The Challenge of Partisan Control in the Senate: The Case for a Democratic U.S. Rep. Steve B. McCann (R-Law)

The field has moved slightly back in Republicans’ direction, in part, because of a natural tightening closer to November as the races come into focus for more people, but also because of a deluge of television advertising in key races supporting GOP candidates.

Senate Leadership Fund has spent nearly $50 million on television ads in the past few weeks, according to the ad tracking firm Ad Impact.

A new group aligned with the former President has started spending a lot. They have poured in millions of dollars in two states, where Senate candidates are fighting to hold onto their seats.

Partisan control of the Senate is currently tied at 50-50, with Democrats in charge of the agenda because they have the White House. Republicans need to gain one seat to get control of the chamber.

If Democrats take Pennsylvania, Republicans would need to pick up two seats to win control. Nevada’s importance is critical to the GOP’s chances. If they aren’t able to take Georgia or Nevada, they’d likely need to sweep both Arizona (next on our list) and New Hampshire, which is tougher for them and has slipped down the list to No. 7 because of a weaker Republican candidate. Next: 4

The Fate of Mehmet Oz: The Case for an Abortion Against a Femtophile Candidate in Georgia

It may be a natural and expected tightening, but following a month of millions of dollars in TV ads spent in the past month by Republican outside groups, the significant lead once held by Democrat John Fetterman over Republican celebrity TV doctor, Mehmet Oz, has shrunk considerably.

In Pennsylvania, the lead of John Fetterman over Mehmet Oz has narrowed due to concerns about the lieutenant governor’s health. President Joe Biden appeared with Fetterman during a visit to Pennsylvania on Thursday.

The woman reported to the New York Times that Walker urged her to have an abortion two years later. She ended their relationship due to her refusal. Walker denies this allegation as well. NPR has not confirmed the details of the stories. Walker is staunchly anti-abortion rights, not believing in any exceptions, and his responses to the scandal have been muddled at best.

Republicans are warily watching what happens here. Walker raised lots of money after the news came out, but Republicans say that he hasn’t gained as much steam as they’d like. The state of Georgia does not have any other GOP options and Brian Kemp is expected to do well in his gubernatorial election which could help Walker in the end. This is an allegation that would have sunk previous campaigns. The result will say a lot about our politics — although Republicans already voted for a candidate who was accused of sexual misconduct by almost two dozen women and who bragged about assaulting women. Next: 2

Democrats say Catherine Masto is running a good campaign while Adam Laxalt, who denies the result of the 2020 presidential election, has started to slip behind her. The most vulnerable incumbent senator in the country right now is Masto.

This is a state that has leaned Democratic in recent years, but their victories have been really close, and both sides expect another tight finish. Democrats say Laxalt is vulnerable to attacks because of his ties to Trump and because he lied about abortion rights.

The economy is a major reason for the Republican opportunity here. Some Democrats are concerned the party focuses too much on abortion and not enough on the economy. The state has a high population of working-class whites, Hispanics and Asian Americans who are still trying to recover from the economic effects of the Pandemic.

Latinos are a key group to watch. They have helped tip the balance toward Democrats in previous years, but Republicans contend they have been able to appeal to the group — here and in other states — over the pandemic’s economic effects, crime and their frustration with progressive Democratic positions.

Democrats in Nevada have done a good job of turning out their base voters over the course of the history of the state, and they think that Sen. Cortez Masto is popular with the Latino community due to the fact that he has been airing Spanish-language ads for months. But there are questions about the party’s ability to get out the vote locally. Democrats believe they have the resources and organization to do it well, but this election will be a big test of whether they can keep the Nevada turnout machine going.

Blake Masters in Arizona, Mark Kelly and the Case for a “Trusted” Reprieve of Mark Biden: When President Biden and Senator Mark Kelly get together

• In Arizona, GOP nominee Blake Masters appears to be making up some ground on Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly. The incumbent remains the favorite in the race, but there’s no question there has been some tightening.

Masters ran an ad earlier in the cycle, when he was trying to win the primary, saying that Trump won the 2020 election. He called President Biden the “legitimate president” in the debate against Kelly. It’s just the one he has made, but not the only one.

Masters changed his stance on abortion. He had called himself “100% pro-life” and advocated for a federal “personhood” law “that recognizes that unborn babies are human beings that may not be killed.” He tried to describe Kelly as an “extremist” on the issue, after removing two of them from his website in the general election.

The Senate Leadership Fund, the well-heeled superPAC tied to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, has pulled out of the state. That makes it even more challenging for Masters without that air support. In this border state where Republicans outnumber Democrats, Kelly said he criticized the president when he decided to “do something dumb” on immigration. Previous: 3

Incumbent Ron Johnson hasn’t backed down from controversial positions, and his favorability ratings have struggled. He’s well aware of how he’s viewed and he’s had a hard-nosed campaign. Republicans are more confident in this race now than a month ago as they’ve run lots of ads against Barnes.

Barnes was slow to respond, but has now gone on the air with an ad featuring a retired police sergeant. The retired sergeant says in the ad that Mandela is very supportive of law enforcement. Democrats think this race will be close as Barnes is going after Johnson on abortion, like many statewide races have been in Wisconsin.

While North Carolina is a Republican-controlled seat, it has trended up in the top 10 and both sides think there will be a close finish between the two candidates. Some Democrats have complained that there haven’t been enough resources poured into this race, which they see as winnable, to push Beasley over the finish line in this state that has leaned toward Republicans in recent presidential and Senate elections. So lately, there’s been a bit of an uptick in Democratic spending. We will see if it makes a difference.

Beasley, first Black woman to serve as chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, has run a fairly nonantagonistic campaign in this state with a high number of right-leaning independents. She’s focused not just on cities, but also Black voters in rural counties as well abortion rights, like other Democrats across the country.

His campaign says he will be focusing more on retail politics and inflation in the next day, and Republicans are hoping tens of millions spent by Republican outside groups in the final weeks can make a difference. The one Budd has been leading is expected to lead in the end. Next: 7

Republicans got their candidate – and it’s not the one the establishment wanted. DemocratMaggie Hassan faces off against a retired Army brigadier in an election that looks to be easier than the Republican one. DonBolduc was the commander of the army. He’s aligned himself with Trump and has boosted the vaccine conspiracy.

It’s going to be hard for it to sell in this state, where 40% of people identify as independent and even the Republicans acknowledge abortion is an issue. On Friday, it was reported that the National Republican Senatorial Committee canceled their advertising for the state and diverted their funds to other states. Previous: 6

Because it’s right-leaning Ohio, Ryan has deemphasized party and is focusing on a message of finding “common ground,” like in this ad with his wife. After making controversial statements about women and winning the Trump endorsement, Vance has been trying to change his image in ads with his wife and hit Ryan on crime. Next: 8

Incumbent Marco Rubio has continued to hold a consistent lead in this race against Democratic challenger, Rep. Val Demings, despite Demings raising a significant amount of money. Something else to watch in this race, though, is what effect Hurricane Ian will have, which is unclear at this point as the cleanup continues.

Many places that were hit by Hurricane Matthew, like Lee and Naples, are Republican areas, but there are also other places that are reeling from the effects of the flooding. The campaigns and committees are adjusting to being in an election. Last week: 9

On the Status of the Senate Race in Washington State: Democrat Patty Murray, Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet, and a Democratic Senator Joe O’Dea

Republican challenger Joe O’Dea, who has struck a moderate chord, particularly on abortion rights and partisanship, is making this a race against incumbent Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet. The race could be decided by a single digit.

Worth keeping an eye on: The Senate race in Washington state, between incumbent Democrat Patty Murray and Republican veterans advocate Tiffany Smiley, has been in single digits in the last several polls. Murray has led in all of them and touted her tenure and items in recent Democratic-passed legislation, even as Smiley has tried to use those very things against her, saying they’ve led to inflation. Republicans are even running an ad showing Murray morphing into President Biden. Legislation that Murray fought for, like lowering the prices of prescription drugs, is what she focused on.

• A CBS News/YouGov poll out in Nevada shows the Senate race is in a dead heat, with Republican nominee Adam Laxalt at 49% and Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto at 48%.

The Democrats have been pointing fingers in Wisconsin where the lieutenant governor has watched his lead over the GOP senator slip away. People are hitting their heads against the wall. Tom Nelson, a Democrat who ran for the Senate nomination earlier this year, said how to let this happen.

The allegations of relationships with women made by Herschel Walker don’t seem to have ruined his chances against the incumbent.

Add it all up, and there’s no question that Republicans are in a better place today than they were even a month ago. That doesn’t mean they are favored just yet to win the majority. It suggests that they may be on their way to victory.

Election Day is almost here! Well, almost. Tens of millions have already voted, and the election is likely to extend beyond Tuesday for days, if not weeks. Control of the Senate is likely to be tight and not known for a long time.

Retaining control of the Senate is a huge boost to Joe Biden, with one more Senate race outstanding that will determine the final balance of power in the chamber, and how much leverage the president’s party will ultimately have.

The Democrats have a chance of taking the presidency again in 2024, but they can’t make any assumptions about what it will mean for a presidential race. But if a Republican does win the White House, Democrats’ best hope of blunting a potential GOP president’s agenda will likely be through the House. They need to keep those losses low in the close House races to have a chance of doing that. If Democrats show up to vote, a lot of this can be done.

Gen Z/Millennial voters also list abortion rights as their top voting concern, according to the latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, and it’s clear Democratic activists are trying to use that to get them to the polls. But they are the group with the lowest level of interest in these elections. The gap between older voters and younger voters in the survey is 35 points, which is atypical for a mid-term election. Democrats likely need youth voter turnout to be around 30% to do well, but that’s likely going to be tough. In tight Senate races, black voters are going to be the most important, as are Latinos and Asian American voters. But each of those latter groups list inflation and the cost of living as their top concern.

There are challenging candidates nominated by Republicans in the Senate. Georgia’s Herschel Walker and Dr. Oz were among the people Trump boosted. And Don Bolduc in New Hampshire, it’s safe to say, is not the strongest candidate Republicans could have put forward. For Democrats to retain the Senate, they will need to win three of four of Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.

Again, think of this as Election Season, not Election Day. It’s possible, if not likely, the Georgia Senate race, for example, goes to a Dec. 6 runoff. There’s a Libertarian on the ballot, where lots of protest votes could go and keep either Walker or Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock below 50%, which is needed to avoid a runoff.

There have been eyebrows raised about people with arms at voting places; voting rules and access have changed in a lot of places; and people are expected to vote by mail in bigger numbers then in any midterm in history. There will be lots of confusion on election night about vote numbers, where they are coming from, and the shifts in favor of either party in multiple states.

This is not bad, but you can be sure that some candidates who do not agree with Trump will try to win the election, even if they don’t win. How widespread that will be is anyone’s guess – ut we are clearly in a new era of U.S. elections that is very uncertain.

Democrats delivered a strong showing in the mid-terms. Only 45% of Biden voters who said they were somewhat opposed to him voted for Democrats, while 42% voted for Republicans, according to CNN exit polls.

“I think it’s a reflection of the quality of our candidates,” Biden told reporters in Cambodia shortly after CNN and other news outlets projected Democrats would keep their Senate majority. “They’re all running on the same program. Biden said that wasn’t anyone who wasn’t running on what we did.

Democrats will have the ability to confirm Biden’s judicial nominees – avoiding scenarios such as the one former President Barack Obama faced in 2016, when then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to hold a vote on his Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland. It also means that Senate Democrats can reject bills passed by the House and can set their own agenda.

The Senate Runoff: Warnock vs. Walker – a victory for Democrats and for a woman’s right to choose

Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker are facing off on December 6 after neither candidate cleared the 50% threshold on Tuesday.

Biden said he was “looking forward to the next couple of years” with Democrats, and said he was now focused on the Senate runoff in Georgia, acknowledging it would be better to have 51 seats in the Senate.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Saturday night called the Democrats’ hold on the Senate a “vindication” of the party’s agenda and said it amounted to a rejection of “anti-Democratic, extremist, MAGA Republicans.”

“Oh and one other thing we did, which I cannot forget, we staunchly defended a woman’s right to choose,” Schumer said, referring to the battle over abortion rights after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

The election of Democrats in the Senate created a chance against a nationwide abortion ban threat because the people of the US turned out to vote.

Only one Senate seat has changed hands so far in the 2022 midterm elections: Pennsylvania, where Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who campaigned as he recovered from a May stroke, defeated Republican Mehmet Oz, the celebrity doctor who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump.

Whereas the party didn’t have to defend a single seat in a state former President Donald Trump won in 2020 this election cycle, in 2024 they will have to defend three seats – Montana, Ohio and West Virginia – where Trump won. There are no Republicans up in 2024 who won seats that Joe Biden did in 2020.

Ultimately, the battle for Senate control came down to Arizona and Nevada – states with large shares of mail-in ballots and rules that can slow the processing of those ballots.

The failure of the GOP to pick up Nevada and Senate control in Trump’s 2022 presidential campaign triggered by the Las Vegas attack on the US Capitol

Laxalt was a co-chairman of Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign in Nevada and played a leading role in legal efforts to reverse the results in that election, which he said was “rigged.” On January 6, 2021, the attack on the US Capitol was caused by lies and election conspiracy theories, which were embraced by Trump and others.

The weekend marked a moment of vindication for President Joe Biden, whose party defied history by staving off a midterm election drubbing, and a moment of truth for some Republicans who had tethered themselves to Trump’s election fraud lies.

With the GOP poised to take House control and even promising to make Biden life difficult for the rest of his term with investigations into his administration, it is likely that the majority will be smaller and more vituperative.

As Trump presses on with a campaign launch set for Tuesday, the GOP’s loss of the Senate and competitive races nationwide raised new questions about his chances of winning back the White House. Meanwhile, the defeat of several high-profile election deniers boosted Biden’s global campaign for democracy – a central part of his 2022 campaign message – as he heads into talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Cambodia and prepares for a possible rematch with his predecessor.

Political parties are pointless unless they win power. The Democrats celebrated their 50th seat and control of the Senate when Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto came from behind to win in Nevada Saturday night.

The Senate Majority Leader says that pundits missed one thing, that the people were aware that the Democrats were getting things done for them in the Nevada race.

The failure to pick up Nevada and Senate control is already having reverberations inside the Senate GOP, with calls from Florida Sen. Rick Scott, the chair of Senate Republicans campaign arm, and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham to delay Wednesday’s leadership elections until after the Georgia runoff. Scott said he had been approached by a lot of people about standing against McConnell, with whom he had had disagreements in the past. It will not be lost on many lawmakers that the party fell short on Scott’s watch.

The failure of Republicans to capture control means that the White House will be spared a relentless onslaught of Senate investigations and subpoenas to match those likely to be pouring out of the House if, as expected, the GOP finally clinches a majority in that chamber. This benefit for Biden is significant.

And while a Republican House would mean few legislative wins for the president, Schumer will be able to protect his senators from tough votes that could hurt them in reelection campaigns in 2024, when they’ll be defending seats in tough states like Montana, Ohio, Nevada and Arizona.

The Presidency is even more important because of the unexpectedly strong Democratic performance, which will cause the chambers to split down the middle. A popular candidate on either side could have strong coattails and sweep their party into a monopoly in power in Washington.

A two-seat margin is better for Democrats than relying on the Vice President’s tie-breaking vote. It also gives them a small cushion if one of their members becomes sick or incapacitated and lessens the chance they will lose their majority at some point in the new Congress.

• West Virginia: Manchin is a Democrat in a state Trump won by 39 points in 2020. The presidential race will likely drive people deeper into their partisan corners than his last reelection campaign, even though it was at the top of the ticket. Manchin relies on the votes of independents and Republicans to win. And Republicans are already lining up for the chance to take on Manchin. In September, Gov. Jim Justice, a Democrat-turned-Republican, said he is considering a run against Manchin. During the 2022. campaign, Alex Mooney ran ads critical of Manchin for his support of the Inflation Reduction Act. Even though Manchin is a Democrat and the only one who can hold this seat, his grip on it is shaky due to the presidential election year in West Virginia.

Hard-liners in the House Freedom Caucus are demanding large concessions – which could render his leadership toothless – in return for supporting him for the top job. Those more extreme lawmakers would also be able to leverage the thin majority in the GOP to weaponize the House in the service of Trump’s 2024 campaign. CNN reported Sunday that Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs is considering a challenge to McCarthy in the House leadership elections on Tuesday – a move that could ultimately weaken the current minority leader and expose anger over the GOP’s performance, even if his team insists he will have the votes to be speaker.

While a battle is emerging over the Republican House leadership, the current limbo means an expected Democratic tussle to succeed Nancy Pelosi is frozen. The speaker said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that she was making no decisions while the destiny of the House was undecided. The speaker said that following the brutal attack on her husband, she had to think about her future. But she’s not tipping her hand.

I am not asking for anything. People are talking to people. And that’s a beautiful thing,” the California Democrat quixotically told CNN’s Dana Bash when asked whether she might feel motivated to stay on as leader. I am not asking anyone for anything. My members have asked me if I would do that. But, again, let’s just get through the election.”

Why Donald Trump hasn’t gotten his b***: The three strikes that Trump has cost us the election, but why he is doing what they say

Trump is being blamed by a broad group of Republican leaders and political analysts for saddling his party’s extreme, untested candidates with a failed message – an obsession with his 2020 election fraud falsehoods.

“I think it’s basically the third election in a row that Donald Trump has cost us the race. And it’s like, three strikes, you’re out,” Maryland GOP Gov. Larry Hogan said on “State of the Union” on Sunday.

The problem with Hogan’s analogy is that even when Trump has been down politically – after the 2018 blue wave in the House, his 2020 election loss and the 2021 Capitol insurrection – he’s never struck out with the fervent grassroots Republican base that set him on the way to the White House in 2016 and still adores him.

A wave of Republican enthusiasm had been expected to drive Trump out of this weekend, with the hope that he would use the win to power his campaign for the GOP presidential nod in four years.

Mehmet Oz, who was one of Trump’s favored candidates in the Senate race, lost. One of the most high-profile election deniers, Kari Lake, is still locked in a close contest with Democrat Katie Hobbs in Arizona’s governor’s race, which CNN has not yet projected.

Voters might have been unhappy with the Democrats and Biden’s record on inflation. But they balked at handing power to Republican radicals in Trump’s election-denying and chaos-causing image.

Yet Trump, true to form, is powering ahead. His adviser Jason Miller confirmed on Steve Bannon’s podcast that the ex-president’s planned big announcement on Tuesday at Mar-a-Lago will be the launch of a new presidential campaign – even before the 2022 midterm election will be finalized. Even though voters rejected him in the election, Trump is still doubling down on his election fraud lies.

There may be other alternatives to Trump in the GOP. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis proved he knows how to build a majority with his reelection victory. In 2021, Glenn Youngkin won the governorship in Virginia, a state that Biden won by 10 points the year before.

It was projected over the weekend that the Democrats would keep control of the Senate, despite most political analysts predicting they would lose.

The Senate map for the year 2020 shows that Democrats need every single seat they can get in order to win the election, which is filled with potentially problematic races.

• Montana: Democratic Sen. Jon Tester is in his third term, but he’s never had a truly easy race – having won with roughly 49% twice and 50% in 2018, a good year for Democrats nationally. Tester hasn’t announced whether he will run again, but either way, Republicans will be targeting the state. Rep. Matt Rosendale, who lost to Tester by three points in 2018, is mentioned as a possible candidate, as in Rep.-elect Ryan Zinke.

There’s Arizona, where Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who won with 50% of the vote and could face a primary challenge from Rep. Ruben Gallego, is channeling liberals’ unhappiness with how she has voted in her first term.

Jacky Rosen is standing for reelection in Nevada. She won with 50% of the vote and was seen as vulnerable given the history of close statewide races in Nevada.

Sens. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania all sit in states that are expected to be hotly contested at the presidential level.

The two best pickup opportunities for Democrats are in Florida and Texas. Democrats took Florida last Tuesday, so Sen. Rick Scott should be pretty confident. Ditto Texas Sen. John Cornyn after 2022 proved, again, that races in the state are still the Republicans’ to lose.