While the presidential election obviously is at the top of our minds currently, the elections in 2018 will arguably have a bigger impact on government nationwide in the aggregate going forward. A third of the Senate, the entire House of Representatives, two thirds of governors, and the vast majority of state legislature seats will be up for election in two years. If you’re one of those people who only vote for president, then wonder why all we get is gridlock and bickering, its because too many people forget to pay attention to all these “less important” races. All the president can really do is sign off on or veto things. Its up to Congress and the state governments to actually enact laws. For now, I will just lay out the landscape in the Senate.
In light of two solid losses to Barack Obama nationally, the Republicans have been able to justify their continued obstruction by pointing to the huge gains they made in both the 2010 and 2014 midterm elections up and down the ballot. We will only be able to break the back of the nihilist Ted Cruz wing of the party by reversing that trend and showing them that governance matters and WE are the majority party in this country (actually beating Ted Cruz in Texas would go a long way toward reaching that goal too). Winning the White House isn’t good enough, we need to show them we will win even during off years where they supposedly have the advantage. Only then will there be a real reckoning within the Republican Party.
After good results in the 2006 and 2012 election cycles, the Democrats come into 2018 decidedly on the defensive in the Senate. Of the eight Republican held seats, only Nevada and Arizona seem like legitimate targets for our side. Dean Heller won Nevada with an unimpressive 46% of the vote against a weak opponent in 2012, but incumbency, winning in an Obama state with Obama actually on the ticket, and the tendency for Nevada to elect Republicans in off years recently makes me think he starts out at least with a slight advantage. Arizona’s Jeff Flake seems like he’d be hard to beat unless he gets some competition from his right in a primary, but he’s been a front man for the #NeverTrump crowd and it seems inevitable that he’ll face a primary. Texas and Mississippi could potentially, maybe, possibly be somewhat competitive with good candidates, but I think they are both probably out of reach with Democrats in the midst of a third consecutive presidential administration. All four of those seats will likely have incumbents running, making them even harder to win, and the other Republican held states are Wyoming, Nebraska, Utah, and Tennessee, four of the reddest states in the country. Safe R: 4, Likely R: 2, Lean R/Tossup: 2
On our side, there are 23 seats held by Democrats and two by Independents who caucus with the Democrats. Of those, it seems like at least 13 will stay in our hands without too much trouble given the states’ leans and the incumbents’ last margin of victory: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. Four more were close enough last time, a strong Democratic year, and in states that show a willingness to elect Republicans, but I still think we are in really good shape: Florida, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. If any of those four incumbents don’t run for reelection, those races instantly become strong pickup opportunities for the Republicans. That gives us 17 seats where we are virtually guaranteed to win or look like heavy favorites.
That leaves seven states that I think will be in serious danger of flipping unless we can figure out how to run a much better national midterm campaign while simultaneously holding the White House. Sherrod Brown in Ohio is probably the best bet to weather whatever storm might come our way, he’s a two term Senator now, but he only won with 51% of the vote in 2012. A solid candidate and a good Republican year could be enough to bring him down. Virginia is the other blue presidential state on this list, but that seat (assuming Kaine is VP, which I am) will be filled by appointment, that appointee will have to win statewide on his or her own in a 2017 special election, then the seat will be up again in 2018, so that race seems wide open and with Mark Warner’s close call in 2014 it seems like this will be a hard fought election no matter what. The other five seats are in states that are varying shades of red. Joe Manchin in West Virginia won with over 60% of the vote four years ago and seems like he’d be able to swim against the tide, but the partisan shift in his state has been one of the most dramatic in the country. Jon Tester in Montana has won twice now in a pretty red state, but he only took 49% of the vote in 2012 and there seem to be some decent potential opponents on the horizon. Montana’s recent history, though, shows a number of successful statewide Democratic candidates. Heidi Heitkamp was the upset of the cycle in 2012, winning North Dakota with 50%. Though the two Dakotas were sending four Democratic Senators to Washington as recently as 2002, and this particular seat has been held by Democrats since 1960, it will be an uphill battle, to say the least. The last two Senators on the list are Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Joe Donnelly of Indiana. Both of these Senators beat opponents who downplayed the seriousness of rape, becoming national symbols of shame, and still only managed to get 55 and 50% of the vote respectively. Without cartoonishly bad opponents in these red states, I don’t know if they pull it off again in a midterm environment. Safe D: 13, Likely D: 4, Lean D-Lean R: 7
The upshot is we are looking at a range of +4 to -11 or so seats with the lower end being more likely than the higher end of that range, but neither is all that likely. My best guess is that we will end up losing somewhere around four or five seats, but fewer than that is certainly possible.
Compared to the brutal nine seat loss in 2014, there are some things that give me hope for 2018. First of all, of the nine states we lost in that election, six of them haven’t voted Democrat for president in two decades and the other three (Iowa, Colorado, and North Carolina) are definitely some shade of purple, IA was open with a flawed candidate, and the incumbents in CO and NC lost by less than 2%. Six of the 11 non-Safe states I have listed Obama won twice, plus Indiana did vote Obama once. So the states we are defending seem, on the whole, more on the pink to purple end of the color spectrum rather than the darker hues of red in 2014.
The other factor that should work in our favor is incumbency. The two potential targets I have on my list that are purplish AND had Senate seats up in 2014 are Virginia and New Mexico, both of which were held by their respective Democratic incumbents despite the wave. So far, it seems like all of the incumbents in these seats are going to run for reelection. Four years ago, we lost four open seats that were vacated by Democrats. Three of the five remaining were lost by freshmen incumbents and the only two non-freshmen to lose were in Arkansas and Louisiana, two of the reddest states in the Obama era. Meanwhile, freshmen incumbents were able to hold not just swingy Virginia and New Hampshire, but also New Mexico and Minnesota, two states that are blue tinted, but definitely not locks. If we manage to keep all of our incumbents this time around, then we have a fighting chance to keep the losses to a minimum. If any of these seats are open races, we will have a really hard time winning them.
We play our cards right, Hillary Clinton has a Senate majority for her entire first term. Its not impossible, but it will be a hard fight.
Of course, two years is a long time in politics, there may (neigh, will) be deaths, retirements, scandals, subpar or surprisingly strong opponents, a changing political environment, and a whole host of other unforeseen factors that can shape the next election, but its never too soon to at least think about what comes next.
However, if you are one of those lurkers, passersby, people who only pay attention during presidential years, and you managed to make it with me to the end of this diary (thanks for sticking with me), the single most important factor that we can influence RIGHT NOW is winning as many Senate seats as possible THIS YEAR. With the horrendously awful candidate Republican voters decided to put on the top of their ticket and late breaking races going our way, we could potentially pick up TEN OR MORE Senate seats this year! So give some love, money, or time to Patrick Murphy in Florida, Deborah Ross in North Carolina, Katie McGinty in Pennsylvania, Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire, Evan Bayh in Indiana, Jason Kander in Missouri, Ann Kirkpatrick in Arizona, and Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada. All of these candidates are positioned to win in just over two weeks from now and need all the help they can get RIGHT NOW! Knock on doors, make phone calls, give a few bucks. And while we’re at it, you never know who the next Heidi Heitkamp will be, so check out Jim Gray in Kentucky, Foster Campbell or Caroline Fayard in Louisiana, Patty Judge in Iowa, Jim Barksdale in Georgia, Ted Strickland in Ohio, or Jay Williams in South Dakota. Even in these long shot races, the more we can show strength in the enemy’s backyard, the more we make them sweat, the more they feel the need to defend this territory in the future, and the better our chances down the road.
So while we work right now to punish the Republicans for making such a colossal mistake in nominating such a ridiculous person to run for President of the United States, we can’t lose focus. We need to follow up this drubbing by winning the even tougher fight immediately ahead of us. Don’t forget, I’m just focusing on the Senate here. The next election will be even more crucial in the states because so many governors and state legislators (particularly state senators with four year terms) in gerrymandered states will be up for election and whoever wins those races will be in charge of redistricting after 2020. To 2018 and beyond!!!!
