Thirty-four seats in the US Senate, a third of the 100-member chamber, are scheduled to be contested on Tuesday, in contests that could influence the makeup of the new administration, influence the balance on the Supreme Court, and shape policy in areas ranging from foreign affairs to… To abortion.
Democrats are trying to cling to a one-seat majority, knowing that the odds seem stacked against them given the imminent retirement of West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin and the possibility that his seat will almost certainly fall to a Republican.
Elsewhere, the party faces uphill struggles, with incumbents trying to fill 23 seats, often in states that have become increasingly GOP as Donald Trump consolidates his grip on the party.
By contrast, there are only 11 Republican senators up for re-election, all in strongly Republican states, giving Democrats much less room to make gains.
The most vulnerable incumbent Democrat is widely believed to be Jon Tester, a three-term Montana senator, who – if polls are accurate – faces likely defeat at the hands of his Republican challenger, Tim Sheehy, a former US Marine whom Trump supports.
A win for Sheehy, whose campaign has faced allegations that he made racist comments about the state’s Indigenous community, could in itself be enough to push the Senate into Republican hands — unless Democrats succeed in ousting a GOP seat elsewhere.
However, Tester is not the party’s only weakness.
Also at risk is Sherrod Brown, whose Ohio seat has been labeled a swing by the Cook Political Report in the face of a challenge from Bernie Moreno, the former car dealer and immigrant from Colombia who has also linked himself to Trump.
About $500 million was pumped into ad spending, making it the most expensive Senate race in history. Brown has tried to emphasize shared policy goals with Trump — including support for anti-fentanyl legislation — in a once battleground state that the Republican presidential nominee is expected to hold comfortably.
This tactic may succeed, as recent opinion polls showed Brown (71 years old) leading by a small margin.
Also important are the races in the Democrats’ three blue-wall states, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, whose closeness mirrors the presidential contest between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
In Pennsylvania, Democratic candidate Bob Casey – a senator for 18 years – is seeking to win a fourth term in the face of the challenge posed by Republican Dave McCormick. McCormick, who financed his own campaign, sought to link Casey to the same policies on which Trump attacked Harris: immigration and past support for bans on fracking.
The race is rated as a swing by the Cook Political Report, as is the case in Wisconsin between another incumbent Democrat, two-term Sen. Tammy Baldwin, and her GOP challenger, Eric Hovd, another wealthy banker and real estate developer. Self-financing campaign.
Democrats are also on the defensive in Michigan where Assemblywoman Elissa Slotkin is running to fill the seat left vacant by the retirement of fellow Democrat Debbie Stabenow. Her Republican opponent is Mike Rogers, a former House GOP member and former FBI agent who was once a critic of Trump but has now won his endorsement.
Another weak point for Democrats is Nevada, where the party’s incumbent senator, Jacky Rosen, is running against Sam Brown, a decorated war veteran who was severely wounded in Afghanistan. Brown tried to fend off Rosen’s attacks on his stance on abortion by saying he would not support a nationwide ban and acknowledging that his wife once underwent the procedure.
In Arizona, Ruben Gallego, a US Marine Corps veteran, is trying to retain a seat in the Democratic camp after the retirement of independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema, who voted for the party in the chamber. He is being faced by Carrie Lake, a Trump ally who baselessly claimed that her failed 2022 gubernatorial bid was derailed by Democratic fraud.
Against this promising landscape for Republicans, Democrats have only a small number of potentially winnable GOP seats in which to seek disruption.
Most important is in Texas, where Ted Cruz, the 2016 Republican presidential nominee, faces a well-financed challenge from Colin Allred, the former NFL player turned civil rights lawyer. Democrats are hoping Allred can overtake Beto O’Rourke, who failed to unseat Cruz in the 2018 Senate race, losing by 2.6% of the vote.
Other hopeful, if less likely, areas include: Florida, where Republican Senator Rick Scott is running against Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a former member of the House of Representatives; and Nebraska, where Republican incumbent Deb Fischer is being challenged by Dan Osborne, an independent union leader.
Both the Texas and Nebraska races recently saw their GOP strength drop to “weak Republican” from “likely Republican,” according to Cook’s report.
