Dems are ahead in the Senate but the margin is narrow.
Brownstein 7/9 Ronald July 9 Ronald Brownstein is a CNN senior political analyst, regularly appearing across the network’s programming and special political coverage. Brownstein is Atlantic Media’s Editorial Director for Strategic Partnerships, in charge of long-term editorial strategy. He also writes a weekly column and regularly contributes other pieces for the National Journal, contributes to Quartz, and The Atlantic, and coordinates political coverage and activities across publications produced by Atlantic Media. CNN “How Biden’s 2024 choice could reshape the Senate and Supreme Court for years” https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/09/politics/senate-races-biden-analysis/index.html ZMR
So far, Democratic anxiety about the presidential race’s impact on the Senate has been muted because public polling has almost invariably shown their candidates still leading in the key states where Biden has fallen behind former President Donald Trump. But recent history raises deep questions about whether Democratic Senate candidates can continue to levitate as far above the presidential ticket as polls now show.
Throughout this century, but especially over roughly the past decade, it has grown increasingly difficult for Senate candidates in either party to win in states that usually vote for the other side in presidential contests. During the 2016 and 2020 election years, Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine was the only candidate, out of 69 total Senate races, who won in a state that voted the other way at the presidential level.
This year, Democrats are defending an unusually large concentration of Senate seats in states that now appear at risk for them in the presidential contest. If Democrats lose a substantial number of those seats this year, it could be very difficult for them to recapture a Senate majority before these same seats come up again in 2030. The reason is that very few of the other Senate seats Republicans now hold are in states where Democrats have a realistic chance of winning, absent a dramatic change in their political balance.
In turn, extended GOP control of the Senate, coupled with a return of Trump to the White House, would give the party ample time to nominate and confirm much younger replacements for Samuel Alito (74) and Clarence Thomas (76), the two oldest and most conservative Supreme Court Justices, and possibly also Sonia Sotomayor (70), the oldest Democratic-appointed justice.
“Because of the big sorting out of the states … Democrats have a narrower path to a Senate majority than Republicans do, which means this year is crucial,” said former Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana. “The margin of error [for Democrats] is not high, and the consequences will be with us for another six years.” If the presidential and Senate elections go badly for Democrats, Bayh added, Republicans “could change the judicial branch of government for a generation.”