CNN looks at 10 seats….
(Me?…I think the Democrats GAIN the US House majority and LOSE the US Senate Majority come next year…)
The high-stakes presidential election has taken on increased significance for Democrats’ precarious path to holding power in the Senate.
Why? Because of the map. Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin’s decision not to run for reelection in West Virginia underscored how advantageous the 2024 playing field is for Republicans. But President Joe Biden winning reelection would give Senate Democrats a slight – emphasis on slight – cushion because of the tie-breaking role of the vice president in an evenly divided chamber.
The GOP needs to pick up only one or two seats – depending on which party wins the White House – to flip control of the Senate. West Virginia has long ranked as the seat most likely to flip, and with Manchin’s departure, Republicans are now almost certain to pick it up.
Attention has shifted to the two other red-state seats that Democrats are defending – Montana and Ohio, which are the second and third most likely to flip, respectively. (Rankings are based on CNN’s reporting, fundraising figures and historical data about how states and candidates have performed.)
The race for Senate control this year will offer a crucial political test: Are races so nationalized that the top of the ticket – and the factors swaying the contest – is all that matters? (That’s especially important this year because of how much overlap there is between five states that hold key Senate races and the presidential battlegrounds.) Or are individual candidates, the races they run and local issues just as important? The answer will likely decide who wins the chamber.
Democrats are defending seven of the top 10 Senate seats most likely to flip. An eighth, Arizona, is held by a onetime Democrat, independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who still caucuses with her former party and hasn’t said whether she’s running for reelection. Manchin’s decision has had the immediate effect of making the only two Democratic targets on this list – Texas and Florida – much more prominent in the party’s 2024 strategy.
Assuming West Virginia is off the map for Democrats, here’s what may need to happen for them to keep control of the Senate: They could defend all of their remaining seats and retain the presidency (because of the vice president’s tie-breaking vote in a 50-50 Senate); they could hold all their remaining seats, lose the presidency, but flip either Florida or Texas; or they could lose another seat, win the presidency and flip both Florida and Texas. Flipping either of those states while losing the presidency would mean the Democratic Senate candidate would have to significantly overperform the top of the ticket.
The math is daunting. Especially when multiple national and swing-state polls show Biden trailing his predecessor and the current GOP front-runner Donald Trump in a hypothetical rematch.
The Democratic senators on whom control of the chamber rests – specifically Jon Tester of Montana and Sherrod Brown of Ohio – likely need to distance themselves from the presidential race as much as possible. Both are well-established incumbents with individual brands back home, but it remains to be seen whether that’ll be enough for them to buck their states’ partisan lean as they have done in the past.
Democrats make the same argument – about the saliency of personality over partisanship – to explain how they can defeat Sens. Rick Scott in Florida and Ted Cruz in Texas. But those are expensive states that have eluded Democrats for years, and investing there could divert resources from seats they’re defending.
If there’s a glimmer of hope for Democrats, it’s that GOP primaries are bubbling, despite the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s new strategy of throwing its support early behind a candidate it identifies as the stronger general election nominee….
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For now, here are the 10 Senate seats most likely to flip….