And even if Republicans lose the majority, the difference between 50 and 51 Democratic senators could be huge.
Even if Republicans lose the majority, the difference between 50 and 51 Democratic senators could be huge.
A s Election Day arrives, the polls show Republicans still have a decent shot of holding onto the Senate.
While the FiveThirtyEight forecast gives President Trump just a one-in-ten chance of winning reelection, the polling-analytics websites gives Republicans a one-in-four chance of controlling the Senate.
Even if Republicans can’t hold 51 seats, they have a fairly decent chance of limiting the damage to a 50-50 Senate that would make it more difficult for Democrats to enact some of their more radical plans—from abolishing the filibuster to funding elective abortions with taxpayer dollars.
Here’s a look at where the battle for the Senate stands with the final polls added to the mix:
The Senate is controlled 53-47 by Republicans, and the GOP is very likely to pick up a seat in Alabama, but Democrats are very likely to pick up a seat in Colorado.
So Democrats would look to Arizona, Maine, and North Carolina as their next best opportunities to pick up three more seats in order to have control of the Senate if the Biden-Harris ticket wins the presidential race.
In Arizona, Republican senator Martha McSally trails Democrat Mark Kelly by 5.8 points (44.5 percent to 50.3 percent) in the RealClearPolitics average of polls.
In North Carolina, Republican senator Thom Tillis trails Democrat Cal Cunningham by 2.2 points (44.3 percent to 46.8 percent) in the RCP polling average.
In Maine, RCP hasn’t produced an average of polls, but Maine senator Susan Collins has trailed Democrat Sara Gideon by two to three points in three recent surveys.
In eight congressional election cycles dating back to 2004, there is only one Senate race in which a candidate won despite trailing by more than three percentage points in the RealClearPolitics polling average on Election Day, but there are many examples of Senate candidates who still won despite trailing by three points or less in that polling average on Election Day.
So it would not be all that surprising to see Tillis or Collins hold their seats. A McSally upset would be shocking but not unthinkable. The presidential race in Arizona is much closer than the Senate race, and McSally’s hope is that Trump wins and she’s carried to victory on his coattails (something not showing up in the polls).
One thing that makes Maine tough for Collins is the state’s ranked-choice voting system. Ranked-choice voting means third-party votes are reallocated to those voters’ second and third choices if no candidate gets an outright majority. Republican strategists believe Collins will need to be at about 48 percent on election night if she’s going to survive a final allocation of Green Party votes.
If Republicans are going to have a Senate majority in 2021, they need to hold onto one of these three seats and run the table everywhere else they are playing defense. And the outlook is fairly good that they could do just that.
In Georgia, Republicans have two Senate seats to defend, but both races are expected right now to head to a January 5 runoff. The only question for Republicans is whether Democrat Jon Ossoff might hit 50 percent on Election Day and win outright in his head-to-head race against Republican senator David Perdue. That seems unlikely: Ossoff leads Perdue 47 percent to 46.3 percent in the latest RCP average of polls.
In the Georgia special election to serve out the remainder of retired Senator Johnny Isakson’s term, no candidate is polling close to 50 percent. It will simply decide whether Republican Kelly Loeffler, appointed to the Senate last year, or GOP congressman Doug Collins will face off against Democrat Raphael Warnock in the runoff.
The only other purple state with a competitive Senate race in 2020 is Iowa. Over the weekend, Republican senator Joni Ernst got some of the best news of the year when the Des Moines Register poll—conducted by Ann Selzer, the most-respected pollster in the state—found Ernst leading Democratic challenger Theresa Greenfield 46 percent to 42 percent.
In major statewide November elections, the DMR poll was right on target in 2012, 2014, and 2016. It missed the mark in 2018—showing Republican governor Kim Reynolds losing by two points before she won by three points. But it’s by no means impossible the pollster could be underestimating Democrats for once this time. Ernst leads Greenfield by two points in the RCP polling average. According to FiveThirtyEight, Ernst now has a three-in-five chance of winning.
In the red states where Republicans are playing defense, non-partisan public polling has been scarce, but Republicans held small but significant leads in a round of polls conducted in mid October by Siena College and the New York Times. And Republican strategists say they’re confident all these seats will stay in GOP hands as Republican voters have come home.
In Montana, Steve Daines led Democrat Steve Bullock 49 percent to 46 percent.
In Kansas, Republican Roger Marshall led Democrat Barbara Bollier 46 percent to 42 percent.
In Alaska, Republican senator Dan Sullivan led Democrat Al Gross 45 percent to 37 percent.
In South Carolina, Lindsey Graham led Jaime Harrison 46 percent to 40 percent.
One sign that suggests the bleeding shouldn’t reach too far into Republican territory is that the generic congressional ballot—which asks voters nationwide whether they’d prefer Democratic or Republican control of Congress—is right about where it was in 2018. On Election Day in 2018, Democrats led on the generic ballot by 8.7 points. Now they lead by 7.3 points. In 2018, Republicans lost the House, but they picked up three Senate seats in red states (Indiana, North Dakota, and Missouri). In purple states, they picked up one Senate seat in Florida while losing two in Nevada and Arizona.
That year, Republicans also won gubernatorial races in Iowa, Ohio, and Georgia, while losing Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. They also lost the governor’s mansion in Kansas because GOP candidate Kris Kobach was wildly unpopular.
The Senate race in Texas also ended up being surprisingly close in 2018. Senator Ted Cruz led Beto O’Rourke by 6.8 points in the RCP polling average on Election Day, but Cruz only won the race by 2.6 points. In 2020, Republican senator John Cornyn leads Democrat M.J. Hegar by an identical 6.8-point margin in the RealClearPolitics average of polls. Given the 2018 outcome and a tight presidential race at the top of the ticket, it’s worth keeping an eye on the Texas Senate race Tuesday night. FiveThirtyEight gives Cornyn an 85 percent chance of winning reelection.
One last race to watch is the Michigan Senate race. Republican John James trails incumbent Democratic senator Gary Peters 44 percent to 49.5 percent, but internal Republican polling shows the race to be a dead heat. One Republican strategist tells National Review, “The surprise of the night could be James sneaking through.”