It’s not enough for former President Donald Trump to get his old job back. He’ll need significant margins in both houses of Congress, as well.
The Republicans currently control only the House of Representatives and by the slimmest of margins. That can be changed by winning any number of at-risk seats that didn’t fall during the 2022 red wave that didn’t happen.
In the Senate, the picture is even more murky with just a few weeks left. If the Democrats perform better than they do in the polls, it could be a tied upper chamber, with no allowance to lose RINO votes for the new administration. If things go well for the GOP, meanwhile, they could be looking at a huge advantage over the opposition, something that would embolden a second Trump administration in aggressively pursuing his agenda to make America great again.
That all depends, however, on how the ten closest races in the upper house go. Here’s the first part of a two-part series where we look at the 10 Senate races, which will decide whether Trump, if elected, can pursue the MAGA agenda, or whether he’ll have to make bargains.
Wisconsin
For most of the race, Wisconsin didn’t appear particularly close for the Republicans. However, things have shifted the way of businessman Eric Hovde.
With incumbent Democrat Sen. Tammy Baldwin ahead by over six points for most of the summer in the RealClearPolitics polling aggregate, few were watching the Badger State to see which side the upper chamber might go to. Hovde — who has poured significant money of his own into the race — has moved within two points of Baldwin in the aggregate as of Monday, and some polls have showed him in front.
A Trafalgar Group poll, conducted between Oct. 18 and Oct. 20, was the first in the race to show Hovde up over Baldwin by a 48.5 to 48.1 percent margin. An InsiderAdvantage poll released Oct. 10 had Baldwin only up by 48 percent to 47 percent, and a Napolitan News Service survey conducted between Oct. 10 and 16 had Baldwin up 49 to 46 percent — both well within the margin of error.
What makes this race even more critical? Trump’s numbers in the state mirror Hovde’s, although he runs slightly ahead of him. If Trump wins Wisconsin, the odds of a Harris victory become significantly slimmer — which means getting the base excited about a close race aside from the presidency could turn more Republicans out to the polls. The GOP is boosting its ad spending for Hovde, which is a clear sign the party believes this is a winnable seat.
Nevada
Another race that’s closing in the final weeks, according to the RealClearPolitics aggregate, is in Nevada, where incumbent Sen. Jackie Rosen seemed to face no major opposition from another businessman who won the GOP nomination, Sam Brown.
After running a double-digit lead for most of the race, including well into September, that number has been cut in half in a month and change. Rosen leads by 5.4 points in the aggregate, including a Rasmussen Reports survey that has the two within the margin of error released on Saturday (47 percent to 44 percent, 3 percent margin of error) and an Atlas Intel poll conducted between Oct. 12 and Oct. 17, which showed the GOP candidate just outside of it (47.1 percent to 43 percent, 3 percent margin of error).
However, two things might make this race more of a toss-up than it seems, even though it doesn’t look on paper as if Brown has enough time to close the gap.
First, the two engaged in a punchy debate on Oct. 17 in which Brown tied Rosen to the factors that led to what The New York Times described, in its write-up of the face-off, as “persistent economic malaise” in the Silver State.
“Most of us can’t afford basic life at this point, and it’s easy for Sen. Rosen, as an elitist who lives in a gated community” to vote for green energy over policies that would lower the cost of living, Brown said.
“Mr. Brown landed several punches, turning questions about housing policy, renewable energy and even U.F.O.s into jabs about his opponent’s wealth; Ms. Rosen is a multimillionaire with a wide portfolio of stocks and index funds, though her campaign said she had not traded individual stocks in the last five years,” the Times noted.
Second, as many pundits have pointed out, early voting in Nevada seems to be going in the GOP’s favor:
GOP is surging in Nevada.
After the third day of early voting and including mail, GOP is up almost 8K voters. In Clark, which is heavily Democrat, Ds have outvoted Rs by less than 5K votes.
GOP is winning Washoe too.
If this keeps up, Trump will win Nevada easily. pic.twitter.com/y5oCJHyN09
— Victor Joecks (@VictorJoecks) October 22, 2024
That’s Victor Joecks, a columnist with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, noting that in early returns, Republican voters substantially outnumber Democrats. Does this translate into a surprise win for Brown, despite the pundits counting him out? He’d certainly be a better fit for Trump than Rosen, a staunch leftist who’s out of touch with her purple-state constituency. Stay tuned.
Arizona
Another race that looked — reiterate, looked — out of hand for the Republicans was Arizona, where former local news anchor and gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake appeared to lag behind Rep. Ruben Gallego in the race to succeed independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who withdrew from the contest early on.
In the RealClearPolitics polling aggregate, Gallego has opened up a fairly substantial lead over Lake, 6.1 points as of Tuesday. What’s more, that lead has, with a few dips here and there, been maintained steadily throughout the campaign, despite the fact that Gallego is well outside of what voters would normally consider to be acceptable, politically, for the state’s moderate base.
However, several things might be in Lake’s favor in the final weeks of the race. As The New York Times noted in a swing-state poll earlier this month, “a fairly large share of voters, 10 percent, said they remained undecided” in the Arizona Senate race.
“The most conflicted voters in the Arizona Senate race appear to be Trump supporters. Less than 80 percent of the former president’s voters said they planned to back Ms. Lake, whom Mr. Trump endorsed in this race and in her failed bid for governor in 2022.”
What’s more, the same New York Times/Siena College poll found Trump ahead in the state by 51 percent to 46 percent, while Gallego led Lake by a 48 percent to 41 percent margin. If there’s a significant undecided contingent that’s going to break, in other words, they’re likely to break toward Lake. Especially considering Trump’s upward trajectory in polling fortunes these past few weeks, it’s not completely insane to say that it’s going to go Lake’s way.
Texas
There are relatively few opportunities for Democratic pickups in the 2024 Senate races, but the impossible dream — making Texas purple — is in play again for the left thanks to yet another challenge to incumbent GOP Sen. Ted Cruz.
This time, it’s not diaphoretic charlatan and serial election-loser Beto O’Rourke making waves, but Rep. Colin Allred. Allred wasn’t supposed to be a serious challenger, and little polling attention had been paid to the Lone Star State until earlier this fall. Then, Allred would repeatedly come within the margin of error in polls against Cruz — including a Morning Consult poll, featuring 2,024 voters between Oct. 6-15, which showed the incumbent with just a one-point edge, 46 percent to 45 percent.
The RealClearPolling aggregate still has Cruz up by 49.6 percent to 45.4 percent, but Allred has gotten within striking distance — and that’s mainly by being the anti-Beto.
Allred, according to an August profile by Texas Monthly, “hosts few campaign rallies that would gin up enthusiasm among Texas’s liberals, … His website is heavy on biography and light on policy. He’s trying to run as a generic, largely uncontroversial Democratic candidate who, as one of his big appeals, isn’t named Ted Cruz.”
For those of us who like Ted Cruz, it’s important to remember that Beto — a deeply unlikable man who has floundered in every race he’s entered since the near upset — got pretty close to upsetting him in 2018. As the Texas Tribune noted earlier this month, Allred outpaced Cruz in funding in the third quarter. He’s within striking distance in the polls.
Will being not-Cruz and not-Beto end up working out and finally turning Texas blue for the Democrats? Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and conservatives everywhere had better hope not.
Pennsylvania
The Keystone State is another race that looked like it was in the bag for the Democrats just a few months ago — and it shares other similarities between other races on our list, along with serving as a reminder of what could have been.
Republican nominee Dave McCormick narrowly lost out on the 2022 GOP nomination that went to Dr. Mehmet Oz, who lost to now-Sen. John Fetterman. Despite Fetterman’s progressive politics being outside the mainstream within his own state and his own people having lied about the true extent of a stroke he suffered just before the Democratic primary was held, Oz made too many unforced errors and ended up losing by a substantial margin. McCormick, polls and the press suggested, might have been a better choice.
What did McCormick in was the fact that Trump eventually concluded he was “not MAGA” enough, the Associated Press noted. Trump has been enthusiastic in his endorsement of McCormick this time around, calling him “a good man” during an April event in Schnecksville, Pennsylvania.
“He wants to run a good ship,” Trump said. “He’s a smart guy. He was a very successful guy. He’s given up a lot to do this.”
And, yes, McCormick is another businessman, one who trailed in the RealClearPolitics polling aggregate by up to eight points in the early going. The race has gotten ever closer, with Atlas Intel having him ahead 48.3 to 47.1 percent and the Trafalgar Group having him ahead 47.2 to 46.8, with McCormick having a slight statistical advantage over incumbent Democratic Sen. Bob Casey Jr., whose dad was a former governor and political legend in Pennsylvania. RealClearPolitics, as of Tuesday, has Casey leading by 1.6 points in the polling aggregate.
Several things have helped McCormick out. In particular, he’s thrown quite a bit of shade on the incumbent’s quick support of Kamala Harris after President Joe Biden announced he wouldn’t run for another term in office:
Bob Casey just endorsed the most liberal nominee in U.S. history. pic.twitter.com/J0V6W7CUlh
— Dave McCormick (@DaveMcCormickPA) July 23, 2024
In addition, McCormick has been able to make a whole lot of hay out of an unforced error by Casey — who had previously said he was a “pro-life Democrat” — who endorsed Harris’ plan to end the filibuster to pass legislation putting Roe v. Wade into federal law. Not only that, he planned to do a lot more with just 50 votes if the Democrats retain control of the Senate.
“I think it makes sense to change the rule,” Casey told CNN, adding he wanted to see the filibuster nuked on a whole host of issues.
“Well, I’ll just say what I believe. I believe for a long time that the 60-vote rule has been an impediment to progress on a whole host of fronts, including voting rights, which we tried to pass in 2022,” he added. “And in the process of trying to pass the bill, we tried to change the rule. So we can pass voting rights. I think the same is true for women’s rights, workers’ rights, so common sense gun measures to reduce gun violence. So on a whole host of fronts.”
McCormick struck back during the final debate between the two, saying that there was “no senator who has flip-flopped more on this issue than Sen. Casey.
“He previously said as a senator, he wanted to overturn Roe v. Wade. Sen. Casey said there should be one exception, the life of the mother. He was one of the most pro-life senators in the Senate and has flip-flopped his position. I don’t know how someone flip flops on this position when they held it so strongly then and don’t hold it now.”
Has it worked? Well, as of Monday, the Cook Political Report moved the race from “lean Democratic” to “toss-up.” All the momentum is on McCormick’s side. The question remains: Can he pull it off and exorcise the ghost of Pennsylvania elections past?
On Saturday, we look at another five races that will determine the trajectory America takes in the coming few years — and whether Donald Trump can make America great again, beginning on his first day in office, or whether he’ll have to make compromises to get his agenda through. Stay tuned!
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