Dems’ Senate odds daunting, doable
GOP still has edge, but narrow path remains for rivals
WASHINGTON — Once seen as a scant possibility, Democratic hopes of retaking the U.S. Senate have brightened with just eight weeks left before the midterm elections.
The shifting fortunes are starkly illustrated in Texas, where Republican Sen. Ted Cruz is confronting surprisingly strong competition from Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke.
O’Rourke has chipped away at Cruz’s poll lead enough to spur outside GOP groups to mobilize spending and President Donald Trump to plan a campaign rally in what should be a reliably Republican state.
In another sign of Democratic momentum, two incumbents in states Trump carried overwhelmingly — Joe Manchin in West Virginia and Joe Donnelly in Indiana — have shown strength in some recent polls that make them seem better bets for re-election.
Democrats have a chance to pull off upsets in states once thought safely in the Republican column, particularly in deep-red Tennessee where popular former Gov. Phil Bredesen is running ahead in polls.
At stake is control of the national agenda. Democrats would need a net gain of two seats in the Nov. 6 elections to gain a Senate majority. Independent analysts already give Democrats a solid shot at seizing control of the House.
The party holding the Senate will decide the fate of Trump appointees, including possibly one or more Supreme Court picks that could cement a conservative high court supermajority for decades to come.
Republicans still have the advantage, even if it has shrunk. Chief among them is that Democrats have 26 seats on the line in November compared to just nine for Republicans — one of the most politically skewed Senate-election maps in history. Ten of Democraticheld seats are in states won by Trump two years ago.
Democrats “have to win a considerable number of states that Trump carried in the presidential election and they also have to more generally win 28 of 35 races that are contested this year,” said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball election forecast at the University of Virginia. “That’s a very high number. It’s a challenging path, but it’s not impossible either.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has been raising alarms about the closeness of the Senate contest, in part to mo t i va t e Re p u b l i c a n donors and voters. Other GOP officials are dismissive of a Democratic surge.
Chris Hansen, executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said he remains confident of holding or even expanding the GOP’s Senate advantage. He said recent polls in Tennessee and Arizona are showing the Republican candidates on the rise.
Democratic leaders are cautious with any predictions.
“All the polling and surveys show we have a lot of grassroots energy on our side,” said Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who leads the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “We’ve said all along that we have a path, but it’s a very narrow path.”
Democratic hopes start with Nevada, where firstterm Rep. Jacky Rosen seeks to unseat Sen. Dean Heller, the only Republican incumbent running in a state won by Hillary Clinton in 2016. A September poll of the race by Suffolk University shows that Heller, who won a three-way 2012 race with just 46 percent of the vote, trails Rosen by 1 percentage point, well within the margin of error.
Trump’s intra-party feuding has also helped Democrats’ chances by contributing to the retirements of two of his biggest GOP critics, Jeff Flake of Arizona and Bob Corker of Tennessee.
I n A r i z o n a , wh e re Trump won by 4 percentage points, Rep. Martha McSally emerged from a bitter Republican primary to face Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, one of the most conservative Democrats in the House. Sinema had a 3-point lead in a Sept. 8-11 Fox News poll, also within the error margin, though another poll showed her trailing.
The Tennessee race between Bredesen and tea party-aligned Rep. Marsha Blackburn has also bedeviled the GOP. Bredesen has clung to narrow leads in several recent polls, despite running in a state that Trump won in a 26-point blowout.
The question is whether Bredesen’s personal popularity can hold up under an onslaught of outside ads and visits from Trump in a state that hasn’t sent a Democrat to the Senate since Al Gore was reelected in 1990. Blackburn hasn’t been helped by Corker’s warm comments about Bredesen, an old friend from Corker’s days as the mayor of Chattanooga.
Texas typically isn’t in the conversation in Senate races, but this isn’t a normal year. Trump, who defeated Cruz in the Republican presidential primaries, is making a bid to put him over the top by promising to hold a rally next month in “the biggest stadium in Texas we can find.”
In recent polls, Cruz is running just a few points ahead of O’Rourke, a fundraising powerhouse and social media superstar. Notably, a recent Emerson College poll found that Cruz is just one percentage point ahead of O’Rourke, while Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, R, has a 20-point edge in his own re-election campaign.
Winning just two of those four battleground seats would net Democrats the majority if all their incumbents win, but that won’t be easy given so many of their races are in heavily Republican states.
Polling suggests most red-state Democrats are holding their own, with none yet favored to lose by independent analysts. There’s some potential for a repeat of 2006, when all Democratic incumbents prevailed in a “wave” election year that gave Democrats control of both chambers, Kondik said.
Manchin and Donnelly have stayed competitive in part by building images based on independence. Both have taken pains to embrace Trump at times. Donnelly even cut a TV ad touting his support for Trump’s wall on the border with Mexico. Meanwhile, Jon Tester of Montana, who also heralds from a Trumpwon state, is in a contest now rated “likely Democratic” by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.
Not every Democrat is doing as well. Florida Sen. Bill Nelson has been trailing in some polls against deeppocketed two-term Gov. Rick Scott, who is spending tens of millions to get himself elected. Democrats Heidi Heitkamp trails Republican Kevin Cramer in North Dakota and Claire McCaskill’s race in Missouri remains a toss-up.