Election Night Thoughts on the Senate

All right, so you might've noticed that I've been having some radio silence when it comes to the election, which is not typical for us after an election on this blog.  This is for a variety of reasons, but it isn't because I haven't had the time...I've just been so darned confused.  I will admit, despite my best efforts to put on a brave face in the recap, that I was fully expecting an absolute nightmare on Tuesday night.  For the first time ever, I didn't watch any election night television.  I instead put on Risky Business and The Good Liar (neither of which are great-follow me on Letterboxd to get a full dossier on my movie-watching as I don't review every new film I see on this blog but I do there), and was slowly following along on Twitter...suddenly realizing that as the night went on this wasn't a typical midterm.

Indeed, it wasn't, and that's why, as I'm writing this, we still don't know who will control not the Senate, but somehow the House, which was a foregone conclusion as late as 6 PM on Tuesday for anyone paying attention.  So we are going to do something I've never done before, and rather than jinx anything (or prematurely say something that isn't real yet-I wrote a recap yesterday of the whole election and just a few hours later it was already incorrect), we're going to do recaps once we know who will win majorities in the Senate & House, and for the governor's once we know who wins in Arizona (the last major uncalled race since Alaska will surely go red) for a total of three articles.  As a result, we will publish the Senate article first, since while we don't know the final numbers yet, we do know who will be in charge.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY)

1. The Democrats Take the Majority

With the announced win today of Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), the Democrats have secured their 50th seat, and held their majority.  Sen. Chuck Schumer has defied the odds, and will at the very least get another two years in a 50/50 Senate, and plausibly even increase his majority.  Things like this do occasionally happen (2002 & 2018 the party in the White House picked up seats in the Senate), but it's rare, and a great sign for Democrats.  It's worth noting that from a practical perspective it would behoove the Democrats to get the 51st Senate seat.  This is super important as we look at a brutal map for the Democrats in 2024 (where they'll need to win at least two races in West Virginia, Texas, Ohio, & Montana to even stand a chance at extending their majority, and a third if they lose Georgia) but also from a practical standpoint.  51 Senators would give them a majority on all committees, which would make it much easier for Joe Biden's appointments to get to the floor (through parliamentary procedure, Republicans have a lot of leeway right now to hold up committee hearings), as well as it would give them subpoena power, which could be crucial if the Republicans take the House and start to use that power to berate the Biden administration (likely through public investigations into Biden's son, Hunter).  This victory also means that Chuck Schumer has a lot less pressure to get through 50+ judicial nominations before the end of the lame duck (though I suspect he'll still get through a few), and focus more on legislation at hand around gay marriage & the debt ceiling, saving judicial nominations & other outstanding Biden appointments for next session.  Finally, two more years means the possibility of another Supreme Court opening.  Obviously the Democrats would love the chance to replace one of the conservative justices, but expect there to be a push in the next two years for Justice Sonia Sotomayor to consider retiring given her health, age, and the Democrats being petrified that they'll endure another Ruth Bader Ginsburg situation.

Sen-Elect John Fetterman (D-PA)

2. John Fetterman Flips Pennsylvania

So far (we still don't know about Georgia), the only Senate seat to flip in 2022 despite hundreds of millions being spent across the country, was in the state of Pennsylvania, where Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D) defeated television personality Dr. Mehmet Oz to secure the seat held by retiring Sen. Pat Toomey.  Despite most pundits (though, I have to say, not yours truly) predicting a last minute Oz win, Fetterman not only hung on but won by a respectable 4+ points (well above what Joe Biden achieved in 2020).  Fetterman's win means this is the first time that we have two Democrats elected to the Senate from Pennsylvania since the 1950's, and is a big moral win given how poorly Oz and the media treated Fetterman as he recovered from a stroke.  Ableist rhetoric on networks like CBS & CNN likely backfired in the end, as people understood that a stroke recovery takes time, and that Fetterman was up to the task.  This is also a big win for a guy who has been slowly moving his way up the Pennsylvania ladder for the past decade, first as a small-town mayor and then running a distant third place finish in 2016 for the Senate before getting on the gubernatorial ticket in 2018 with outgoing Gov. Tom Wolf.  Fetterman will not be able to overturn the filibuster (though if the Democrats do win the House, expect there to be a strong push to see if the Democrats can break Sen. Kyrsten Sinema on it given she's headed into a primary that she'll likely lose if she doesn't bend her stance), but he helped the Democratic math for the next six years tremendously by staving off Oz.

Blake Masters (R-AZ)

3. Biggest Loser of the Cycle: Donald Trump

Fetterman's victory was one of many that proved the real loser of the Senate cycle was former President Donald Trump.  Trump's involvement in primaries became a huge headache for Mitch McConnell's quest to get back the majority, as he endorsed a plethora of candidates that proved disastrous for the party.  Oz, Blake Masters (AZ), Don Bolduc (NH), and Hershell Walker (GA) all under-performed on election day, and while Walker is still in this race, he's an underdog in the runoff.  The only major candidate that Trump stuck his neck out for that won was JD Vance (OH), who underperformed significantly and cost Republicans resources they could have diverted to Arizona & Nevada (Vance may have won, but he probably inadvertently cost the Republicans the Senate with a truly incompetent campaign).  McConnell, should he stay on as leader, is now in an impossible situation where he's going to have to find a way to get Trump to stop endorsing unelectable candidates, particularly considering there's a gold mine of Senate seats next cycle in purple states (Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, & Michigan all will hold elections)...states where Trump candidates botched royally in 2022 and gave Democrats a string of major victories.

Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA)

4. Warnock & Walker Head to a Runoff

There is still one undecided race on the map, and that's in Georgia.  Thanks to a third party run by Libertarian Chase Oliver, neither Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) nor football player Herschel Walker (R) were able to hit a majority of the vote, though I will point out Warnock did better than Walker in the election.  As a result, Georgia voters will once again go to a runoff on December 6th to decide the victor of this seat, though unlike in 2021, this will not decide the majority of the Senate, which Democrats have already secured.  I illustrated above why Democrats are desperate to get Warnock a victory, but I also want to say that I think he starts out with an edge.  If you look at the results from Tuesday, Republicans actually had a very strong night in the Peach State-Warnock was the only Democrat to lead a race, and no other candidate will advance to the runoff.  That means that Walker is not popular, inarguably the least popular Republican to run this year, and is facing off against the most popular Democrat in a Biden state.  A runoff that "doesn't matter" (in terms of the majority) will struggle with turnout, and while Walker will get a full court press from national Republicans, and most importantly from Gov. Brian Kemp (who just won a big victory), Warnock is clearly better-liked and has the more passionate base, which should help.  Should he win, Warnock will have managed to run four tough races in three years, and will thankfully get to have a break until 2028, as that's an intense amount of endurance to put on one politician.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY)

5. Will McConnell Survive?

One of the bigger questions that I honestly didn't think would come even if the Democrats lost on Tuesday was whether or not Mitch McConnell should stay on as Minority Leader.  McConnell has led the Senate Republicans since 2007, and is largely considered to be an effective leader, but it's worth noting that during his 14-year-tenure, he's only had a majority for six years (2015-21), and he's looking at another two years in the minority at this point.  This has caused an unusual repudiation from a number of members of his caucus.  By my count at least seven Republican senators (Rick Scott, Ron Johnson, Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Josh Hawley, & Cynthia Lummis) have all called for a delay until after the Georgia runoffs to decide who will run the Senate Republicans, a not insignificant of McConnell's confirmed 49 members.  It's not clear who would challenge McConnell for the job; the only senator whose name has been floated is Rick Scott, who is coming off a terrible run as NRSC Chair so it's doubtful Republicans would want to back him.  Personally, I think if Marco Rubio made a play for the job, McConnell would be in for a race (but Rubio is not a politician known for taking risks, frequently to his ultimate chagrin, so this would be out-of-character).  This is the first serious play against McConnell in his decades as a Republican leader, but given that he has continued to struggle to get a lasting majority for his caucus, and has once again lost the majority, I'm curious to see if the Republicans are able to oust him.