10/19/20
Most of the focus of political enthusiasts, and also of
sensible people, has been on the presidential race for obvious reasons. However, the race for control of the United
States Senate may be more important. Note that most observers of the election call
the presidential election for Former Vice-President Joe Biden. The only question regarding the House is the
number of seats by which the Democrats expand their control of the “people’s
House.” Though I have yet to
expound at great length on my presidential projections, at this point I don’t
see how my amazingly prescient prediction of April 22 (See PRESIDENT
TRUMP WILL NOT BE RE-ELECTED) will
change materially. So the Senate is the
only game in town. And that game couldn’t
be more important.
Since Mr. Biden and his running mate, Senator Kamala
Harris, have both assiduously avoided answering questions regarding their
intent to pack the Supreme Court, one can make one of two assumptions. The first, and more popular, of these
assumptions is that Mr. Biden has already decided that he will pack the Court,
either of his own volition or, more likely, because he no longer has the intestinal
fortitude, or even much of a desire, to stand up to the more impatient and
leftist elements of his Party, but just doesn’t want to say it for fear of the
loss of votes such a declaration would entail.
The second, and yours truly thinks more valid, assumption
is more nuanced. Mr. Biden might like to
pack the Court but his final decision on that matter, and on his decision to
commit himself, is waiting for the results of the Senate election. Declaring that he wants to pack the Court
will require Mr. Biden to pay a political price; there are, after all, a few Americans
who care about such things. Why pay that
price when the question will become moot if the Republicans retain control of
the Senate? A smart politician waits
until his most controversial intentions become realistic possibilities before
declaring those intentions. Despite the
contentions of the GOP and its media organs, Joe Biden remains a smart
politician and isn’t going to waste political capital on a quest that may
ultimately prove to be a quixotic one. So any talk of a President Biden’s packing the
Court will hinge on the outcome of the Senate election.
Court packing, of course, is not the only issue involved
here. If the Democrats pick up the
Senate, the salubrious condition of divided government goes with it. The Democrats will be free to put into
place whatever agenda suits them, from admitting more states to the Union (Puerto
Rico and Washington, D.C. are most often mentioned) to put their control of
the Congress on a more solid footing, to increasing taxes on all sorts of activities
they deem heinous or simply capable of producing
more revenue to finance their agendae, to spending money like an inebriated seaman
(though it would be hard to match the incumbent, before or after a now remotely
possible re-election, on this score), to making the dreams of their more fervid,
er, questioners of America’s legitimacy come true. Of course, given the demoralized and self-doubting
nature of many of the poltroonish politicasters who populate the GOP’s senatorial
ranks, one wonders who much of a barrier a GOP senate would present to the
lascivious designs of the Democrats, but that is another issue. Surely, the country, or at least its
government, will look much different with the presidency and both houses of the
Congress in the hands of the party of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and those who
regularly genuflect to her.
So how does the Senate race look? Not good if you’re a Republican.
The GOP currently holds 53 senate seats. The Democrats hold 45 seats and two seats are
held by independents, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of
Maine, who consistently vote Democratic.
So the Democrats have to pick up
3 seats if Biden wins, since Vice-President Harris,
as President of the Senate, would be able to break ties, and
4 seats if Trump wins, which would bring Democratic
seats to 51, rendering Vice-President Pence’s tie-breaking vote moot.
However, the Democrats are going to lose their “accidental
seat” in Alabama, which Doug Jones won in a 2017 special election over Alabama
Supreme Court Judge Roy Moore, in which Mr. Moore defeated himself amid
allegations of sexual misconduct and a record that was too socially to the
right even for Alabama voters. Former Auburn
Coach Tommy Tuberville is the GOP standard-bearer and even his having
been on the wrong side of the Iron Bowl for years will not dissuade
Crimson Tide fans from supporting him.
Alabama is a sure GOP pickup.
Thus, the Democrats will need to pick up
4 seats outside Alabama if Mr. Biden wins and
5 seats outside Alabama if Mr. Trump wins.
While such an outcome will not be a cakewalk, it is a
very realistic possibility. Yours truly
has the Democrats picking up
Arizona (Kelly over McSally)
Colorado (Hickenlooper
over Gardner)
Iowa (Greenfield
over Ernst) (This one breaks my heart,
but I digress.)
Maine (Gideon
over Collins)
That would be enough to control the Senate if, as seems
likely, President Biden is inaugurated on January 20, 2021.
The Democrats, from my assessment of the numbers, might
also pick up the Georgia seat for which a “jungle primary” special
election is being held on election day, in which candidates of all parties will
run with the first and second finishers competing in a run-off on January
5. The current incumbent, Republican Kelly
Loeffler, is weak and is facing a challenge from, inter alia, Republican
Representative Doug Collins. These
two will split the Republican vote to a point at which the highest polling
Democrat, Raphael Warnock, pastor of Dr. Martin Luther King’s
Ebenezer Baptist Church, will face one of them in the run-off. This could be interesting for the Democrats
and disastrous for the Republicans.
There is also a chance that the Democrats could pick up the other Georgia
seat; Senator David Perdue does not hold as formidable a lead as one
would suspect for a GOP incumbent in Georgia over journalist Jon Ossoff;
a few legitimate polls, including Quinnipiac, have Ossoff leading. So it is not much of a stretch to give one
of the Georgia seats to the Democrats, which would put it in the proverbial can
for the Democrats.
Even if the Republicans hold onto both Georgia seats,
they still are in trouble. Republican
incumbent Thom Tillis is in a close race in North Carolina against Cal
Cunningham, or at least he was until Mr. Cunningham’s apparent penchant for
prurient pictures came to light early this month. Even assuming that Mr. Cunningham is done in,
either by his engaging in a both real and cyber affair with a married (not to
Mr. Cunningham) woman, which doesn’t play well in North Carolina, or by a
sudden enthusiasm for Senator Tillis, the seat was only a bonus for the Democrats;
they don’t need it to win the Senate.
There is also an outside chance that the Republicans
could knock off Democrat incumbents Gary Peters (not the great White Sox
pitcher, and occasional clean-up hitter, for the White Sox in the ‘60s) in
Michigan and Tina Smith in Minnesota, but both are relative long-shots
and would seem to require the coattails of Trump victories in states he is
unlikely to carry.
So this looks like a Democratic pickup of the Senate, albeit
by perhaps the slimmest of margins. And
I didn’t have to engage in such still extant in some quarters fantasies as
Democratic pickups in Texas, South Carolina, or Kentucky to get there. But if things really get bad for Mr. Trump on
November 3, who knows what fate might befall say, Lindsey Graham?
Given the tightness of this race, one would not have to
go too far out on a limb to declare that control of the Senate hinges on what
happens at the top of the ballot. If Mr.
Trump somehow manages to pull out a miracle (I hesitate to say “of Biblical proportions”
in this context.), it would at the very least raise the bar for Democratic
control and could help the GOP in, say, Iowa among the states I have given to
the Democrats and may even allow the Republicans to pull off a gobsmacker somewhere
else.
So our attention must turn to the presidential race,
which is grist for another, perhaps the next, mill.
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