Acritical question in this election is whether disgruntled Republicans hold their noses and vote for the GOP candidates despite their dismay with President Trump about gas prices, the war in Iran, tariffs, ballrooms, reflecting pools, arches, vaccines, the Kennedy Center, and a myriad other factors. Or do they simply stay home? Or do they take the extraordinary step of actually voting for candidates of the opposition party? That’s the $64,000 question.
Defections used to be more commonplace, when there were still conservatives in the Democratic Party and liberals in the Republican Party. Over the last 40 years, they dwindled. Indeed, for many voters, partisanship—or, more accurately, negative partisanship, hating the other party more than they like their own—is part of their identity. It informs the media they consume, what their social media algorithms steer into their feeds, and who they socialize with. Democrats can win purple states and districts, and the lightest of red ones, with just enough Republicans staying home. But once you get into states and districts that are more deeply red, that requires defections, and that is rare.
The Senate battlefield is the more explosive of the two chambers. Today there are at least seven Senate contests in which serious polls put the difference between the two candidates within the margin of error. There are five Republican-held Senate seats with margin-of-error races. Three are held by incumbents: Sens. Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, and Jon Husted of Ohio. The other two, Iowa and Texas, are open seats. This is not counting the open seat in North Carolina, which has become hopeless for the GOP. There, we expect a win by former Gov. Roy Cooper, which will put one seat in the Democratic column to begin with. I am also keeping a close eye on Kansas, where I would not be surprised to see it become very close.
Most polling shows Democrat Troy Jackson ahead of Collins in Maine by a few points, but Jackson is an underwhelming candidate and his advertising doesn’t seem to be compensating for that. While the original Democratic nominee, Graham Platner, had a warehouse full of personal baggage, he also was a much more talented campaigner than Jackson. I’d put Collins as a narrow favorite thanks to her superior political skills, the effectiveness of her campaign operation, and Jackson having enough baggage to keep him from fully consolidating the Democratic vote.
At the same time, my hunch is that Texas does flip. In state Attorney General Ken Paxton, Republicans managed to nominate perhaps the one possible candidate who could lose to a Democrat. Partisanship and ideology seem likely to have less of an impact on this race than character (or a lack thereof). If Democrat James Talarico wins, it will be despite his blue jersey and more-progressive views, not because of them. My advice to him if he wins: Rent an apartment, don’t buy a house.
As for the very dubious—and in many cases, amateurishly conducted—polls promoted by hope-ium dealers in Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, and South Carolina, I am not buying any of them. In a couple of cases, the Democratic, or faux-independent, candidates are interesting, but the situation is nearly impossible; in others, the situation theoretically offers an opportunity for a Democrat in a gale-force political environment to make it close, but the candidate is insufficient to get across the finish line. We can expect Democrats to win in a lot of places where they usually don’t, but even in this environment, they are not going to win everywhere.
Democrats are also defending two of their own seats in races where their candidate leads within the margin of error: Michigan and New Hampshire.
Democrats took a hell of a risk nominating Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, a three-or-four yard-line candidate on the very progressive end of the field, in a state where nominating a candidate between the 40-yard lines is a much wiser course of action. Arguably, this is the most important Senate race in the country. An El-Sayed win would be seen as a green light for the most progressive wing of the party to aggressively go after nominations in swing states and districts, not just in safely blue ones. But El-Sayed coming up short even in a great year for Democrats would send the message to be careful. Maybe someone can create a political version of a dating app, to help parties and primary voters match up candidates who are, or are not, compatible with their states and districts. Actually, common sense and even a modicum of political judgment should make such an app unnecessary.
In New Hampshire, the Democratic nominee, Rep. Chris Pappas, is not badly flawed, but he faces a formidable opponent in former Sen. John Sununu. While the Sununu name is not quite as beloved as some suggest, having had a Sununu as governor, senator, or House member for 28 of the last 42 years, New Hampshire voters know that a Sununu is not a Trump. While New Hampshire is technically considered a light blue state, a good case can be made that it is more of a purple, swing state, which gives Sununu a fighting chance.
I am also keeping a close eye on Minnesota; as in Michigan, Democratic primary voters made a highly questionable choice in nominating Peggy Flanagan, making it harder for the party to take full advantage of such a favorable political environment.
In Georgia, you can call it game, set, and match. That race is over, and Sen. Jon Ossoff is effectively reelected, meaning that no Democratic Senate incumbents are in tough races.
Still, this presents a very wide range of possible outcomes, particularly because as Election Day approaches, the closest races rarely split evenly; they tend to break disproportionately in one direction.
It will take an awfully big wave for Democrats to exceed the post-World War II average seat gain for an opposition party of 26 seats in the House. A look at The Cook Political Report’s Partisan Voting Index provides an indication of the natural partisan predisposition of each district, ranked from most to least Democratic. Basically, Democrats need to start winning districts that usually vote 6 percentage points or more Republican than the country as a whole before they reach jackpot territory, with gains of 30-plus seats. It could happen, but the small GOP majority means that they are not giving away many gimme putts.