Lieberman, Warren, & the Tricky Math of Winning the Senate

Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and Vice President Al Gore (D-TN)

I'm going to give you a little history lesson today.  In 2000, the Democrats were in a strange position in terms of the battle for the Senate.  Most people assumed that the Democrats would pick up Senate seats, that was clear, but it was a big question mark if they would be able to net the four seats that the Democrats needed in order to win a majority.  According to polls, Democrats were tracking for pickups at the time in Florida and Minnesota, that felt certain, but they were going to automatically have those wiped away by probable pickups for the GOP in Virginia & Nevada.  Democrats could hold Nebraska & New York, but they essentially were looking at five races where they were either tied (Delaware, Missouri), or down-but-not-out (Michigan, Montana, Washington).  In most circumstances like this, you'd assume they'd win a couple, maybe hit 48-49 seats, but certainly not get to fifty.  And yet, they did, winning every single one of those seats save Montana.  As a result, they won the Senate majority...

...and kept it for precisely 17 days.  The reason for this was simple-the Democrats needed a member of their party to be the vice president to break a tie, and while Al Gore was the vice president on congressional inauguration day, the incoming Bush administration came armed with Dick Cheney, and so the Democrats relinquished their majority on January 20th.  We all know the story of how Bush barely won the 2000 election, how just another 538 votes in Florida would have made Al Gore the 43rd President of the United States, so you may be wondering-why isn't the story of how Al Gore's loss wasn't just for the White House, but instead a loss of both the White House and the Senate?  After all, Gore certainly ran with a Democrat.

The reason for that is simple, and the reason we're writing today's article.  Al Gore's running-mate was Joe Lieberman, who had not yet become the blister he was to the Democratic Party, but was instead a left-of-middle New England Democrat, albeit one who had been deeply critical of Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky (in large part why he was selected).  Lieberman was also facing a reelection that year, and instead of letting one of the bevy of the Democrats who were options at the time run (according to news reports, names bandied about included Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who would later hold Connecticut's other Senate seat, or Reps. Rosa DeLauro & John Larson), he decided to run for reelection.  He did this with the support of the Connecticut Democratic Party, as well as his fellow Sen. Chris Dodd, but it was a gamble.  Best case scenario was that Lieberman wins both offices, and had to choose between the vice presidency and the Senate.  Of course, what the party didn't realize was that Lieberman was suddenly Seat #50 in a tied Senate.  Had Lieberman given up the race, which pretty much any Democrat would have won considering the Republicans botched their recruitment, someone like DeLauro or Blumenthal would have won with ease, and a few more votes in Florida would've meant both the White House and the Senate.  The Senate didn't matter, though, because Connecticut had at the time a Republican governor, and as a  result he would be succeeded by a Republican.

This is the exact same scenario that Democrats find themselves in in 2020.  Most of the senators being considered for the vice presidency we'd be fine.  Catherine Cortez Masto, Kamala Harris, Tammy Duckworth, and Amy Klobuchar are all from states with Democratic governors who could appoint a senator of the same party to replace them.  Wisconsin is strange in that the governor doesn't get to appoint a replacement, so Tammy Baldwin would be chosen by special election (a dangerous prospect considering Democrats don't have a great track record in Wisconsin for winning special elections).  Maggie Hassan is also strange in that her seat might be held by a Republican or could be by a Democrat-Gov. Chris Sununu is running for reelection, and if he lost, would resign his governorship on January 5th, giving Hassan 15 days to resign her seat and be replaced by a Democrat; it's a risky game, but it'd definitely put an inordinate amount of stress on Sununu's ability to get crossover voters in a state that Joe Biden will probably win.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)

But there is one frontrunner candidate for VP who is certain to be replaced by a Republican, and that is Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.  Warren is the favorite of liberals, and many people think she'd be the best chance to pull together progressives.  But her governor is a Republican, and would have no incentive to appoint a Democrat to replace Warren.  He'd pick a moderate Republican, sure, but one who would vote for Mitch McConnell.  This is a big problem because, right now, it looks like the Democrats are the ever so slight favorites to win the net-3 Senate seats they need for the majority (lose Alabama, pickup North Carolina, Maine, Colorado, & Arizona).  That would put them at exactly fifty seats, with all they need being a vice president.  And just like Joe Lieberman before her, Elizabeth Warren would have to go to a Republican.

Proponents for Warren rightfully claim that Massachusetts is very blue (true).  They claim that Warren could resign as early as the day-after-the-election, so that the special election would be triggered right away (also true).  They claim that Warren would push heavily to be replaced by another Democrat (extremely true).  But we lose precious time and expend precious risk here.  We assume that the election would be decided right away, a gamble considering Biden's win might come down to Arizona, a state that took a week after the election to project a close Senate race (that wasn't even all that close).  It took even longer for Katie Hobbs in her Secretary of State run, and she won by 20,000-what happens if Biden wins by 5,000 or less?  Warren would have to wait until December to resign, and Gov. Charlie Baker would have no reason not to take the seat for as long as possible, postponing the election into mid-May.  By then, the Democrats will have lost the pivotal first 100 days of Biden's presidency, 100 days they'll never get back.  They'll have lost advantage on any budget bill that might have gone through, and there would be zilch incentive for McConnell to confirm even one judge, much less most of Biden's cabinet.  By mid-May, Biden could be hampered with an administration that he couldn't assemble, nothing to show the people of Massachusetts, and a still sagging economy since a stimulus bill from the Senate would be out-of-the-question.

And this is all assuming that the Democrats win the race to replace Warren, which is no guarantee.  Scott Brown in 2009 proved that even if a vote is crucial for the Senate, even in a dark blue state, a special election is a risk.  And Republicans have a great candidate in Gov. Baker (the most popular governor in the country) if he were to choose to run (and considering he's in his mid-second term and incumbent governors almost always win, why wouldn't he?).  If Baker were to win, that'd take two years that the Democrats might have had a majority where they didn't-two years of inaction on every progressive platform and every single judge (no matter how hard they'd work, they couldn't get it back, and Biden may well never get a chance at a Democratic Senate during his presidency if history repeats-the same thing happened to Clinton in 1994 with both houses and Obama in 2010 with the House).  Weirdly, despite a plethora of recent examples of senators who ran on a presidential ticket with a governor of the opposite party (not just Lieberman, but John McCain, John Kerry, and Lloyd Bentsen), since the passage of the 17th amendment, none have actually won-a bit of an eyebrow-raising stat for Warren fans, even if it's a coincidence.  But the next time that seat was up for election when the candidate did win and was replaced by someone of their own party, nearly half the time the president or vice president's party couldn't hold the seat.  We're talking seats that felt like easy victories-Lyndon Johnson, Walter Mondale, and Barack Obama were all set-for-life in their seats until they made it to the White House...and lost their seats.  It's a very risky game, and one that is compounded because unlike with Harris or Klobuchar or Cortez Masto or Duckworth, it's a game that they wouldn't have to wait until the higher-turnout midterms to play.

Warren might well have everything work out for her.  Hell, she might even resign her seat to trigger an election in this November (something they should push her to do if she's on the ticket, and what Lieberman should have done 20 years ago).  But her nomination brings with it an enormous amount of risk with no reward.  While she polls well, people don't pick their nominee based on the VP-that just doesn't happen outside maybe a 1-2 point bounce in the home state.  Harris, Cortez Masto, Duckworth, Klobuchar, or a non-senator is a safer bet.  Warren on the ticket became a costly affair the second the Democrats lost the governor's mansion in 2018-considering how close we are to the Senate, her polling does not show it's worth it to risk handing the Senate to Mitch McConnell, even for a brief period, to make her vice president.