The party's odds aren't great, but they look better all the time.
The chamber of Congress that Democrats are best positioned to wrest control of in the midterm elections is the House. That's indisputable. But the lopsided focus on it sometimes creates the impression that taking the Senate is a pipe dream and lost cause. And that's insane.
It's a reach, yes. But I wouldn't give up on it.
It starts with the general political climate and Donald Trump's approval rating, which never crests 45 percent. Sad! Recent polls have shown that in congressional races, voters prefer a generic Democrat to a generic Republican by six to 10 points.
The party needs to pick up two seats. It has more than two states to turn to. For a while now, Jacky Rosen in ever-bluer Nevada has been scaring the bejesus out of the Republican incumbent, Dean Heller. More recently, Kyrsten Sinema in reddish Arizona and Phil Bredesen in redder Tennessee have emerged as fearsome contenders for seats being vacated by Trump-averse Republicans (Jeff Flake and Bob Corker, respectively).
Democrats struck gold when Bredesen agreed to run: He's a former two-term governor of Tennessee who exhibited bipartisan appeal. He's polling strongly. And he's campaigning sagely. In one ad he tells voters that if Trump pushes a policy "good for the people of Tennessee," he'll support it. "It doesn't matter where it came from."
That assurance reflects the strategically tempered approach that other Senate candidates in Trump-friendly states are taking. For example, Heidi Heitkamp, the vulnerable Democratic incumbent in North Dakota, uses one of her ads to say, "I voted over half the time with President Trump, and that made a lot of people in Washington mad."
Jennifer Duffy, who handicaps Senate races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, has both Arizona and Tennessee in the "tossup" category. Late last week, she moved Texas from "likely Republican" to "leans Republican," upgrading the chances of an upset by Beto O'Rourke, the Democratic challenger to Ted Cruz.
Democratic leaders have, among other smart adjustments, ramped up their digital efforts with an eye toward the youngest voters, whose turnout is typically disappointing but whose distaste for Trump is strong. The party's problem - a huge one - is that 10 of its incumbents are in states that voted for Trump. It can't afford for more than one or two to lose.
The four in Rust Belt states where Trump prevailed by single-digit margins - Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Ohio - seem for now to be safe, amid signals of disenchantment with Trump in that region.
North Dakota, Montana, Indiana, Missouri and West Virginia all favored Trump by double-digit margins. But in none of them has the Republican challenger yet proved especially mighty.
Florida, where Trump edged out Hillary Clinton, will be noisy and nasty. Bill Nelson's Republican challenger is the state's governor, Rick Scott, who's willing to pump his own millions into the race. But both the Democratic megadonor Tom Steyer and the American Civil Liberties Union are engaged in initiatives that could elevate Democratic turnout there. And Scott's two gubernatorial victories were mere one-point wins in midterm years - 2010 and 2014 - when Republicans swaggered. In 2018, they're slinking.
Duffy is riveted by - wait for it - Mississippi. "That's the big asterisk that makes me crazy," she said. An open Senate seat there might not be decided until a Nov. 27 runoff of sorts. What if everything hinges on it, and Democrats, emboldened by their Senate victory in a special election in Alabama last year, make a similar stand in another usually hopeless state?
Mississippians, brace for a media invasion like you've never seen. Americans, buckle up.
The New York Times