On the menu: Tariffs tax approval; Dems jockey for 2028 position; Elon-gated; Biden hemmed in Harris; a wild commute
As Senate Democrats agonize over whether to help Republicans avoid a government shutdown Friday, the number that's in the back of their minds isn't the $1.6 trillion price tag on the House-passed spending package. It's just two digits: 6-0.
The fight over a continuing resolution is the first time in this Congress that Democrats have had to think seriously about a world in which Senate Republicans can advance legislation outside of the procedural end-around of budget reconciliation.
With 53 Senate seats, Republicans can do a lot on taxes and spending and can, as this year has already abundantly proved, get almost anybody confirmed to a high position in the government.
But they can't really legislate. Without anything like sufficient support in the GOP conference for abolishing the filibuster, it will continue to take 60 votes to make laws. As Democrats test their own appetites for obstruction on the continuing resolution, we know that at some point sooner or later, Republicans will get the seven Democrats they need to advance the bill.
As Democrats were wrestling with that question, one of their own provided a poignant reminder that things could get worse. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.) announced that she would not seek a fourth term. Shaheen, 78, joins two other Democrats from similarly light-blue states, Sens. Gary Peters (Mich.) and Tina Smith (Minn.), who already announced their retirements.
But Shaheen hits a little differently. Not only has New Hampshire been among the crumbliest pieces of the "blue wall" in the Trump era, it has a solid Republican Party. If popular former Gov. Chris Sununu decided he wanted the gig, it would make it tough for Democrats to hold. At the very least, it is going to be an expensive headache for a party already playing defense.
Unlike the House, where all the seats are up for grabs, only a third of the Senate is in play every two years. And while this year isn't as savagely brutal for Democrats as the 2024 map and its multiple incumbents in deep-red states, 2026 is going to be no picnic for the blue team.
Of the 35 seats — 33 regular elections and special elections in Ohio for the remainder of the term won by now-Vice President Vance and in Florida for that of now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio — most are on Republican turf. Looked at that way, Republicans have more on the line with 21 seats to defend compared to just 14 for Democrats.
But most of the Republican seats are in places where the risen Lord couldn't win a statewide election if he was running as a Democrat. States like Arkansas and South Carolina may have interesting primary elections, but that's about it. Then there's a whole other batch in places where Democrats maybe, maybe, maybe could have a chance in a weird year. But how often can a party psych itself up to fund long-shot bids in Kentucky or Texas only to get Beto'd again?
There are just two states out of 21 where Republicans already know they're going to have big trouble on their hands.
Maine Sen. Susan Collins defied all the odds to win another term in 2020 but now faces voters hostile to her party, but without the advantage of a quadrennial electorate. Maine splits its Electoral College votes by congressional district, and a presidential year cranks up turnout in the state's Republican-leaning inland district. Collins is heading for a reckoning with coastal moderates who may have given her a pass in 2020 but will be more suspicious now.
North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis is in a better place than Collins but faces a different kind of problem. His state has voted Republican on the presidential level every year since 2008. It's been wobbly now and then, but it is still a red state. The main problem for Tillis is that his state party is a disaster and the Democrats there are not. He is certain to draw a primary challenge from the same wing of the North Carolina GOP that served up Mark Robinson, author of an embarrassing 2024 gubernatorial defeat. Tillis will be lucky to survive his primary, and if he does will likely face a top-drawer Democrat, like former Gov. Roy Cooper.
So that's two tough ones for Republicans, but get a load of what the Democrats are dealing with.
In addition to open seat races and potentially problematic primaries to replace Shaheen, Peters and Smith, they've got what looks like a sitting duck down in Georgia with Sen. Jon Ossoff.
Ossoff was extraordinarily lucky in his 2020 win. In a tough year for Republicans, Ossoff managed to force a runoff with incumbent David Perdue, who fell just a quarter of a point short of winning outright in November that year because of a Libertarian candidate's sliver of the vote. Ossoff had no reason to expect to win the runoff until Perdue and many in his state party had a collective nervous breakdown over Donald Trump's efforts to swipe Georgia's electoral votes. Hardcore MAGA voters were hearing about how they couldn't trust the state's famously well-run elections, and suburban moderates were watching the red team descend into a very dark place. All Ossoff had to do was not be crazy, and it was good enough for a win.
Could Republicans repeat their past mistakes and put a screwball candidate up in midterms? There's always a chance. But if Senate Majority Leader John Thune (S.D.) and the GOP can convince Gov. Brian Kemp to take the plunge, Ossoff's luck will probably have run out.
So you get why Democrats are starting from a place not of trying to win back control of the Senate, but rather of trying to prevent Republicans from expanding their majority. If the two most vulnerable incumbents, Collins and Ossoff, were to lose, the red team would still have 53 seats.
Then, Democrats have to be thinking about what happens if Republicans only have a mild case of the midterm curse. Could the GOP maybe flip two more, say Michigan and New Hampshire, and be sitting at 55? In that world, Trump's lame-duck status would be mitigated. Swing-state and red-state Senate Democrats facing 2028 reelection, like Mark Kelly (Ariz.), Catherine Cortez Masto (Nev.) and John Fetterman (Pa.), would be looking for ways to show their independence, i.e., vote with Republicans.
Now mind you, this is not the most likely scenario. But it is the one making Democrats in Washington feel seasick this week as they try to figure out how hard they should fight on the government shutdown.
The scenario that tantalizes Democrats, though, is probably slightly more likely. That's the one in which the midterm curse takes hold in the same way it did in 2018 and new states come into play. In that version of events, Trump's job approval continues to decline at the same time Republican infighting intensifies. That's the world in which the GOP can't get top-tier recruits to try to flip seats — or sees those recruits battered or defeated in primaries.
In that scenario, we start looking at places like Nebraska, where an independent candidate could cause trouble, or Louisiana, where incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy is at risk of a primary defeat and former Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards could swoop in and beat a fringy Republican nominee, or Ohio where things could get spicy in the Republican Senate primary and longtime former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown may try a comeback, or even Kentucky, where Sen. Mitch McConnell's retirement could produce a similar outcome if Democrats can convince Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear to change his mind.
That's a world in which Democrats might be able to actually pare back the GOP majority to 51 and embolden Republican senators who are already chafing under the MAGA yoke. In that world, Democrats almost certainly would have control of the House after midterms. That would be the lamest of lame duck presidencies for Trump.
That's all a long way of saying that at this early date, it's too soon to say what's likely to be happening a year from now, let alone in November 2026. But it is certainly not too soon to think about how those scenarios will shape the way the Senate does business now and for the rest of 2025.
So without further ado, here's your way-too-early Senate race ratings for next year:
Solid Republican: Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wyoming
Likely Republican: Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska and Texas
Lean Republican: Ohio
Toss-up: Georgia, Maine and North Carolina
Lean Democrat: Michigan and New Hampshire
Likely Democrat: Colorado, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico and Virginia
Solid Democrat: Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, Oregon and Rhode Island
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