With all the attention being placed on the battle for the House in 2022, realistic analysis of the battle for the Senate has been lacking, so I tried to provide some at New York:
Political handicappers looking to the 2022 midterms have focused on House races because the very predictable pattern of midterm House losses by the president’s party makes continuation of a Democratic House a real long shot (and probably a prohibitive long shot unless Joe Biden’s job-approval rating shows significant improvement soon). The loss of either chamber, of course, means the governing trifecta that has made enactment of part of Biden’s legislative agenda possible will be gone, probably for a good while (at least until 2026, by my reckoning). But there is some independent value in continued Democratic control of the Senate thanks to that chamber’s role in confirming Biden’s executive branch and judicial nominees along with the ability to control committee and floor action in a way that gives Democrats significant leverage and opportunities for conveying their message.
Because only one-third of the Senate is up for reelection every two years, there is not the sort of predictable relationship between Senate outcomes and the general political climate. In other words, a bad year for either party in presidential, House, or gubernatorial contests doesn’t mean a bad year in Senate races if the landscape is positive. We saw that most recently in 2018, when Republicans lost 41 net House seats and seven net governorships yet picked up two net Senate seats because the landscape (with 26 Democratic Senate seats and only nine Republican Senate seats at stake) was very positive for the GOP.
The Senate landscape is modestly positive in 2022 for Democrats, who have to defend only 14 seats as compared with 20 seats for Republicans. Moreover, as Amy Walter points out, none of the 14 Democratic seats are in a state carried by Donald Trump in 2020. Meanwhile, Republicans are defending two seats in states carried by Biden in 2020, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
But at the same time, Democrats are defending three Senate seats (in Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada) in states Biden carried very narrowly (he won by 0.30 percent in Arizona, 0.24 percent in Georgia, and a relatively luxurious 2.39 percent in Nevada). Republicans in the two nominally blue states whose Senate seats they control don’t have much ground to make up, either (Biden won Pennsylvania by 1.17 percent and Wisconsin by 0.63 percent). They also control an open seat in North Carolina, a state Trump won by only 1.3 percent.
To give you an idea of how much “swing” Republicans might rationally expect in a midterm, consider that Republicans won the national House popular vote by 1.1 percent in 2016 and Democrats won it by 8.6 percent in 2018. That’s a lot of movement against the party controlling the White House. Anything remotely like that in 2022 — again, controlling for state aberrations despite the trend toward straight-ticket voting in recent years — and Republicans could pretty easily sweep the six contests mentioned above, all rated as toss-ups by the Cook Political Report, and take control of the Senate by a 53-to-47 margin, assuming neither party breaks serve by winning in a less competitive state.
What may give Democrats better Senate odds is the current nature of Republican intrastate and intraparty dynamics. There are potentially fractious GOP Senate primaries in Arizona, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania that could produce nominees with real weaknesses. Moreover, in these states and others (notably Ohio, a “red” state that recently reelected a progressive Democratic senator), Trump’s insistence on turning GOP primaries into referenda on loyalty to his ludicrous 2020 election claims could interfere with the expected pro-Republican midterm trend.
Potential Trump-generated problems affecting Senate races aren’t limited to his involvement in just those races. Georgia is a classic example. Freshman Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock, who along with Jon Ossoff won by an eyelash in 2021’s unique dual general-election Senate runoff in what has become the ultimate battleground state, ought to be a sitting duck in 2022 with even a minimal midterm swing. But Trump enormously complicated Georgia politics by pushing the man Ossoff beat a year ago, David Perdue, into a primary challenge to the incumbent governor, Brian Kemp, as part of a purge effort aimed at those who didn’t support the 45th president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. The Perdue-Kemp primary is sure to be an extremely expensive and divisive affair. It could weaken the ultimate winner in a general election against Stacey Abrams and might spill over into the Senate race, where Republican front-runner and Trump favorite Herschel Walker hasn’t shaken questions about his background and temperament (or rid himself of primary opposition).
Divisive Republican gubernatorial primaries seem likely in Arizona and Pennsylvania, as well, and could extend to Wisconsin, where incumbent GOP Senator Ron Johnson is struggling with low favorability numbers.
Republicans should be considered the slight favorites to flip the Senate (and much stronger favorites to flip the House) in 2022, assuming Biden’s popularity doesn’t seriously improve by November. But Mitch McConnell should not be making big plans for 2023. His party’s lord and master, Trump, could screw things up yet, and you never know entirely what will happen in a wide array of competitive Senate races.
I agree with Steve’s comments. I know from experience that, while I am not especially a liberal, I am not what they could loosely call a conservative, and therefore not one of them. They seem to be able to make that judgment about me in about 5 minutes. I can feel the sharp eyes watching me. I do not make the correct coded responses that they all seem to know. I don’t know the correct responses even though I grew up in a very fundamentalist church. Now there are politically oriented coded responses that must be passed. I don’t make it. They will be polite and easy-going to your face for a short while, but once you’ve shown your colors, then the shading starts: how far out are you, how far out am I willing to go. When they find out that I am not willing to play their authority game, then, I’m out.
The Christian Right are deadly serious about their agenda. I’m not that sure about how they stand with the GOP any more, though I think they still have their eyes on the levers of power. I think W & Cheney has taken them into uncharted waters, but the authoritarianism is not the brand they wanted.
Make no mistake about it, the game is one of authority. Power might be a side element, but if they have the authority to make you respond, you can be saved again, and you will submit to a particular personal power as directed by their representative of God.
Thank you. It was a good entry with some excellent points.
“….also offered a reminder that most conservative white evangelical Protestant Americans are kind, decent, well-adjusted people who (whatever their voting habits) don’t really reflect the angry views of some of their self-appointed political leaders.”
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You’re being far too generous as to “everyday, commonfolk” religious conservatives in the U.S. Yes, at a funeral or picnic or wedding interacting with them may seem a pleasant if not innocuous event. Smiles, handshakes, “Howya doing?” get traded. Even more in-depth discussions about life might not see you getting consigned to hell for being the degenerate “you don’t belong to the right religion (or no religion)” person you are. However, these same people fervently want leaders ensconced in office pledging to enact laws enforcing a moral code in line with their conservative beliefs. Homosexual marriage is to be banned. Even homosexual relations are to be banned or criminalized. Abortion is to be outlawed. Prayer (Christian prayer) is to be allowed if not outright encouraged in public schools. The federal and state governments are to pay for or subsidize private, religiously leaning schools. Many believe God says the enviroment, plants and animals are there to be plundered for the pleasure and needs of humans and therefore laws restricting or preserving them are contrary to God’s will. Jews and other non-Christians are going to hell. This tenet is sacrosanct. No Jesus, no afterlife. No, amend that, you get some sort of afterlife. It’s just one wherein you twist and writhe in the fires of Hell or linger about in some sort of nothingness forever regretting rejecting Billy Graham. No, I wouldn’t mistake a few hours of interplay with a crowd of cordial, devout Christians as indicative of their willingness to allow everyone to just be left alone. Over Cokes and chips you are silently being judged. And given absolute control of the levers of power you will bend to their vision of morality and execution of public policy controlling it.