Quietly…..
Republicans who can read and smell the political fire smoke around Donald Trump are worried…
With Joe Biden & Co. Democrats are running the table in the polls for next years Presidential election early one…
It is no wonder that they are looking to bolster their majority in Senate, knowing that the House is not gonna be their’s anytime soon…
Could Democrats replicate 2008 when a President Obama had a Democratic House and Senate*?
The GOP majority in the Senate is shaping up as a firewall for Republicans who are worried that President Trump might falter and lose the White House next year.
Republicans see winning back the House majority as a tough climb in 2020, and head-to-head matchups between Trump and various Democratic presidential contenders show the president behind his potential challengers.
Though Republicans overall are optimistic about Trump’s reelection prospects, they see holding the Senate, where they have a 53-47 edge, as crucial given the shape of races for the White House and lower chamber. And they’re playing their cards accordingly.
“If we lose the presidency — and if I had to guess right now, the odds are 10 percent we get the House back — the Senate is the only check and balance,” said one former Republican Senate chief of staff. “If we don’t keep the Senate, we’re basically screwed. I hate to just cut to the chase, but that is exactly what the [National Republican Senatorial Committee] is running with.”
Senate Republicans have relished their power to sideline major Democratic bills passed by the House, including sweeping election reform and gun legislation.
They argue that maintaining a GOP majority in the Senate is a crucial failsafe against “socialist” policies — the Green New Deal and “Medicare for All” — that could be pursued by a Democrat in the Oval Office coupled with a Democratic-controlled House.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the self-declared “Grim Reaper” for progressive legislation, has urged GOP incumbents to position themselves as a “firewall” against ideas being pitched by the field of Democratic presidential candidates.
“If I’m still the majority leader in the Senate think of me as the Grim Reaper … I guarantee you that if I’m the last man standing and I’m still the majority leader, it ain’t happening. I can promise you,” McConnell said during a stop in Kentucky earlier this year.
The “firewall” narrative has trickled down to battleground Senate races, with GOP incumbents seizing on McConnell’s message….
*Note…
Even with majorities in the House and Senate Obama had difficulties with getting things done with the Congress…
image…dailykos.com
More on the US Senate chances for Democrats and worries for GOPer’s….
…Ask Democrats and these are three states they will cite at the top of their list in the quest for four more seats and for good reason. Democrat Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in both Colorado and Maine in the 2016 presidential race. And last year, Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema won the Senate race in Arizona when she beat Martha McSally.
None of these three seats are open but all of them are already rated as toss-ups by the Cook Political Report. Colorado’s Sen. Cory Gardner is a one-term incumbent who won a close race in 2014 in a state that is trending Democratic. Maine’s Sen. Susan Collins is a four-term incumbent who is caught in the middle of the shifting terrain of the GOP. And in Arizona, the incumbent is McSally, who was appointed to her seat after Sen. John McCain died — but who also lost her 2018 senate race.
Those three seats have been on Democratic radar for months followed by the question, “But how do they capture number four?”
This week’s Georgia retirement added to the list of possibilities….
More…