Senate Democrats' last hope against GOP mega-majority
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Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. in the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, September 19, 2024. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Forget next year: If Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) wants a shot to win back the majority in 2026, he'll need Senate Democrats to over-perform in the coming hours of vote-counting in Michigan, Nevada and Arizona.
Why it matters: Schumer's candidates have better margins than Vice President Harris in every battleground state. But if Democrats can't hold the GOP to fewer than 54 seats, winning back the majority gets extremely unlikely in two years.
- Democrats are privately hopeful that they can keep the GOP majority at 52 seats, but they'd have to run the table on the uncalled races.
- In Michigan, Arizona and Nevada, there is a path to victory for Senate Democrats.
- Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) has a taller hill to climb, but his campaign says they are hopeful outstanding votes in Philadelphia will help.
The big picture: Senate Republicans have already clinched a majority next year. But many of their candidates lagged behind President-elect Trump.
- Nevada Republican Sam Brown is under-performing Trump by over four points, according to AP's latest totals in the state. Arizona Republican Kari Lake is also lagging Trump by just over four percent.
- In the Blue Wall, Wisconsin Republican Eric Hovde and Michigan Republican Mike Rogers trail Trump by over one point.
- Pennsylvania Republican Dave McCormick also lags Trump by around one and a half points, but is favored to win that race.
Between the lines: The overwhelming rejection of the Democratic Party on Tuesday night wiped out Senate Democrats in tougher races, even though they, too, out-performed Harris.
- Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) has received around 116,000 more votes than Harris in Ohio. But he still lost comfortably to Republican Bernie Moreno.
- Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) has performed about seven points better than Harris in deep red Montana. That was never going to be enough for him to win.
Zoom out: This dynamic is exactly why the GOP tried very hard in the final weeks of the campaign to tie their Senate candidates directly to Trump, hoping the former president could drag them across the finish line.
- And it is also exactly why Senate Democratic campaigns — especially Tester and Brown — took every step to distance themselves from the national party.
What they're saying: A spokesperson for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the campaign arm of Senate Democrats, said in a statement on Wednesday that they think the remaining vote will strengthen their candidates' positions.
- "When this process of counting the votes concludes Democrats will have won races in multiple states carried by Trump and successfully limited the GOP's potential gains on their historically favorable map," said spokesperson David Bergstein.
