Early Thoughts on the 2018 Senate Battlefield
If there's any upside to Donald Trump being elected President last year, it's that Democrats are no longer poised for a wipeout of historic proportions in the United States Senate in next year's midterms. I predicted three years ago that if Hillary won the White House, the Democrats would be poised to lose a dozen or more Senate seats in 2018, a year where they're heavily overexposed with Democrats defending 25 seats and Republicans defending only 8. Democrats won everything on the table (and a couple that most didn't even consider on the table) in the 2012 Senate races and are now facing an environment next year where even if they win everything in sight again, they'll still fall short of taking control of the Senate. It's a sobering situation, but it would be far gloomier for Democrats if 40-some thousand people in three swing states had voted differently and a very unpopular Hillary Clinton was now in the White House. The races are starting to take form now a year before the midterms and while we can be sure many new developments will arise before November 6, 2018, it will be fun to take a long look at the landscape and see how well I ultimately do next year when the results pour in.
And let's actually start with the special Senate election taking place in December of this year.
Alabama--I've mused for years how Alabama is the single hardest state for a Democrat to get elected statewide, particularly to a federal office, and that theory is being put to the test with wildly controversial Republican nominee Roy Moore facing off against Democratic U.S. Attorney Doug Jones to fill Jeff Sessions' vacated Senate seat. Moore, twice impeached from the judiciary, would be unelectable in most American states, but given the inelastic Republicanism of white voters in Alabama in the post-Obama era, it's almost unthinkable that he could be beaten. The old Democratic coalition of the 90s and early 2000s is gone as mostly white northern Alabama has intractably realigned to Republicans. Moore won by two points in 2012 trying to reclaim a state judicial position in Alabama and that wasn't a federal office as the Senate is. Most early polling suggests a single-digit race, but I suspect the race breaks towards Moore based on predictably rigid partisanship. His ability to whoop up conservatives over cultural issues will serve him very well in controlling the campaign's narrative down the stretch. If Moore wins by less than a double-digit margin on December 12th, I'd be surprised. I'll predict Moore by 14.
Now for the 2018 Senate races...
Arizona--This race got a lot more interesting, but possibly less complicated, just in the last few days. I can't say I was surprised when freshman GOP Senator Jeff Flake decided against running for re-election. Having pissed off Democrats by being a reliable Republican vote and pissed off Republicans by being a vocal critic of Donald Trump, everybody had a beef with Flake and he simply had no path to victory in a Republican primary. Far-right AZ state legislator Kelli Ward gave John McCain a spirited primary challenge in 2016 and was already running against Flake this year. My suspicion is that with Flake out, the GOP establishment won't just concede the seat to Ward but recruit Tucson-area GOP Congresswoman Martha McSally to run. Now McSally could still struggle against Ward in the primary given how unhinged Republican primary voters are these days, but she would come to both the primary and general election in a much stronger position than the incumbent Flake. As for the Democrats, they have a fairly strong candidate of their own with Tempe-area Congresswomen Krysten Sinema as their most likely nominee. But Arizona is still a Republican state and I suspect its midterm electorate will struggle to match the agreeable demographics of 2016, when Trump won the state by a comparatively soft three points. It's too early to know how anything shakes out, but I suspect the most likely scenario is that McSally wins the primary and beats Sinema in the general. That's just a preliminary call with the race nowhere near fully formed, and I still acknowledge that this is one of the Democrats' few real pick-up opportunities, giving them at least 40% odds of capturing this seat from my current vantage point.
California--As of 2012, the top two vote-getters on primary night in California advance to the general election, even if that scenario pits members of the same party against each other. This happened in 2016 when two Democrats, Kamala Harris and Loretta Sanchez, faced off in an open Senate seat. It's likely to happen again in 2018. Long-time Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein is running for re-election but is being challenged by LA-area legislator Kevin de Leon, also a Democrat. The Republicans currently have no major candidates in the field so the general election battlefield will more likely than not be Feinstein vs. de Leon. The seat will stay in Democratic hands no matter what but I suspect Feinstein prevails based on loyal constituencies circling the wagons one more time, as well as whatever spattering of Republicans who decide to vote in a Senate race with two Democrats being more likely to opt for the more moderate Feinstein against the more progressive de Leon.
Connecticut--Freshman Democratic Senator Chris Murphy should have no problem scoring a huge victory, probably with a margin of greater than 20 points.
Delaware--Low-profile Democrat Tom Carper has somehow been in the Senate for 17 years now. Far as I know, he's running for a fourth term and should score another dominating 2-1 victory if he does run again. Should the seat be open, it's hard to see how anybody but another Democrat wins as the Republican bench in Delaware is nonexistent.
Florida--If Hillary had won last year, three-term Democratic Senator Bill Nelson would likely have been defeated in 2018. The affable Nelson, who's had excellent political timing for all of his previous victories, now remains in the game for 2018, but can no means breathe a sigh of relief as it looks as if GOP Governor Rick Scott is running against him. Based on the numbers, Scott wouldn't seem to be that great of an opponent, having barely eked out one-point victories in the very Republican years of 2010 and 2014, but his popularity has risen recently with Florida's economy booming and generally on-point stewardship during recent hurricanes. A few early polling hypotheticals have come out showing the race a dead heat, and that's not good news for Nelson, particularly since a Florida midterm electorate is always far whiter and more conservative than a Presidential year electorate in Florida...and Democrats couldn't even win with that electorate in 2016! Scott was only re-elected in 2014 due to weak turnout by heavily Democratic blacks in Jacksonville and Puerto Ricans in Orlando, and if that pattern holds for the next midterm, Scott will win again as the white electorate in Florida, which in previous cycles has been pretty friendly to Nelson, keeps shifting further and further to the right. If the political environment grows as friendly to Democrats as some suspect, Nelson will pull it out, potentially with ease, but I'm not yet convinced it's gonna be that Democratic of a year, so for now I'm predicting a narrow upset by Scott. GOP +1
Hawaii--Freshman Senator Mazie Hirono seems like a slam-dunk for re-election. Even the few Republicans of prominence in Hawaii have given no indication that they're seeking to challenge her.
Indiana--When Democrat Joe Donnelly went into the 2012 Indiana Senate race, he knew two major things had to go right for him to win. First, long-time GOP incumbent Richard Lugar had to be taken out by a wingnut in the Republican primary. Second, the wingnut who beat Lugar in the primary would have to make a huge gaffe that rendered him unelectable. Both of those things happened and Donnelly stumbled his way into the Senate, but even with this unusually favorable set of circumstances, Donnelly only managed to win by six points and only barely crested 50%. Had Hillary won last year, Donnelly would have lost his re-election bid by double digits. He has a fighting chance to prevail in 2018 with his party on offense, but I still think it's odds-against. There are three pretty high-profile Republican challengers already in the race, with Congressmen Luke Messer and Todd Rokita currently considered the strongest. Donnelly has a geographic ace in the hole in that his home base in northern Indiana is the most elastic region of the state and he's likely to overperform in the South Bend, Elkhart, and Kokomo areas where he used to serve in the House. Messer and Rokita are less likely to see parochial advantages from their GOP stronghold seats in central Indiana. With all of that in mind though, it's hard to see Indiana being winnable for a Democrat without Presidential year turnout in urban areas and college towns. The bottom line is that Democrats would have to be having a really good night nationally for Donnelly to prevail in this increasingly difficult state, and I just don't see it yet. GOP +2
Maine--Independent Angus King, who caucuses with the Democrats, seems poised to win re-election handily even as Maine has been lurching to the right in recent years. I'm sure Democrats would prefer to see an actual Democrat win the seat, King is the safe bet and it seems very likely they will quietly acquiesce and not put up any challenger to King. The GOP will put up somebody but the race is a huge long shot against the popular King.
Maryland--Two-term Democrat Ben Cardin is probably running for re-election. Whether he does or doesn't, Maryland is a near impossible nut to crack for Republicans in federal races, as evidenced by the fact that they didn't even bother to seriously contest an open seat last year. Pretty safe bet this stays in Democratic hands.
Massachusetts--Had Hillary won last year, I suspect Democratic freshman Elizabeth Warren would have faced a serious re-election challenge with an outside chance that she'd lose. Plenty of clueless national Democrats consider Warren the intellectual mirror image of gruff populist Bernie Sanders, but polling data nationally and even in Massachusetts suggests she's not that popular. Former GOP Senator Scott Brown's caricature of her as "Professor Warren" seems to have stuck and I suspect she's gonna have a hard time shaking it among the very blue-collar workers who most cottoned to Bernie Sanders. In Trump's America, it's pretty close to a sure thing that deep blue Massachusetts re-elects Warren, but I suspect the margin will be surprisingly slow to national Democrats, even if her challenger ends up being a blowhard brute like Kurt Schilling. A soft Warren re-election might be the best thing for Democrats if it helps them figure out she would be a disastrous Presidential nominee in 2020.
Michigan--Three-term Democrat Debbie Stabenow is another member of the Class I Senate cohort who has been lucky enough to run only in favorable Democratic years, making it hard to determine just how strong of an incumbent she is. Certainly her luck would have run out if Hillary had won last year, but even with her party on offense, Stabenow could well have a race on her hands. At least for now, Kid Rock is acting like he doesn't plan to run. It's always a crap shoot with celebrity candidates in terms of how their skill set translates to the campaign trail, but if Kid Rock was any good at this sort of thing at all, he'd have been a contender, and would probably have been a clear favorite had Trump narrowly lost last year instead of won. Even if Kid Rock stays away, Congressman Fred Upton from southwest Michigan is mulling a run and would have the potential to be a very strong candidate. Young African American businessman and Iraq War veteran John E. James is already declared as a candidate and also shows signs of being an outstanding sleeper candidate who could potentially rise to the challenge if Upton opts out. The GOP seems to have a plethora of strong options here, meaning the Democrats better take the challenge to Stabenow seriously. At this early stage, I'll still predict that she wins, but it wouldn't surprise me at all to see this race become competitive down the road, particularly since Trump proved last year that a Republican can win Michigan.
Minnesota--Two-term Democrat Amy Klobuchar has won by more than 20 points twice in her previous campaigns, both in strong Democratic years. After Trump's near-victory in the Gopher State last year, I think Klobuchar could have found herself struggling running for a third term had Hillary been elected President. As a former Minnesotan, it would be interesting to see how popular Klobuchar really is and see her have to run in such a defensive environment. Since President Hillary didn't happen though, it's very likely Klobuchar is poised for another blowout victory, particularly since her only GOP challenger so far is a backbencher legislator from exurban Sherburne County.
Mississippi--It's rare that an interesting Senate race in Mississippi is taking shape but 2018 could be just that. For my money, it's 50-50 on whether Republican incumbent Roger Wicker wins the primary or if right-wing firebrand Chris McDaniel pulls it out. McDaniel likely squandered some of his goodwill among Mississippians with his monthslong crybaby tour when he got outfoxed by long-time Senator Thad Cochran in the 2014 primary runoff, but the fever swamp in the Trump-era GOP has only strengthened in the years since and McDaniel's pitch still has an audience. If Wicker wins the primary, then it should be a slam-dunk for Republicans to hold the seat in the general election. That's probably true even if McDaniel wins the primary, but Democrats could have an interesting nominee in Brandon Presley, Elvis's cousin and twice-elected public service commissioner in the northern district of MS, if Presley ends up deciding to run. Like Travis Childers in 2014, Presley is well-suited parochially being from northern Mississippi, the only region of the state where the white vote is somewhat elastic and thus amenable to a hometown conservative Democrat. A Democratic victory in Mississippi would require maxed-out African American turnout, strongly above-average Democratic performance in northern Mississippi, and nearly unanimous support from the small number of GOP moderates in suburban Jackson and on the Gulf Coast. It's a very tall order, especially in a midterm, and next to impossible if Wicker survives the primary, but it's less of a heavy lift than Doug Jones is currently facing against Roy Moore in Alabama. The safe money is on the GOP is Mississippi though.
Missouri--The only thing that has kept me from completely writing off the rapidly GOP-trending Show Me State is that last year, Democratic Senate nominee Jason Kander ran as an unapologetic liberal against stale GOP incumbent Roy Blunt and got within three points of victory even when Donald Trump was winning by 19 points at the top of the ticket. Still, Kander was a blank slate, so I'm thinking there will be a difference between him and incumbent Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill, running for a third term having already governed as an unapologetic liberal in defiance of the direction her state is going. McCaskill has proven herself incredibly wily in the past, particularly in 2012 when she gamed the GOP primary to help choose her own opponent who self-immolated right on cue shortly after getting the nominated, allowing McCaskill to win by a shocking 17-point margin. This year, she's unlikely to have the framework to similarly game the race as the Republicans appear to be consolidating around young Attorney General Josh Hawley, who is young and inexperienced and may possibly prove to be a bad candidate, but this time McCaskill is more likely to have to figure out how to win on her own the way she did in 2006. I won't underestimate McCaskill, but I still consider her the most endangered among so many endangered Democratic incumbents this year. A look at Kander's county map in 2016 spells out the magnitude of McCaskill's challenge. He scored only six county victories, all in Kansas City, St. Louis, and Columbia and with Presidential year turnout, still managing to lose every square inch of rural Missouri and get smashed even in the college towns despite his personal profile. The biggest problem for McCaskill and any Missouri Democrat is the trendline in the southern suburbs of St. Louis, which is the home base of former Democratic House Leader Dick Gephardt and vital to any chance of statewide victory for a Missouri Democrat. But it's trending hard to Republicans and was out of reach for Kander. With all of these key jurisdictions becoming so impenetrable for Democrats, it's nearly impossible to imagine what a path to victory for McCaskill looks like in 2018. GOP +3
Montana--There are five Democrats up for re-election in 2018 in deep red states, and of the five, the only one I think is better positioned for victory than defeat next year is two-term Democrat Jon Tester. For one thing, Montana remains an elastic state where Democrats manage to win a disproportionate number of close races even in very Republican years, such as Governor Steve Bullock who was re-elected in 2016. Tester is a survivor himself, successfully cobbling together Montana's wobbly Democratic coalition of retired union workers, Native Americans, and college students to eke out victory on two occasions, and remains personally popular. The GOP's relatively uninspired cohort of declared candidates at this stage of the race gives Tester additional grounds for optimism, with State Auditor Matt Rosendale the strongest of the bunch at this stage. Tester would have been toast had Hillary won last year, but as far as I'm concerned he's in the catbird seat for another term right now. With that said, his margin for error is close to zero and it wouldn't surprise me if he lost given the partisan tide he's up against.
Nebraska--The real contest here is likely to be the Republican primary. Freshman Republican Deb Fischer may be a completely reliable Republican vote but Steve Bannon is still scheming to dethrone her in the GOP primary, with former state treasurer Shane Osborn as the most frequently cited challenger. The Osborn name is golden in Nebraska and it's not clear whether Fischer has made enough of an impact on voters in the Cornhusker State to avoid being vulnerable. I'll take the safe call and bet on Fischer prevailing, but whoever wins the primary is almost certain to win the general election as Democrats are to the point of not even bothering to compete in Nebraska any longer. Theoretically, either Scott or Jane Kleeb could be a viable contender in a perfect storm, but even in the very strong Democratic year of 2008, Scott Kleeb lost an open seat contest by double digits so it's hard to see him winning now with Nebraska having consolidating even harder into the Republican column.
Nevada--There is no question that one-term Republican incumbent Dean Heller is very vulnerable both in the primary and the general election. Honestly, I'd be surprised if he survives his primary challenge from the right by perennial candidate and lovable mega-loser Danny Tarkanian. By all conventional metrics, either Heller or Tarkanian would seem to be the underdogs against Congresswoman Jacky Rosen, the likely Democratic challenger in this blue-trending state, but as with every election in Nevada in the last decade, Rosen's fate will be determined by whether the Reid machine is sufficiently mobilized. When the union-fueled Reid machine shows up to vote in Nevada, Democrats are pretty close to unbeatable. When it doesn't show, Democrats get slaughtered up and down the ballot. Democrats had better hope that anti-Trump hysteria motivates the base and gets that vote out. Tarkanian's losing streak could end if it doesn't, and if Heller survives the primary, he shouldn't be underestimated being the only Republican from a battleground Senate race in 2012 who prevailed. Dem gain (GOP +2)
New Jersey--It's telling how challenging of a map 2018 will present for Democrats when they even have a vulnerability in the deep blue Garden State. Two-term incumbent Bob Menendez has been on the periphery of unsavory rumors for his entire Senate tenure and is currently in the midst of a corruption trial. It would be best for Democrats if he was found guilty and forced to resign next year, giving Democrats time to replace him well before election day, although given the culture in New Jersey politics it wouldn't necessarily be an easy task to find a replacement less corrupt than Menendez. A different Democratic nominee would certainly win in Jersey in the current political climate, but if Menendez is found not guilty, there will still likely be a taint of scandal that lingers in voters' minds. It probably won't be enough to defeat him in New Jersey, but it could be unnecessarily close. If Hillary had won and the Democrats were playing defense, it's not unthinkable that Menendez could be genuinely vulnerable.
New Mexico--Freshman Senator Martin Heinrich is yet another Democrat would be incredibly vulnerable heading into 2018 had Hillary won, with a couple of GOP heavy hitters such as Heather Wilson and Susanna Martinez at the top of the list of challengers that could take him out. But with the Democrats on offense this year, it seems less likely a top Republican will step up and even less likely still that Heinrich could be defeated. It's still too early to know for sure but I'm pretty confident that Heinrich will be safe.
New York--Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand will win re-election with another large and comprehensive victory, and unlike so many other states, that would be true even if Hillary had won last year and was deeply unpopular. The real question is how this sets Gillibrand up for a likely Presidential bid in 2020. She's an attractive and articulate candidate but her electoral history--getting elected as a Blue Dog in a conservative upstate New York district and then getting appointed to the Senate and reinventing herself to the left of Bernie Sanders--comes across as a bit too opportunistic to easily explain away. Still, looking at the weakness of the Democratic Presidential field, they could and likely will do worse than Gillibrand.
North Dakota--As recently as a decade ago, I doubt I'd be sweating an election in North Dakota in an environment like 2018 seems to poised to be. But a lot has changed in North Dakota in the last decade, and what was then a Republican but elastic state with a deeply progressive history is now a petro state whose fortunes rise and fall with the deeply conservative oil and gas industry. Donald Trump won here by an astonishing 38 points last year. With that context, it's even more amazing to speculate on the fact that Democrat Heidi Heitkamp found a way to win her open seat in 2012, a year Mitt Romney was winning by 20 points at the top of the ballot and when the state was at the peak of its oil boom. Can she do it again? I'm not gonna understimate Heitkamp after what she pulled off in 2012, but her approval ratings are lukewarm and her opposition is taking her more seriously than they did back then when nobody believed she could win. Her path to victory was already narrow six years ago but in a midterm cycle she'll likely have fewer college students in Fargo and Grand Forks to offset what has become a lockstep Republican wall in the western half of the state where all the oil growth is. If Hillary had won last year I suspect Heitkamp would even bother trying for a second term, but she seems poised to put up a fight for 2018. There are a few viable Republicans running against her, but whichever one gets the nomination has an unmistakable advantage in the general. GOP +3
Ohio--Two-term Democrat Sherrod Brown is one of the most liberal Senators in the country representing a state trending increasingly Republican now that the GOP is Trump's party. It was telling that in 2012, even as Obama won Ohio 51-48, Brown only prevailed 50-45 against a very weak challenger in State Treasurer Josh Mandel. If Hillary had won last year, Brown's career would be over. Even now, Brown's re-election is no better than even money next year. Working in his favor is the fact that the execrable Mandel seems poised to be his challenger again. Several GOP contenders, particularly Governor John Kasich, would be much stronger opponents but the field seems all but cleared for Mandel. Last year, another Democrat with tremendous blue-collar appeal--former Governor Ted Strickland--was crushed in his bid for a Senate seat against Rob Portman, and Strickland even managed to lose the union strongholds of northeastern Ohio where Democrats have almost always won big in the past. If a Democrat of Strickland's pedigree can't even beat George W. Bush's former outsourcing czar in the Mahoning Valley then I question if Brown's similar brand of left-populism has continued resonance in the areas that have always been his base or if it's hopelessly realigned to Trumpism. For now, I'll say Brown ekes it out, but only because Mandel is such a flyweight.
Pennsylvania--Six years ago, two-term Democrat Bob Casey phoned in his re-election campaign and while he still won comfortably, a random coal baron named Tom Smith managed to hold Casey to single digits. Since then, every corner of Pennsylvania outside of the Philadelphia area has taken a sharp turn towards Trumpism, and the GOP is running a strong challenger against Casey this year in Congressman Lou Barletta, who got a head start on Trump's brand of right-populism long before Trump burst onto the political scene. So if Trump and Barletta are cut of the same cloth, Barletta should be well positioned to follow Trump's path to victory right? I'm still leaning towards Casey in this race as he's always had more of an appeal to rural voters and old-school union Democrats, particularly in comparison to Hillary Clinton. Casey is from the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area and has dominated there in the past, but Barletta also hails from the same area and will likely limit the parochial advantage. Still, if Casey can hang on in places like Erie and Bethlehem, while maintaining a lopsided advantage in metropolitan Philadelphia and limiting his losses in southwestern Pennsylvania, he is likely to win. I wouldn't bet on a particularly big margin at this point though.
Rhode Island--One Democrat who will almost certainly have a safe glide into a third term is Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. Democrats will really have a trainwreck on their hands if this one were to become competitive but it's hard to imagine it would.
Tennessee--When Republican Senator Bob Corker announced his retirement last month, the floodgates opened with possible candidates to fill his vacant seat, with everybody from NFL quarterback Peyton Manning on the Republican side to country singer Tim McGraw on the Democratic side. It looks now as though the race will take on a more conventional tone, however. A couple of Republican House members, current and former, have announced they're running, but the frontrunner would certainly seem to be right-wing Marsha Blackburn, who has long represented a Republican stronghold district that links the darkest red Memphis suburbs to the darkest red Nashville suburbs. She even has the Bannon seal of approval, and in a state with a tea-flavored GOP primary electorate as Tennessee has, I like her chances. On the Democratic side, there's talk that popular former Governor Phil Bredesen might get in, but I'm skeptical that he will. So far, attorney and Iraq War veteran James Mackler is the best the Dems have going. I don't know anything about him but he seems like a huge long shot to run a viable campaign in a state that has moved so far out of Democrats' grasp. Even if Bredesen runs I suspect he'd lose by double digits. Tennessee has just become too inhospitable for Democrats, and Trump wouldn't be much of a liability there. The biggest reason Corker is retiring is because Tennessee voters don't think his head is sufficiently up Trump's ass!
Texas--A little over a year ago, Donald Trump accused Republican Senator Ted Cruz's father of being involved in the JFK assassination and Cruz was booed off the stage at the Republican National Convention when he didn't formally endorse Trump. At the time, the media assured us Cruz's political career was over. Fast forward to present tense and all appears to be forgiven on all sides, to the point that the only incumbent Republican Senator that Steve Bannon is not targeting with a primary challenge is former chief rival Cruz. And Cruz remains popular in Texas, making him a cinch for re-election. The Democrats have an interesting candidate on a kamikaze mission running against him in El Paso Congressman Beto O'Rourke, but I'm guessing O'Rourke is pursuing this race primarily to raise his statewide profile for a more winnable race down the road as it's very hard to see him beating Cruz next year, particularly with the famously hard-right turnout model in Texas midterms.
Utah--All the buzz this past week is that long-time Republican Senator Orrin Hatch is preparing to retire, bequeathing his seat to former GOP Presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Given Utah's nominating process, Hatch could find himself denied the nomination if he doesn't retire, but the field would likely clear for Romney, who is wildly popular in the Beehive State. Either Hatch or Romney would easily win the general election as well in this dark red state.
Vermont--There's no indication that left-wing Independent Bernie Sanders plans to throw in the towel on his Senate seat so I'm operating under the assumption that he runs for a third term and scores another dominating victory. If Sanders does retire, his seat will almost certainly stay in Democratic hands.
Virginia--If Hillary Clinton had been elected last year, Democratic Senator Tim Kaine would now be Vice-President and whoever was appointed to fill Kaine's seat would be defending it. And given the Old Dominion's modern Democratic coalition and it's vulnerability in low-turnout midterms, I wouldn't like his or her chances to hold the seat in a defensive cycle. Seeing as how none of the above scenarios ended up playing out, however, Tim Kaine is likely to run for a second term without top-tier opposition and is well-positioned for a comfortable victory. Even in the best-case scenario, however, it would surprise me if Kaine wins by double digits because as the state grows and becomes more Democratic, the old guard is becoming more inelastically Republican.
Washington--When Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell beat a Republican incumbent by around 1,000 votes in 2000, Washington was still a swing state. Not only has the state been trending heavily towards Democrats ever since, Cantwell has always run in strong Democratic political environments making it somewhat difficult to get a read on her popularity. In Trump's America, Cantwell will likely have the wind at her back again in 2018 and win a fourth term by more than 15 points.
West Virginia--Many Democrats have been breathing a premature sigh of relief about Democratic Senator Joe Manchin in recent months because his approval rating is still strong and he's had decisive leads in head-to-heads against the two Republicans challenging him, Attorney General Patrick Morrissey and Congressman Evan Jenkins. But I still consider Manchin the most vulnerable Democratic Senator and a dead man walking whose fortunes will turn on a dime once the race gets litigated. Now I underestimated Manchin in both 2010 and 2012 and he managed to win handily both years, so it's entirely possible I could be wrong again, but he was still a blank slate conservative Democrat back then and West Virginia hadn't fully realigned the way it has now into Trump's second best state in the country. Furthermore, Manchin had a really terrible challenger both cycles with carpetbagging rich guy John Raese, who got little in the way of assistance from the party. Either Morrissey or Jenkins would likely make for stronger challengers and would get more institutional support from the GOP, a party whose Presidential nominee just won the state by 42 points last year. Manchin is particularly vulnerable on two issues. Primarily, he co-authored a theoretically popular background check bill on guns in a state that is unwaveringly pro-gun. When Manchin is demagogued as leading a national effort to "take our guns away", the air in his approval rating balloon will very rapidly deflate. Furthermore, the GOP will make the race a referendum against both Trump and coal, and no Democrat can win that referendum in West Virginia. Again, Manchin exceeded my wildest expectations twice before so I may well be underestimating him again, but I believe he'll lose by double digits. GOP +4
Wisconsin--It would be generous to refer to the Badger State as politically schizophrenic in recent years, electing Obama very handily twice and electing liberal Democrat Tammy Baldwin to the Senate while also electing the radically conservative Republican Governor Scott Walker and Tea Party Senator Ron Johnson. But the reality is that Wisconsin has been trending deeply conservative. If Hillary had won last year, Senator Baldwin--who has lukewarm favorables--would likely be poised for defeat. But I'm inclined to give her a slight edge because of the way the national environment is shaping and the lack of top-tier opposition. Neither Bannon-endorsed businessman Kevin Nicholson nor State Representative Leah Vukmir looks overly intimidating from afar, but then neither did Ron Johnson when he burst onto the scene in 2010 to score a huge upset. Baldwin is by no means out of the woods but at least for now I think she's more likely to win than lose next year.
Wyoming--The action in this race could well emerge in the primary. Incumbent Republican John Barrasso is threatened with a Bannon-endorsed challenged from former Blackwater thug Erik Prince. In a small state like Wyoming where politicians are more likely to have a personal relationship with their constituents, these kinds of primary challenges tend to be less successful so I'm predicting Barrasso survives the primary. Whoever emerges from the Republican primary is almost certain to win the race, however, given that Wyoming is Trump's best state in the country.
That's the ugly state of the battleground. Even presuming a year with a moderately decent Democratic environment, the party is almost certain to lose seats and the battleground is such at this stage of the cycle that a 10-seat loss is not entirely inconceivable. Shortly after Trump won last year, Charlie Cook put out a Senate map that predicted all of these battleground races to be at worst "leans Democrat", expecting a Trump Presidency would protect just the vulnerable Democratic incumbents. I suspect he's scaling back those predictions now as he's seeing just how tribal the country has become. Obviously there's a year to go and the political climate could get even worse for Trump and the Republicans, giving more of these Democrats cover than they have now, but even in a political climate as strong as 2006 or 2008, I suspect the Democrats would have taken some losses with this map. Next spring or summer, when the races are more settled, I'll give these races another look. And while it's tempting to make some early guesses on the 37 gubernatorial races on deck for 2018, the candidate fields are way too unsettled at this stage to do so. I'll punt those predictions for at least a few more months.
And let's actually start with the special Senate election taking place in December of this year.
Alabama--I've mused for years how Alabama is the single hardest state for a Democrat to get elected statewide, particularly to a federal office, and that theory is being put to the test with wildly controversial Republican nominee Roy Moore facing off against Democratic U.S. Attorney Doug Jones to fill Jeff Sessions' vacated Senate seat. Moore, twice impeached from the judiciary, would be unelectable in most American states, but given the inelastic Republicanism of white voters in Alabama in the post-Obama era, it's almost unthinkable that he could be beaten. The old Democratic coalition of the 90s and early 2000s is gone as mostly white northern Alabama has intractably realigned to Republicans. Moore won by two points in 2012 trying to reclaim a state judicial position in Alabama and that wasn't a federal office as the Senate is. Most early polling suggests a single-digit race, but I suspect the race breaks towards Moore based on predictably rigid partisanship. His ability to whoop up conservatives over cultural issues will serve him very well in controlling the campaign's narrative down the stretch. If Moore wins by less than a double-digit margin on December 12th, I'd be surprised. I'll predict Moore by 14.
Now for the 2018 Senate races...
Arizona--This race got a lot more interesting, but possibly less complicated, just in the last few days. I can't say I was surprised when freshman GOP Senator Jeff Flake decided against running for re-election. Having pissed off Democrats by being a reliable Republican vote and pissed off Republicans by being a vocal critic of Donald Trump, everybody had a beef with Flake and he simply had no path to victory in a Republican primary. Far-right AZ state legislator Kelli Ward gave John McCain a spirited primary challenge in 2016 and was already running against Flake this year. My suspicion is that with Flake out, the GOP establishment won't just concede the seat to Ward but recruit Tucson-area GOP Congresswoman Martha McSally to run. Now McSally could still struggle against Ward in the primary given how unhinged Republican primary voters are these days, but she would come to both the primary and general election in a much stronger position than the incumbent Flake. As for the Democrats, they have a fairly strong candidate of their own with Tempe-area Congresswomen Krysten Sinema as their most likely nominee. But Arizona is still a Republican state and I suspect its midterm electorate will struggle to match the agreeable demographics of 2016, when Trump won the state by a comparatively soft three points. It's too early to know how anything shakes out, but I suspect the most likely scenario is that McSally wins the primary and beats Sinema in the general. That's just a preliminary call with the race nowhere near fully formed, and I still acknowledge that this is one of the Democrats' few real pick-up opportunities, giving them at least 40% odds of capturing this seat from my current vantage point.
California--As of 2012, the top two vote-getters on primary night in California advance to the general election, even if that scenario pits members of the same party against each other. This happened in 2016 when two Democrats, Kamala Harris and Loretta Sanchez, faced off in an open Senate seat. It's likely to happen again in 2018. Long-time Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein is running for re-election but is being challenged by LA-area legislator Kevin de Leon, also a Democrat. The Republicans currently have no major candidates in the field so the general election battlefield will more likely than not be Feinstein vs. de Leon. The seat will stay in Democratic hands no matter what but I suspect Feinstein prevails based on loyal constituencies circling the wagons one more time, as well as whatever spattering of Republicans who decide to vote in a Senate race with two Democrats being more likely to opt for the more moderate Feinstein against the more progressive de Leon.
Connecticut--Freshman Democratic Senator Chris Murphy should have no problem scoring a huge victory, probably with a margin of greater than 20 points.
Delaware--Low-profile Democrat Tom Carper has somehow been in the Senate for 17 years now. Far as I know, he's running for a fourth term and should score another dominating 2-1 victory if he does run again. Should the seat be open, it's hard to see how anybody but another Democrat wins as the Republican bench in Delaware is nonexistent.
Florida--If Hillary had won last year, three-term Democratic Senator Bill Nelson would likely have been defeated in 2018. The affable Nelson, who's had excellent political timing for all of his previous victories, now remains in the game for 2018, but can no means breathe a sigh of relief as it looks as if GOP Governor Rick Scott is running against him. Based on the numbers, Scott wouldn't seem to be that great of an opponent, having barely eked out one-point victories in the very Republican years of 2010 and 2014, but his popularity has risen recently with Florida's economy booming and generally on-point stewardship during recent hurricanes. A few early polling hypotheticals have come out showing the race a dead heat, and that's not good news for Nelson, particularly since a Florida midterm electorate is always far whiter and more conservative than a Presidential year electorate in Florida...and Democrats couldn't even win with that electorate in 2016! Scott was only re-elected in 2014 due to weak turnout by heavily Democratic blacks in Jacksonville and Puerto Ricans in Orlando, and if that pattern holds for the next midterm, Scott will win again as the white electorate in Florida, which in previous cycles has been pretty friendly to Nelson, keeps shifting further and further to the right. If the political environment grows as friendly to Democrats as some suspect, Nelson will pull it out, potentially with ease, but I'm not yet convinced it's gonna be that Democratic of a year, so for now I'm predicting a narrow upset by Scott. GOP +1
Hawaii--Freshman Senator Mazie Hirono seems like a slam-dunk for re-election. Even the few Republicans of prominence in Hawaii have given no indication that they're seeking to challenge her.
Indiana--When Democrat Joe Donnelly went into the 2012 Indiana Senate race, he knew two major things had to go right for him to win. First, long-time GOP incumbent Richard Lugar had to be taken out by a wingnut in the Republican primary. Second, the wingnut who beat Lugar in the primary would have to make a huge gaffe that rendered him unelectable. Both of those things happened and Donnelly stumbled his way into the Senate, but even with this unusually favorable set of circumstances, Donnelly only managed to win by six points and only barely crested 50%. Had Hillary won last year, Donnelly would have lost his re-election bid by double digits. He has a fighting chance to prevail in 2018 with his party on offense, but I still think it's odds-against. There are three pretty high-profile Republican challengers already in the race, with Congressmen Luke Messer and Todd Rokita currently considered the strongest. Donnelly has a geographic ace in the hole in that his home base in northern Indiana is the most elastic region of the state and he's likely to overperform in the South Bend, Elkhart, and Kokomo areas where he used to serve in the House. Messer and Rokita are less likely to see parochial advantages from their GOP stronghold seats in central Indiana. With all of that in mind though, it's hard to see Indiana being winnable for a Democrat without Presidential year turnout in urban areas and college towns. The bottom line is that Democrats would have to be having a really good night nationally for Donnelly to prevail in this increasingly difficult state, and I just don't see it yet. GOP +2
Maine--Independent Angus King, who caucuses with the Democrats, seems poised to win re-election handily even as Maine has been lurching to the right in recent years. I'm sure Democrats would prefer to see an actual Democrat win the seat, King is the safe bet and it seems very likely they will quietly acquiesce and not put up any challenger to King. The GOP will put up somebody but the race is a huge long shot against the popular King.
Maryland--Two-term Democrat Ben Cardin is probably running for re-election. Whether he does or doesn't, Maryland is a near impossible nut to crack for Republicans in federal races, as evidenced by the fact that they didn't even bother to seriously contest an open seat last year. Pretty safe bet this stays in Democratic hands.
Massachusetts--Had Hillary won last year, I suspect Democratic freshman Elizabeth Warren would have faced a serious re-election challenge with an outside chance that she'd lose. Plenty of clueless national Democrats consider Warren the intellectual mirror image of gruff populist Bernie Sanders, but polling data nationally and even in Massachusetts suggests she's not that popular. Former GOP Senator Scott Brown's caricature of her as "Professor Warren" seems to have stuck and I suspect she's gonna have a hard time shaking it among the very blue-collar workers who most cottoned to Bernie Sanders. In Trump's America, it's pretty close to a sure thing that deep blue Massachusetts re-elects Warren, but I suspect the margin will be surprisingly slow to national Democrats, even if her challenger ends up being a blowhard brute like Kurt Schilling. A soft Warren re-election might be the best thing for Democrats if it helps them figure out she would be a disastrous Presidential nominee in 2020.
Michigan--Three-term Democrat Debbie Stabenow is another member of the Class I Senate cohort who has been lucky enough to run only in favorable Democratic years, making it hard to determine just how strong of an incumbent she is. Certainly her luck would have run out if Hillary had won last year, but even with her party on offense, Stabenow could well have a race on her hands. At least for now, Kid Rock is acting like he doesn't plan to run. It's always a crap shoot with celebrity candidates in terms of how their skill set translates to the campaign trail, but if Kid Rock was any good at this sort of thing at all, he'd have been a contender, and would probably have been a clear favorite had Trump narrowly lost last year instead of won. Even if Kid Rock stays away, Congressman Fred Upton from southwest Michigan is mulling a run and would have the potential to be a very strong candidate. Young African American businessman and Iraq War veteran John E. James is already declared as a candidate and also shows signs of being an outstanding sleeper candidate who could potentially rise to the challenge if Upton opts out. The GOP seems to have a plethora of strong options here, meaning the Democrats better take the challenge to Stabenow seriously. At this early stage, I'll still predict that she wins, but it wouldn't surprise me at all to see this race become competitive down the road, particularly since Trump proved last year that a Republican can win Michigan.
Minnesota--Two-term Democrat Amy Klobuchar has won by more than 20 points twice in her previous campaigns, both in strong Democratic years. After Trump's near-victory in the Gopher State last year, I think Klobuchar could have found herself struggling running for a third term had Hillary been elected President. As a former Minnesotan, it would be interesting to see how popular Klobuchar really is and see her have to run in such a defensive environment. Since President Hillary didn't happen though, it's very likely Klobuchar is poised for another blowout victory, particularly since her only GOP challenger so far is a backbencher legislator from exurban Sherburne County.
Mississippi--It's rare that an interesting Senate race in Mississippi is taking shape but 2018 could be just that. For my money, it's 50-50 on whether Republican incumbent Roger Wicker wins the primary or if right-wing firebrand Chris McDaniel pulls it out. McDaniel likely squandered some of his goodwill among Mississippians with his monthslong crybaby tour when he got outfoxed by long-time Senator Thad Cochran in the 2014 primary runoff, but the fever swamp in the Trump-era GOP has only strengthened in the years since and McDaniel's pitch still has an audience. If Wicker wins the primary, then it should be a slam-dunk for Republicans to hold the seat in the general election. That's probably true even if McDaniel wins the primary, but Democrats could have an interesting nominee in Brandon Presley, Elvis's cousin and twice-elected public service commissioner in the northern district of MS, if Presley ends up deciding to run. Like Travis Childers in 2014, Presley is well-suited parochially being from northern Mississippi, the only region of the state where the white vote is somewhat elastic and thus amenable to a hometown conservative Democrat. A Democratic victory in Mississippi would require maxed-out African American turnout, strongly above-average Democratic performance in northern Mississippi, and nearly unanimous support from the small number of GOP moderates in suburban Jackson and on the Gulf Coast. It's a very tall order, especially in a midterm, and next to impossible if Wicker survives the primary, but it's less of a heavy lift than Doug Jones is currently facing against Roy Moore in Alabama. The safe money is on the GOP is Mississippi though.
Missouri--The only thing that has kept me from completely writing off the rapidly GOP-trending Show Me State is that last year, Democratic Senate nominee Jason Kander ran as an unapologetic liberal against stale GOP incumbent Roy Blunt and got within three points of victory even when Donald Trump was winning by 19 points at the top of the ticket. Still, Kander was a blank slate, so I'm thinking there will be a difference between him and incumbent Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill, running for a third term having already governed as an unapologetic liberal in defiance of the direction her state is going. McCaskill has proven herself incredibly wily in the past, particularly in 2012 when she gamed the GOP primary to help choose her own opponent who self-immolated right on cue shortly after getting the nominated, allowing McCaskill to win by a shocking 17-point margin. This year, she's unlikely to have the framework to similarly game the race as the Republicans appear to be consolidating around young Attorney General Josh Hawley, who is young and inexperienced and may possibly prove to be a bad candidate, but this time McCaskill is more likely to have to figure out how to win on her own the way she did in 2006. I won't underestimate McCaskill, but I still consider her the most endangered among so many endangered Democratic incumbents this year. A look at Kander's county map in 2016 spells out the magnitude of McCaskill's challenge. He scored only six county victories, all in Kansas City, St. Louis, and Columbia and with Presidential year turnout, still managing to lose every square inch of rural Missouri and get smashed even in the college towns despite his personal profile. The biggest problem for McCaskill and any Missouri Democrat is the trendline in the southern suburbs of St. Louis, which is the home base of former Democratic House Leader Dick Gephardt and vital to any chance of statewide victory for a Missouri Democrat. But it's trending hard to Republicans and was out of reach for Kander. With all of these key jurisdictions becoming so impenetrable for Democrats, it's nearly impossible to imagine what a path to victory for McCaskill looks like in 2018. GOP +3
Montana--There are five Democrats up for re-election in 2018 in deep red states, and of the five, the only one I think is better positioned for victory than defeat next year is two-term Democrat Jon Tester. For one thing, Montana remains an elastic state where Democrats manage to win a disproportionate number of close races even in very Republican years, such as Governor Steve Bullock who was re-elected in 2016. Tester is a survivor himself, successfully cobbling together Montana's wobbly Democratic coalition of retired union workers, Native Americans, and college students to eke out victory on two occasions, and remains personally popular. The GOP's relatively uninspired cohort of declared candidates at this stage of the race gives Tester additional grounds for optimism, with State Auditor Matt Rosendale the strongest of the bunch at this stage. Tester would have been toast had Hillary won last year, but as far as I'm concerned he's in the catbird seat for another term right now. With that said, his margin for error is close to zero and it wouldn't surprise me if he lost given the partisan tide he's up against.
Nebraska--The real contest here is likely to be the Republican primary. Freshman Republican Deb Fischer may be a completely reliable Republican vote but Steve Bannon is still scheming to dethrone her in the GOP primary, with former state treasurer Shane Osborn as the most frequently cited challenger. The Osborn name is golden in Nebraska and it's not clear whether Fischer has made enough of an impact on voters in the Cornhusker State to avoid being vulnerable. I'll take the safe call and bet on Fischer prevailing, but whoever wins the primary is almost certain to win the general election as Democrats are to the point of not even bothering to compete in Nebraska any longer. Theoretically, either Scott or Jane Kleeb could be a viable contender in a perfect storm, but even in the very strong Democratic year of 2008, Scott Kleeb lost an open seat contest by double digits so it's hard to see him winning now with Nebraska having consolidating even harder into the Republican column.
Nevada--There is no question that one-term Republican incumbent Dean Heller is very vulnerable both in the primary and the general election. Honestly, I'd be surprised if he survives his primary challenge from the right by perennial candidate and lovable mega-loser Danny Tarkanian. By all conventional metrics, either Heller or Tarkanian would seem to be the underdogs against Congresswoman Jacky Rosen, the likely Democratic challenger in this blue-trending state, but as with every election in Nevada in the last decade, Rosen's fate will be determined by whether the Reid machine is sufficiently mobilized. When the union-fueled Reid machine shows up to vote in Nevada, Democrats are pretty close to unbeatable. When it doesn't show, Democrats get slaughtered up and down the ballot. Democrats had better hope that anti-Trump hysteria motivates the base and gets that vote out. Tarkanian's losing streak could end if it doesn't, and if Heller survives the primary, he shouldn't be underestimated being the only Republican from a battleground Senate race in 2012 who prevailed. Dem gain (GOP +2)
New Jersey--It's telling how challenging of a map 2018 will present for Democrats when they even have a vulnerability in the deep blue Garden State. Two-term incumbent Bob Menendez has been on the periphery of unsavory rumors for his entire Senate tenure and is currently in the midst of a corruption trial. It would be best for Democrats if he was found guilty and forced to resign next year, giving Democrats time to replace him well before election day, although given the culture in New Jersey politics it wouldn't necessarily be an easy task to find a replacement less corrupt than Menendez. A different Democratic nominee would certainly win in Jersey in the current political climate, but if Menendez is found not guilty, there will still likely be a taint of scandal that lingers in voters' minds. It probably won't be enough to defeat him in New Jersey, but it could be unnecessarily close. If Hillary had won and the Democrats were playing defense, it's not unthinkable that Menendez could be genuinely vulnerable.
New Mexico--Freshman Senator Martin Heinrich is yet another Democrat would be incredibly vulnerable heading into 2018 had Hillary won, with a couple of GOP heavy hitters such as Heather Wilson and Susanna Martinez at the top of the list of challengers that could take him out. But with the Democrats on offense this year, it seems less likely a top Republican will step up and even less likely still that Heinrich could be defeated. It's still too early to know for sure but I'm pretty confident that Heinrich will be safe.
New York--Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand will win re-election with another large and comprehensive victory, and unlike so many other states, that would be true even if Hillary had won last year and was deeply unpopular. The real question is how this sets Gillibrand up for a likely Presidential bid in 2020. She's an attractive and articulate candidate but her electoral history--getting elected as a Blue Dog in a conservative upstate New York district and then getting appointed to the Senate and reinventing herself to the left of Bernie Sanders--comes across as a bit too opportunistic to easily explain away. Still, looking at the weakness of the Democratic Presidential field, they could and likely will do worse than Gillibrand.
North Dakota--As recently as a decade ago, I doubt I'd be sweating an election in North Dakota in an environment like 2018 seems to poised to be. But a lot has changed in North Dakota in the last decade, and what was then a Republican but elastic state with a deeply progressive history is now a petro state whose fortunes rise and fall with the deeply conservative oil and gas industry. Donald Trump won here by an astonishing 38 points last year. With that context, it's even more amazing to speculate on the fact that Democrat Heidi Heitkamp found a way to win her open seat in 2012, a year Mitt Romney was winning by 20 points at the top of the ballot and when the state was at the peak of its oil boom. Can she do it again? I'm not gonna understimate Heitkamp after what she pulled off in 2012, but her approval ratings are lukewarm and her opposition is taking her more seriously than they did back then when nobody believed she could win. Her path to victory was already narrow six years ago but in a midterm cycle she'll likely have fewer college students in Fargo and Grand Forks to offset what has become a lockstep Republican wall in the western half of the state where all the oil growth is. If Hillary had won last year I suspect Heitkamp would even bother trying for a second term, but she seems poised to put up a fight for 2018. There are a few viable Republicans running against her, but whichever one gets the nomination has an unmistakable advantage in the general. GOP +3
Ohio--Two-term Democrat Sherrod Brown is one of the most liberal Senators in the country representing a state trending increasingly Republican now that the GOP is Trump's party. It was telling that in 2012, even as Obama won Ohio 51-48, Brown only prevailed 50-45 against a very weak challenger in State Treasurer Josh Mandel. If Hillary had won last year, Brown's career would be over. Even now, Brown's re-election is no better than even money next year. Working in his favor is the fact that the execrable Mandel seems poised to be his challenger again. Several GOP contenders, particularly Governor John Kasich, would be much stronger opponents but the field seems all but cleared for Mandel. Last year, another Democrat with tremendous blue-collar appeal--former Governor Ted Strickland--was crushed in his bid for a Senate seat against Rob Portman, and Strickland even managed to lose the union strongholds of northeastern Ohio where Democrats have almost always won big in the past. If a Democrat of Strickland's pedigree can't even beat George W. Bush's former outsourcing czar in the Mahoning Valley then I question if Brown's similar brand of left-populism has continued resonance in the areas that have always been his base or if it's hopelessly realigned to Trumpism. For now, I'll say Brown ekes it out, but only because Mandel is such a flyweight.
Pennsylvania--Six years ago, two-term Democrat Bob Casey phoned in his re-election campaign and while he still won comfortably, a random coal baron named Tom Smith managed to hold Casey to single digits. Since then, every corner of Pennsylvania outside of the Philadelphia area has taken a sharp turn towards Trumpism, and the GOP is running a strong challenger against Casey this year in Congressman Lou Barletta, who got a head start on Trump's brand of right-populism long before Trump burst onto the political scene. So if Trump and Barletta are cut of the same cloth, Barletta should be well positioned to follow Trump's path to victory right? I'm still leaning towards Casey in this race as he's always had more of an appeal to rural voters and old-school union Democrats, particularly in comparison to Hillary Clinton. Casey is from the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area and has dominated there in the past, but Barletta also hails from the same area and will likely limit the parochial advantage. Still, if Casey can hang on in places like Erie and Bethlehem, while maintaining a lopsided advantage in metropolitan Philadelphia and limiting his losses in southwestern Pennsylvania, he is likely to win. I wouldn't bet on a particularly big margin at this point though.
Rhode Island--One Democrat who will almost certainly have a safe glide into a third term is Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. Democrats will really have a trainwreck on their hands if this one were to become competitive but it's hard to imagine it would.
Tennessee--When Republican Senator Bob Corker announced his retirement last month, the floodgates opened with possible candidates to fill his vacant seat, with everybody from NFL quarterback Peyton Manning on the Republican side to country singer Tim McGraw on the Democratic side. It looks now as though the race will take on a more conventional tone, however. A couple of Republican House members, current and former, have announced they're running, but the frontrunner would certainly seem to be right-wing Marsha Blackburn, who has long represented a Republican stronghold district that links the darkest red Memphis suburbs to the darkest red Nashville suburbs. She even has the Bannon seal of approval, and in a state with a tea-flavored GOP primary electorate as Tennessee has, I like her chances. On the Democratic side, there's talk that popular former Governor Phil Bredesen might get in, but I'm skeptical that he will. So far, attorney and Iraq War veteran James Mackler is the best the Dems have going. I don't know anything about him but he seems like a huge long shot to run a viable campaign in a state that has moved so far out of Democrats' grasp. Even if Bredesen runs I suspect he'd lose by double digits. Tennessee has just become too inhospitable for Democrats, and Trump wouldn't be much of a liability there. The biggest reason Corker is retiring is because Tennessee voters don't think his head is sufficiently up Trump's ass!
Texas--A little over a year ago, Donald Trump accused Republican Senator Ted Cruz's father of being involved in the JFK assassination and Cruz was booed off the stage at the Republican National Convention when he didn't formally endorse Trump. At the time, the media assured us Cruz's political career was over. Fast forward to present tense and all appears to be forgiven on all sides, to the point that the only incumbent Republican Senator that Steve Bannon is not targeting with a primary challenge is former chief rival Cruz. And Cruz remains popular in Texas, making him a cinch for re-election. The Democrats have an interesting candidate on a kamikaze mission running against him in El Paso Congressman Beto O'Rourke, but I'm guessing O'Rourke is pursuing this race primarily to raise his statewide profile for a more winnable race down the road as it's very hard to see him beating Cruz next year, particularly with the famously hard-right turnout model in Texas midterms.
Utah--All the buzz this past week is that long-time Republican Senator Orrin Hatch is preparing to retire, bequeathing his seat to former GOP Presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Given Utah's nominating process, Hatch could find himself denied the nomination if he doesn't retire, but the field would likely clear for Romney, who is wildly popular in the Beehive State. Either Hatch or Romney would easily win the general election as well in this dark red state.
Vermont--There's no indication that left-wing Independent Bernie Sanders plans to throw in the towel on his Senate seat so I'm operating under the assumption that he runs for a third term and scores another dominating victory. If Sanders does retire, his seat will almost certainly stay in Democratic hands.
Virginia--If Hillary Clinton had been elected last year, Democratic Senator Tim Kaine would now be Vice-President and whoever was appointed to fill Kaine's seat would be defending it. And given the Old Dominion's modern Democratic coalition and it's vulnerability in low-turnout midterms, I wouldn't like his or her chances to hold the seat in a defensive cycle. Seeing as how none of the above scenarios ended up playing out, however, Tim Kaine is likely to run for a second term without top-tier opposition and is well-positioned for a comfortable victory. Even in the best-case scenario, however, it would surprise me if Kaine wins by double digits because as the state grows and becomes more Democratic, the old guard is becoming more inelastically Republican.
Washington--When Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell beat a Republican incumbent by around 1,000 votes in 2000, Washington was still a swing state. Not only has the state been trending heavily towards Democrats ever since, Cantwell has always run in strong Democratic political environments making it somewhat difficult to get a read on her popularity. In Trump's America, Cantwell will likely have the wind at her back again in 2018 and win a fourth term by more than 15 points.
West Virginia--Many Democrats have been breathing a premature sigh of relief about Democratic Senator Joe Manchin in recent months because his approval rating is still strong and he's had decisive leads in head-to-heads against the two Republicans challenging him, Attorney General Patrick Morrissey and Congressman Evan Jenkins. But I still consider Manchin the most vulnerable Democratic Senator and a dead man walking whose fortunes will turn on a dime once the race gets litigated. Now I underestimated Manchin in both 2010 and 2012 and he managed to win handily both years, so it's entirely possible I could be wrong again, but he was still a blank slate conservative Democrat back then and West Virginia hadn't fully realigned the way it has now into Trump's second best state in the country. Furthermore, Manchin had a really terrible challenger both cycles with carpetbagging rich guy John Raese, who got little in the way of assistance from the party. Either Morrissey or Jenkins would likely make for stronger challengers and would get more institutional support from the GOP, a party whose Presidential nominee just won the state by 42 points last year. Manchin is particularly vulnerable on two issues. Primarily, he co-authored a theoretically popular background check bill on guns in a state that is unwaveringly pro-gun. When Manchin is demagogued as leading a national effort to "take our guns away", the air in his approval rating balloon will very rapidly deflate. Furthermore, the GOP will make the race a referendum against both Trump and coal, and no Democrat can win that referendum in West Virginia. Again, Manchin exceeded my wildest expectations twice before so I may well be underestimating him again, but I believe he'll lose by double digits. GOP +4
Wisconsin--It would be generous to refer to the Badger State as politically schizophrenic in recent years, electing Obama very handily twice and electing liberal Democrat Tammy Baldwin to the Senate while also electing the radically conservative Republican Governor Scott Walker and Tea Party Senator Ron Johnson. But the reality is that Wisconsin has been trending deeply conservative. If Hillary had won last year, Senator Baldwin--who has lukewarm favorables--would likely be poised for defeat. But I'm inclined to give her a slight edge because of the way the national environment is shaping and the lack of top-tier opposition. Neither Bannon-endorsed businessman Kevin Nicholson nor State Representative Leah Vukmir looks overly intimidating from afar, but then neither did Ron Johnson when he burst onto the scene in 2010 to score a huge upset. Baldwin is by no means out of the woods but at least for now I think she's more likely to win than lose next year.
Wyoming--The action in this race could well emerge in the primary. Incumbent Republican John Barrasso is threatened with a Bannon-endorsed challenged from former Blackwater thug Erik Prince. In a small state like Wyoming where politicians are more likely to have a personal relationship with their constituents, these kinds of primary challenges tend to be less successful so I'm predicting Barrasso survives the primary. Whoever emerges from the Republican primary is almost certain to win the race, however, given that Wyoming is Trump's best state in the country.
That's the ugly state of the battleground. Even presuming a year with a moderately decent Democratic environment, the party is almost certain to lose seats and the battleground is such at this stage of the cycle that a 10-seat loss is not entirely inconceivable. Shortly after Trump won last year, Charlie Cook put out a Senate map that predicted all of these battleground races to be at worst "leans Democrat", expecting a Trump Presidency would protect just the vulnerable Democratic incumbents. I suspect he's scaling back those predictions now as he's seeing just how tribal the country has become. Obviously there's a year to go and the political climate could get even worse for Trump and the Republicans, giving more of these Democrats cover than they have now, but even in a political climate as strong as 2006 or 2008, I suspect the Democrats would have taken some losses with this map. Next spring or summer, when the races are more settled, I'll give these races another look. And while it's tempting to make some early guesses on the 37 gubernatorial races on deck for 2018, the candidate fields are way too unsettled at this stage to do so. I'll punt those predictions for at least a few more months.
posted by Mark at 1:51 PM
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