him; they just disliked Moore more, and he won’t be running this time.

As for all of the Presidential candidates who should be running for the Senate instead, there’s still time. And it’s not like their campaigning now will be wasted if and when they do switch.

13

Jones ran against a dirty, sleazy old man, and he just barely won. He won’t be lucky this time around.

14

Maybe, maybe not. I honestly don’t know which to hope for. Moore running might actually Jones a better than average shot at re-election( otherwise I agree he’s almost certainly toast ). But Moore running, terrifyingly, would give Moore a better-than-infinitesimal shot at winning himself and I’m not sure I can wish that on the people of Alabama and the nation.

15

Hm, if Jones has been doing a good job with constituent services, that might help him to do a little better in this election: Not much, not enough to beat an ordinary Republican, but it might be enough against Moore again. Everyone likes the guy who helped them to clear up red tape.

But I have no idea how well he’s doing on that. We’d probably need to ask an Alabaman.

16

Sorry–since 2016, I’ve tried real hard to get out of the political predictions game.

I will say that there’s a lot of energy among progressives I know, and just as importantly there’s an intense focus on the nuts and bolts of organizing. But that’s anecdotal; I really don’t know whether that’s a general phenomenon or whether it’s just my social group.

17

Alabama is going to be tough, but if the state continues to double down on hard right politics such as the abortion ban, there might also be a sliver of hope.

Doug Jones will probably have to say things and occasionally vote in ways that will piss off the activist wing of the Democrats, similar to how Joe Manchin survives.

That’s ok, some millennial on Twitter 1500 miles away doesn’t get to vote for the people of Alabama.

18

Yup. Blue Alabama is wishful thinking. Dems should do their best in every race, but they’re not gonna take over the Senate in 2020.

19

Isn’t Roy Moore leading the primary polls in Alabama? you don’t need a miracle for an incumbent Jones to beat Moore again.

20

It seems from the list that persuading Hickenlooper, Bullock and Abrams to run for Senator could be key.

Easily these three running could turn the Senate from 47-53 into 50-50 !

Are there any other top-top names we should consider to get another Senator-gimme? What states does Oprah Winfrey have homes in?