And Now for Some Good News!

Yesterday I examined three common “sky-is-falling” concerns among Democrats, chief among them likely losing the House. Today, I want to explore some positive news, specifically to revisit where we are with the Senate and why I think our chances remain decent at keeping or even improving upon our majority there. This matters a great deal because with a Democratic Senate, we can continue filling judicial posts as well as prevent catastrophe under the Electoral Counting Act in 2024, even if we do lose the House.

In 2022, 34 Senate seats are up for grabs, but this number is misleading. There are really only about 10 races where the race could be competitive, and the GOP is obsessed about four of them currently held by Democrats. 

Here’s the basic math of it: The GOP needs to pick up one net seat to return to the majority, so it is zeroing in on four swing state races for that possibility. But it also knows that for each open or GOP seat that it loses, its quest for the majority grows that much harder.

The good news is, those four Democratic seats—in Georgia, Arizona, New Hampshire and Nevada—are looking rather promising thanks in part to the GOP making a mess of things, falling behind on fundraising, and fielding very poor candidates.

In Georgia, Trump-backed candidate Herschel Walker has name recognition but carries a lot of negatives, including having been diagnosed with multiple personality disorder that, he claims, led him to threaten his wife with a gun and stalk his ex-girlfriends. But with Trump’s full-throated endorsement, Walker will be facing off against Sen. Raphael Warnock, who has years of experience running and building a formidable election machine. Racism within the MAGA base may also dampen enthusiasm for the contest, as voters will choose among two African American Senate candidates. Add to this the fact that Stacey Abrams will be running for governor in 2022 and will likely turn out massive support among her followers, and Georgia is looking overall positive for the Senate Democrats.

In Arizona, Sen. Mark Kelly is running for re-election in a state where he received 40,000 more votes than Joe Biden, who won the state. The GOP front runners there include Mark Brnovich, the current State Attorney General who is best known for his support of Arizona’s embarrassing election fraud audits and his attempts before the state supreme court to invalidate local mask mandates as unconstitutional. Another contender is Trump-supporting Blake Masters, a venture capitalist who still insists that Trump won the 2020 election. While information is limited, in fall polls Kelly was a few points ahead of each of these candidates in head-to-head match-ups. He is also one of the most formidable fundraisers in the Senate, so his seat is currently likely the safest among the four targeted by the GOP.

New Hampshire was looking a bit worrisome when it seemed like governor Chris Sununu would challenge incumbent Maggie Hassan for her seat. But Sununu disappointed the GOP by declining to run—an indication that his brand of genteel, New England Republicanism wasn’t a good fit for the brass-knuckle, Trump-inspired brawling in Washington. Without Sununu, it isn’t clear the GOP can field a strong challenger to Hassan. Indeed, the party apparently is so worried about a damaging primary among lesser-known GOP rivals that leaders have been trying to broker an agreement about who would run against her, but nothing has come of that yet.

Nevada has been a closely won “light” blue state for the past few elections, but Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto is an experienced protege of former Speaker Harry Reid and has a big fundraising lead, amassing $15 million in 2021 and going into 2022 with $8.3 million in hand—reportedly nearly seven times that of her best-funded opponent, former Nevada AG Adam Laxalt, who leads the GOP contenders in polling. Laxalt, like other GOP Senate hopefuls, has leaned hard into MAGA election conspiracy theories, having led the charge in Nevada in November 2020 to allege (without basis) election irregularities in signature matching software. He also fed a conspiracy around some 3,000 people who supposedly moved out of Nevada but still voted there. (It turns out, they were absentee ballots from military members and other recently relocated voters, not fraudulent votes). The races in Nevada are always within a few points, so it will come down to mobilization and enthusiasm, but right now it looks like Masto probably will keep her seat.

Even if the GOP were to knock out one of these tough Democratic incumbents, who are all currently better funded, more experienced, and better mobilized than their likely GOP challengers, they would still have to win every other close senate contest across the country. And right now, both Pennsylvania and perhaps Wisconsin look like possible pick-ups for the Democrats, making the GOP path back to a majority trickier and narrower than they’d hoped.

Later, we’ll take a look at the many formerly GOP-held open seats and vulnerable GOP incumbencies, not a single one of which Republicans can afford to lose in 2022.