Control of the U.S. Senate Still Up for Grabs - Rob Horowitz
Rób Horowitz, MINDSETTER™
Control of the U.S. Senate Still Up for Grabs - Rob Horowitz
It is certainly the case that the fundamentals that usually drive mid-term election outcomes continue to favor the Republicans. While President Biden’s job approval has improved somewhat, at 42.9 % in FiveThirtyEight’s weighted average of recent polls, it remains low. In fact, it’s at a level that tends to produce significant gains for the opposition party. Similarly, only about 3-in-10 Americans think our nation is "headed in the right direction," as compared to about 7-in-10 who think we are “pretty seriously off on the wrong track,” according to the Real Clear Politics (RCP) average of recent polls.
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In short, if these are typical mid-term elections--which history tells us are usually referendums on perceptions of the performance of the incumbent president and the related question of how people feel things are going in the nation generally--one would expect Republicans to easily regain control of the House of Representatives and to win the Senate back as well. This is especially the case when one party controls not only the presidency, but both houses of Congress, so there is no place to deflect blame.
There are a number of signs, however, that this may not end up being a typical mid-term. First, the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade is providing a political boost to Democratic candidates. Taken together, the decision’s motivation of more Democrats to vote and its impact in persuading a slice of independent and Republican women who otherwise could have been counted on to vote Republican to cast their ballot for a Democratic candidate is the potential winning difference in some close races. By nearly 2 to 1(63% to 34%), Americans oppose the overturning of Roe v. Wade and a similar percentage say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to a Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) survey. Since the Dobbs decision, the percentage of Americans who believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases who say they will only vote for a candidate who shares their views on abortion has more than doubled.
Additionally, former President Donald Trump, who remains unpopular, has stayed front and center in our politics., This has enabled the Democrats to turn this election into a bit less of a pure referendum. In at least some voters’ minds, the election has become more of a choice with some voters likely to vote Democratic as the lesser of two perceived evils. The combination of the former president continuing to insist in the face of all evidence to the contrary that he won the 2020 election, his well-publicized mounting legal difficulties, the work of the January 6 select committee, his successful backing of extreme, election-denying candidates in Republican primaries around the nation and his fierce desire to stay in the news all contribute to a feeling among a key sub-set of swing voters that Trump is in some sense still on the ballot. This redounds heavily to the Democrats’ advantage, creating a somewhat less daunting political environment upon which to fight out individual House and Senate races.
These countervailing factors are unlikely to prevent Republicans from taking control of the House. This requires the GOP to only pick up 6 seats. When likely voters are asked the generic ballot question in polls—do they plan to vote for a Democrat or Republican for U.S. House of Representatives—it is roughly even, according to an average of recent polls. Given that Democrats are disproportionately concentrated in cities and inner-ring suburbs, they would need to be at least several points ahead in the generic ballot on election day to hold the House. The indications, however, are that they are losing a bit of ground in this measure as inflation picks up even more salience with the electorate and if present trends continue, the Republicans could be ahead by a few percentage points by election day.
On the other hand, there is still a better than even money chance that the outcome in the U.S. Senate will be different. This is in part because the states where the battleground races are being held are relatively friendly territory for Democrats. But the most important factor is that in Senate races, where voters learn a lot more about individual candidates than in House races, the quality of the candidate, as Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell noted over the summer, is a larger component of a voter’s decision. Simply put, Mr. Trump's success in putting a number of his endorsed candidates over the top in Senate primaries has given the Democratic party a lifeline.
In nearly every case, these Trump-backed candidates who were selected primarily because they were willing to embrace his false claim that the 2020 election was stolen are far weaker general election candidates than their primary opponents would have been: Trump’s actions saddled the GOP with problematic candidates in nearly all the key states that will determine control of the U.S. Senate: Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania, Blake Masters in Arizona, Don Bolduc in New Hampshire, Herschel Walker in Georgia and JD Vance in Ohio (even if Vance wins, his weakness has forced the Republicans to spend millions of dollars that could have gone elsewhere).
While control of the U.S. Senate is still in the balance, my bet is that the political winds at the Republicans' backs have been sufficiently tempered by countervailing factors and as a result are not strong enough to overcome the weakness of too many of their key Senate candidates.
The bottom line is the Democrats are positioned to narrowly hold their Senate majority. If this turns out to be the case, they should send a thank you note to Donald Trump—the gift that keeps giving to the Democratic Party.