With less than a month until the midterm election, we are starting to see a certain clarity in the Senate races, though the House doesn’t seem to have reached that point. While it’s clear the House majority will flip from Republican to Democrat, how many seats will change hands and the approximate size of the new majority remain open questions.
As this column noted two weeks ago, this is not so much a blue wave as a red undertow; the Democratic Party’s brand, as measured by favorability ratings, remains badly damaged. Where President Trump is the focal point, the GOP has problems; when the Democrats’ nominees become the center of attention, it is their turn to struggle.
But the big story is the cratering of GOP prospects over the last six weeks. A glimpse of that is obvious in consumer confidence among Republicans plummeting during September, a harbinger of low GOP voter turnout next month. It’s not a question of whether the GOP will have a bad night, but how bad will it be, despite structural advantages that should have precluded them from having a devastating midterm.
In the Senate, two previously competitive races now seem to be done deals. Arguably, freshman Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia was effectively reelected the day GOP Gov. Brian Kemp decided not to challenge him, but that shouldn’t take away from the fact that Ossoff has secured his seat in a way few would have predicted two years ago. Similarly, in North Carolina, GOP Sen. Thom Tillis’s decision not to seek a third term and former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s decision to seek the open seat effectively sealed that race in Democrats’ favor. In both cases, Trump’s inability to play well with the other kids in his own party effectively cost the GOP the seat; one can also say that Trump’s lack of support for Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, and subsequent endorsement of GOP Attorney General Ken Paxton, may well have punted another seat. While Democratic state Rep. James Talarico has proved to be a skillful and impressive candidate and raised tons of money, the reality is that had Cornyn been renominated, the seat would probably remain safely in Republican hands.
Seven seats currently held by Republicans, including both North Carolina and Texas, are now top-tier targets for Democrats. Joining them are toss-up Alaska, Iowa, Maine, and Ohio, and the newest addition, Kansas. Last week’s New York Times/Siena University poll made that official, showing GOP Sen. Roger Marshall and pastor Adam Hamilton tied at 45 percent. Many had felt the race was tightening, but this was the first high-quality, reliable poll to show it. (Let me reiterate that if you’re following key Senate and gubernatorial races, focus on first-class polling, specifically The New York Times/Siena, AARP, CNN, Fox News, Marist University, Marquette University Law School, and Washington Post/George Mason Schar School. Life is too short to look at crummy and/or misleading polling. Those six entities have released about two dozen high-quality state polls over the last three months, far superior to 95 percent of the political polls bouncing around the internet.)
We’ll likely get a Post/Schar poll this week of Maine, the only GOP-held seat in a state that voted against Trump in 2016, 2020, and 2024. That poll may show the state moving in a way I had long suspected it would—that is, in Sen. Susan Collins’s favor. While the incumbent president is an enormous liability, Democrats have a candidate-quality problem in Troy Jackson. Collins and her allies have also waged an impressive campaign and spent tons of money. While Jackson and his side are not coming anywhere close to the level of fundraising and spending on the opposite side, this isn’t about money; it is about Democrats having an unimpressive candidate in a race that will end up costing both sides a total approaching a half-billion dollars, a good chunk of change for a state with only 1.4 million residents.
In a year when Democrats are knocking on the door of deeply red seats, one would not expect the blue team to be struggling in Maine, nor struggling to hold on to open seats in Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Michigan. In both Michigan and Minnesota, Democrats have pushed the envelope with rather polarizing and risky candidates, in Abdul El-Sayed and Peggy Flanagan. Safer alternatives would definitely have more of an advantage.
Broadly speaking, however, the dynamic this year isn’t about Left vs. Right. Democrats don’t have to run with an uber-progressive agenda, risking alienating half of the electorate; they can just run on Trump not minding the store. The fact is that the priorities three-quarters of the electorate had in mind in November 2024 have little in common with where Trump has spent his time and effort. This morning, Trump’s most recent, eye-rolling focus on getting rid of Daylight Saving Time is a case in point. That comes on the heels of ballrooms, reflecting pools, an arch, the Kennedy Center, and whether our soldiers and sailors have adequate testosterone levels. This at a time when diesel is at record-high levels; gasoline, fuel oil, and fertilizer prices aren’t far behind; and interest rates are putting houses and cars out of reach.
One final word: At the risk of self-promotion, political junkies might want to watch a terrific panel discussion on the midterm elections held at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics. This year the IoP is celebrating its 60th anniversary; last week’s program, after a short film on the history of the IoP and brief remarks by Caroline Kennedy, featured a panel discussion that was really quite something. Moderated by Politico’s Jonathan Martin, the panel consisted of John Anzalone, the lead pollster for Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign; Betsy Ankney, the former political director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee and campaign manager for Nikki Haley; legendary Democratic strategist James Carville; conservative columnist Byron York; and yours truly.