While We Wait
We are waiting: waiting for the next move by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Waiting for more indictments, for a final report, for something!!!! Waiting, waiting; for the other shoe to drop, twiddling our thumbs, spinning in circles: on hold until the next step in our history is revealed by the Special Counsel’s office.
And meanwhile we watch the Democrats in the House get twisted around a freshman member from Minnesota, trying to balance anti-Semitism against anti-Muslim words and “tropes.” We listen to Republican moderators demand that Democrats renounce “SOCIALISM,” while still supporting programs that are by definition socialistic. But those programs are exactly what Democrats should be standing for; if socialism means caring for the poor and the “least” among us, we ought to be doing it.
To quote a line from Hamilton (as always); can we get back to politics?
The Presidential election of 2020 is tough to sort out. The first assumption, that Donald Trump will be running for reelection, is so dependent on the waiting game we are playing, that it’s tough to go to the next step. And Democrats have a lot of sorting out to do, with some of the major players, Biden for instance, still sitting on the sidelines, waiting for – well – I’m not sure what Biden’s waiting for.
But there are other elections in 2020, elections that may have just as dramatic an impact on the nation as the Presidential one. In 2018, Democrats made a lot of noise about trying to gain a majority in the United States Senate. It was a bridge way too far for the Party, the electoral map depending on not only winning a tough race in evenly split Florida and an upset in Texas, but also by holding Senate seats in Republican Missouri, North Dakota, Indiana and West Virginia. Only Joe Manchin in West Virginia was able to hold on, by acting as more of a voting Republican than some actual Republicans.
2020 is a far different story. Republicans today have fifty-three Senate seats, a three vote majority plus the tie-breaking Vice Presidential seat. Democrats have forty-five actual seats, but the two Independents (Bernie Sanders and Angus King) both caucus with the Democrats, giving them a working forty-seven seat minority. Thirty-three Senate seats are up for re-election, twenty-two now held by Republicans, and twelve by Democrats.
So Democrats are already at an advantage, defending significantly fewer seats. That’s important when it comes to apportioning money into the electoral process, particularly in a Presidential election year when finances get sucked into the national process.
But even more importantly, eleven Democrats running are in a “safe” position, running in states that traditionally elect Democrats anyway: New Jersey (Booker), Massachusetts (Markey), Oregon (Merkley), Peters (Michigan), Rhode Island (Reed), New Hampshire (Shaheen), New Mexico (Udall), Delaware (Coons), Minnesota (Smith), Illinois (Durbin) and Virginia (Warner). Even with Booker running for President, his replacement, if needed, would likely still be a Democrat.
Thirteen Republicans are running “safe” in many states as well: Tennessee (Alexander), West Virginia (Caputo), Louisiana (Cassidy), Arkansas (Cotton), Wyoming (Enzi), South Carolina (Graham), Mississippi (Hyde-Smith), Oklahoma (Imhofe), Kentucky (McConnell), Idaho (Risch), South Dakota (Rounds), Nebraska (Sasse) and Alaska (Sullivan).
So here’s the math: Republicans are defending twenty-two seats, and thirteen are “safe”, leaving eleven seats in some jeopardy. Democrats are defending twelve seats and eleven are “safe”, leaving one at risk.
So here are the “high risk” Senate races, two Republican and one Democrat. Susan Collins (R-Maine) is in for the fight of her life. Her flip-flops and final vote on the Kavanaugh nomination have made her a target of pro-choice and pro-women groups, and at the same time her vote against repealing the Affordable Care Act didn’t improve her Republican standing. Maine does not easily fall into a political category, but Collins definitely looks to be a likely Democratic (or Independent) pick-up.
The second Republican “high risk” seat is the one Martha McSally was appointed to (the John McCain seat). McSally ran and lost in the other Arizona Senate election (to Democrat Krysten Sinema) and is likely to face an even tougher Democrat, former astronaut and Gabby Gifford’s husband Mark Kelly, in 2020.
The Democratic “high risk” seat is from Alabama, the election won by Doug Jones in 2017. Jones ran against Roy Moore who was saddled with accusations of being a pedophile, and Jones is likely to face a more normal opponent in 2020. While the South is changing from it’s solid Republican tradition, it’s unlikely that Jones will survive a “normal” election.
The “high risk” seats won’t change the majority in the Senate. However, Republicans are faced with four more “risk” seats and the Democrats have none; Texas (Cornyn), Colorado (Gardner), Perdue (Georgia) and Tillis (North Carolina). Texas and Georgia would be particularly vulnerable if the two stellar candidates from 2018, O’Rourke in Texas and Abrams in Georgia, chose to run. This would require Beto to ignore the lure of the Presidential race, and Stacy to chose to not wait for a re-match with Kemp for Governor.
So with the “high risk” and “risk” seats going to the other parties, the Senate would flip: Democrats 52, and Republicans 48. This would not even require a Democrat winning the Presidency (and Vice Presidency) to control the tie-breaker.
Flipping the Senate (and holding onto the House) will not be an easy task for Democrats. The Presidential election will absorb much of the electoral energy; Democrats will need to have an “eye on the prize” for both the White House and the Capitol.
