Senate Republicans are fighting to protect their majority, as incumbents face a wave of competitive races in states once thought to be out of reach for Democrats but which are now battlegrounds in an election season shaped by Donald Trump.
US Senate elections: the key races that will determine power in Washington
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The backlash against Trump has fueled competitive races in states across the country, from Maine to South Carolina, Arizona to Iowa, even Alaska, places where the president’s divisive politics and erratic response to the coronavirus pandemic have put some of the party’s most long-serving members and rising stars at risk. Facing bleak polling numbers and a “green tsunami” of Democratic fundraising, some Republicans are bracing for a “bloodbath” in the Senate.
Control of the Senate is critical to any president. Under the control of the Republican majority leader, Mitch McConnell, Trump appointed three conservative justices to the supreme court and more than 200 judges to lower federal courts, a legacy that will long outlast his presidency. Without the Senate, Biden would face entrenched opposition to his agenda that could make it nearly impossible to pass any major legislation should he win the White House.
McConnell, who proudly calls himself the “Grim Reaper” of Democratic legislative desires, easily fended off a challenge from Democrat Amy McGrath despite an outpouring of donations from liberal donors. Elected to a seventh term, it remained far from clear if he would retain the title of majority leader by the end of the night.
The political landscape has shifted dramatically under the Trump presidency. For four years, young people and people of color have mobilized in their communities while Republicans lose their standing in the suburbs amid a wave of defections, particularly by women.
Senate Republicans were always prepared to play defense this cycle, but they never expected to have so many races in play. In total, 35 of the 100 Senate seats are up for grabs this election and more than a third are competitive, many in states where Trump won four years ago.
The chamber is currently divided 53-47. Anticipating a loss in Alabama, Democrats would need to gain at least four seats to control the Senate if Biden wins, which would allow a Vice-President Kamala Harris to break a tie.
Republicans have pointed to the Senate confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the supreme court as an achievement, hoping to remind voters of what a Trump presidency could produce, but little has shifted the dynamics of the race. In the presidential battleground of North Carolina, the fate of the Republican incumbent, Thom Tillis, appears closely tied to the president.
It may also be true for Lindsey Graham, the prominent South Carolina senator and Trump critic turned golf partner and ally. As the Barrett hearings put a spotlight on Graham, the chairman of the Senate judiciary committee, his Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison raised a record sum of money, forcing the senator to take his opponent seriously. But the hearings also helped Graham, boosting his fundraising in the final weeks of the toughest campaign of his political career.
Senator Susan Collins of Maine, known as a centrist willing to cross her party, is fighting for her political survival after drawing liberal outrage over her support for Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment to the supreme court and for the president’s tax cut bill.
Changing demographics and a revolt in the suburbs are endangering Republicans in the west, where Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado, a freshman who won his election six years ago in this increasingly blue state, and Senator Martha McSally of Arizona, an air force veteran who was appointed to the seat after the death of Senator John McCain, are among the most endangered Republicans. Caught between a Trump-loving base and moderate voters who recoil from him, both candidates have chosen to align closely with the president, perhaps at their own peril.
The parties have all but abandoned the Colorado race, expecting Gardner to lose to Democrat John Hickenlooper, a former Colorado governor. In 2018, McSally lost a race for Arizona’s other Senate seat to a Democrat, Kyrsten Sinema. This year, she has consistently trailed her opponent Mark Kelly, a former astronaut and the husband of the former Arizona congresswoman Gabby Giffords. If McSally loses, Arizona will have sent two Democrats to the Senate for the first time in generations.
Similar dynamics are also shaping a pair of Senate races in Georgia and a race in Texas, where the incumbent, John Cornyn, is expected to hold on.
In Iowa, Senator Joni Ernst, a member of the Republican leadership who was viewed as a prize recruit in 2014, is also seen as vulnerable.
In these races, Democrats have made healthcare a priority, tying the public health crisis to Republicans’ repeated, though so far unsuccessful, attempts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act.
In perhaps the most unexpected battleground of the cycle, the Alaska senator Dan Sullivan suddenly found himself fending off a serious challenge from Al Gross, a grizzly-bear fighting orthopedic surgeon who identifies as an independent but aligns with Democrats.
Republicans are playing offense in Alabama, a deeply conservative state where Senator Doug Jones, a Democrat, pulled off a narrow special election victory in 2017. Now Jones faces an uphill battle to hold on to the seat against his Republican opponent, Tommy Tuberville, a former Auburn football coach. Republicans are also waging a fierce fight for a seat in Michigan, where John James, a Black businessman and GOP rising star, is gaining on the Democratic incumbent, Gary Peters.
Like the presidential election, a flood of early voting may delay the result in some states for days or possibly weeks. And it is possible that the fight for control of the Senate may not be decided for months, depending on the results in Georgia, where one or both of the Senate races there could go to a runoff if no candidate wins a majority of votes.
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