Trump still faces a pickle in the Senate
Despite Republican gains, road isn’t much easier
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump will have as many as two more Republican votes in the Senate next year, but he will confront wavering Republicans, a loss of centrists and a coterie of Democratic presidential candidates in no mood for compromise.
In other words, the Senate will remain a tough place for Trump to do business.
Republicans flipped their fourth Senate seat this week when Democratic incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson conceded to Republican Rick Scott after a 12-day recount. If Republicans win a runoff on Tuesday in Mississippi – the last holdover from the Nov. 6 election – they will have a 53-seat majority, two more than the party has now.
But the cushioning may provide little comfort for Trump. “I’m doubtful that the extra seats are that valuable in a legislative sense,” said Sarah Binder, a George Washington University political scientist.
Here’s a look at how the landscape may change in the next Senate:
A bit more wiggle room
In a place where votes are often close, two more seats give Republicans breathing room. That could help Trump get more of his appointees confirmed – including another Supreme Court justice, if a vacancy occurred. And it could help the GOP block efforts to remove Trump from power should House Democrats pursue an impeachment.
But based solely on vote tallies, the GOP gain won’t amount to much given that 60 votes are still needed for virtually all controversial bills. Trump has pressed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to change Senate rules to lower that threshold, but McConnell has rejected the idea in the past.
Most appointments, however, even high-profile nominees like Justice
Brett Kavanaugh, can win confirmation with a simple majority.
Nervous Republicans
That dynamic will be especially important given the 2020 Senate map.
In the reverse of this year, it is Republicans who will be defending most of the Senate seats up for election in 2020. But unlike the challenge many Democrats faced in seeking re-election in states carried by Trump, only two Republicans will be up in states Trump lost in 2016.
One of those senators, Susan Collins of Maine, drew the ire of Democrats who had supported her before she voted to confirm Kavanaugh. “Susan Collins has to repair her relationship with the Democrats in Maine,” said Rutgers University political scientist Ross Baker.
But because McConnell now has a few votes to spare, it will be easier to give vulnerable senators a pass on a tough vote, said John Hudak, senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution. “In a Senate with 51 votes, you don’t have that luxury,” he said. “In a Senate with 53 votes, you do.”
Fewer moderate Democrats
Republicans defeated three of the Democrats who voted with them most often, leaving fewer opportunities to pad their slim majority.
“The Senate is more polarized,” said Steve Smith, a political science professor at Washington University in St. Louis. Defeated Democrats Joe Don- nelly of Indiana, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Claire McCaskill of Missouri, for example, worked with Republicans to ease banking regulations imposed after the 2008 financial crisis.
But two other line crossers – West Virginia’s Joe Manchin and Montana’s Jon Tester – survived.
Looming presidential election
Voters may be ready to tune out elections, but with as many as a dozen Senate Democrats already eyeing a presidential run, it will be difficult to separate all but the most routine legislation from the 2020 campaign. From high-profile names such as Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren to lesser-known figures like Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, the Senate floor is likely to become a proving ground for Democratic opposition.
Trump loyalists
Two Republican senators who had publicly criticized Trump – Arizona’s Jeff Flake and Tennessee’s Bob Corker – retired rather than seek re-election this year. Corker’s successor, Marsha Blackburn, tied herself closely to Trump, as did the Republicans who defeated Donnelly, Heitkamp and McCaskill.
That could ramp up the already-high Trump loyalty in the GOP caucus.
But one incoming senator is likely to cross swords with Trump: Utah’s Mitt Romney. In 2016, Romney called Trump “a phony” and “a fraud” and said he didn’t have the character to be president. While Trump endorsed Romney’s Senate bid, Romney did not run as a Trump acolyte.
Hudak said, “This is a former (GOP presidential) nominee who has a strong political base of his own and could really be a thorn in the side of the president.”