Republicans set to flip the senate

In this year’s battle for the Senate, like so many cycles before, we have the same competing forces: The election fundamentals favor Republicans, while candidate quality appears to favor Democrats, who currently hold a narrow majority in the chamber. For now, though, it appears even flawed Republican candidates likely won’t be able to stop their side from winning Senate control. Democrats face two “M” problems: the math and the map. Let’s start with the math. Republicans need a net gain of one seat to win the Senate if wins the presidency (with his vice president casting any tie-breaking votes). They need a net gain of two seats for a majority regardless of who wins the presidential election. Republicans have a lot of options to net those one or two seats. Senate Democrats (including independents who caucus with them) hold 23 seats up for election this year; Republicans hold 11. This brings us to the map. Eight of the 23 Democratic seats up for election this year are in states either where Trump won or where he is up by at least 5 points in . Five of them are in states where Trump holds at least a 5-point advantage. Three are in states where Trump won by at least 8 points and where the incumbent senator is the only Democrat in nonjudicial statewide office. One of those three is West Virginia, where Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin is retiring. Trump won the state by 39 points in 2020, and every respectable nonpartisan handicapping outlet views the seat as a safe Republican pickup. There are only two Republican Senate seats being targeted by Democrats – and , which Trump carried by single digits in 2020. But the GOP incumbents in both states currently lead their Democratic opponents by double digits. Every other Republican-held Senate seat on the ballot this year is in a state where GOP presidential candidates have dominated since .