This is problematic in a bipartisan way, but you can find a lot of articles on the internet discussing the problems with the electoral college and the Senate's population problem. What you can't find is something specifically focusing on what the Democrats should be gearing for in a straight-ticket world. As we have seen in pretty much every cycle since 2010, there's been a huge move to straight-ticket voting, particularly in 2016 when (for the first time since the passage of the 17th amendment) every single state that Donald Trump won went for a Republican senator, and every single state that Hillary Clinton won went for a Democratic senator. If straight-ticket voting becomes a thing of the past, Democrats will need to consistently be able to hold at least 25 states (and the vice presidency) in order to have a chance at the Senate. But which states, and what does that look like? I decided to find out.
We are going to look at the elections of 2008, 2012, and 2016 to get to this data. We have seen enough change since even 2004 (when John Kerry did abysmally in a state like Virginia which would be unthinkable today) to only focus on these elections rather than into the further past. We're also going to focus only on how high the percentage of the vote Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton received in the election was, rather than on the margin compared to their respective Republicans was (otherwise you have to factor in third parties over-performing in select states, a problem in particular in 2016). What I found was that 27 states featured in Obama and Clinton's Top 25 best states, and not necessarily the ones you might have assumed would be in their Top 25's considering how dire some people make out the situation for the Democrats to be.
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| Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), a senator who will have to lose for the Democrats to have a sustainable majority |
Looking at the lists, 23 states appear to be have been in both Democrats' Top 25 all three times that they ran. This isn't necessarily to say that the Democrats won these states all three times (they didn't, or else we'd have a President Clinton right now), but these are the states that they did the best in, and by definition are states that they simply cannot afford to hemorrhage even one Senate seat without it greatly affecting their chances at the Senate. Winning the Senate, because of the six-year terms and the shifting slate of senators up in a given cycle, is basically a chess match where you can't afford to underperform even one cycle, particularly since, thanks to the way states are drawn, the GOP starts the game with an extra queen. In a world where Claire McCaskill, Heidi Heitkamp, and Joe Donnelly cannot win in their respective states even in very strong years, you can't afford to give up even one of these seats without it putting a huge wrench in your chances at winning the Senate.
For the most part the Democrats have done pretty well here. While much has been made in the past couple of cycles about the Republicans winning back Democratic seats in red states, the Democrats have done this as well in places like Illinois, New Hampshire, and Nevada (all of which are among the 23). There are, however, currently four Republican senators that are in states that Democrats won all three times: Cory Gardner, Susan Collins, Pat Toomey, and Ron Johnson. These states are, on-paper, the easiest Senate seats that the GOP has that the Democrats can take because they consistently show strong numbers for Democratic presidential candidates (Obama won all four both times, Clinton won two and lost the remaining two by less than a percentage point), and perhaps more importantly-they'd be the easiest to hold if the Democrats were to win them (like I said-the big goal of this article is to look at what a "sustainable" win for the Democrats might look like). Two of these seats are up in 2020 and two in 2022-if the Democrats have any hope of winning the Senate in the next few years, they're going to have to beat all four of these senators or pray for retirements for open seat gains.
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| Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) |
If you're doing the math, you noticed that even if they were to best those places where the Democrats had a Top 25 showing 3 times, they'd still only be at 46 senators, four short of a majority (I'm assuming for the sake of simple math that the Democrats also need the vice presidency in order to win the Senate). There are four states that have shown up in at least one Top 25 for either Obama or Clinton during the past three races: Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, and Iowa. If you're keeping track, Clinton's Top 25 included Florida & North Carolina, while Obama'a included Ohio & Iowa. Clinton lost all four of these states, though Florida was by less than 2 percentage points, while Obama won all four at least once in his two races.
It is here, in large part, where the Democratic majority is lost currently (in addition to not having Tim Kaine in the Eisenhower Building). The Democrats, as we'll soon find out, actually have enough Senate seats in GOP "3-Time" Top 25 states to make up for those four missed seats, but they need exactly half of the seats in these states in order to take the upper chamber, and they only have one-Sherrod Brown of Ohio. All of the other seats are held by the GOP, and if the Democrats want to take the path-of-least-resistance (if you only look at presidential numbers), they're going to need to beat at least three of these senators to have a sustained majority. It's worth noting, of course, that only two of these senators are up in 2020 (though if the Democrats were to take out Gardner & Collins) they'd only need two: Joni Ernst & Thom Tillis. However, all four of these states have GOP seats up in 2022 (Rubio, Grassley, Burr, & Portman), so if the Democrats want a shot at the Senate for any part of the next decade, they're going to need to somehow win the White House and defy all political wisdom by having a strong first midterm.
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| Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) |
As I said above, the Democrats currently have four senators that represent states that were not in either Barack Obama's or Hillary Clinton's Top 25: Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), Doug Jones (AL), Jon Tester (MT), & Joe Manchin (WV). To the Democrats' relief, only one of these senators is up for reelection in the next two cycles (Jones), so they won't have to worry about defending the remaining three before they have a shot to beat four "3x Dem Top 25" GOP senators. It puts a lot of pressure on them to perform, but they currently have the ball in their court with the opportunity to take some GOP territory before they have to defend their most vulnerable senators.
What I found interesting here is that some of the states that are frequently flouted as "must haves" for the Democrats in the current era simply aren't quite in "must have" territory yet. Despite Arizona, Georgia, and Texas showing an increasingly optimistic cord for the Democrats, they wouldn't necessarily need these states to be in play and still have a shot at the Senate. Admittedly, if Maine, Ohio, Florida, & Iowa continue to slip further right that wouldn't be the case, but right now a state like Arizona (which is one of the best Democratic pickup opportunities next year) is still a bonus seat if the Democrats can get more straight-ticket voting. It's still entirely possible in 2020 that the Democrats will win 25 states for the White House...the question is whether they can also get those states to vote down-ticket to throw out some crucial GOP senators & give the Democrats a fighting chance at the majority.
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