November Outlook (Part 2): The Senate

This is part two of a three-part series examining the 2016 Congessional and gubernatorial elections. For Part 1, go here.

With the 2016 election likely to preserve the status quo in the House, most attention on Congressional races has been focused on the Senate side. There control for either party come 2017 is much less assured, with Republicans defending many more seats than Democrats—but also doing an exceptional job of keeping electoral disaster contained to the presidential ticket.

There are thirty-four Senate races this year, but only about ten are generally seen as competitive. Of those, all but one are seats currently held by Republicans. In Nevada, Republican nominee Rep. Joe Heck has been statistically tied with Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto in the last several polls, and if he were to win the seat of retiring Harry Reid it would be a tremendous symbolic victory, as well as going a long way toward retaining control of the Senate.

Despite Donald Trump’s abysmal polling in many swing states, Republican Senate candidates are generally keeping their races close. Rob Portman looks increasingly likely to win in Ohio, with the DSCC cancelling ad buys. Kelly Ayotte is staying even with Democrat Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire, even though Clinton is leading Trump by double digits in the state. Marco Rubio’s reentry in the Senate race in Florida makes it more likely that seat will stay red as well, and Pat Toomey as a small lead over his Democratic challenger in Pennsylvania.

There are five Senate races that would be keeping me awake at night if I were a Republican strategist: North Carolina, Arizona, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Missouri. In Illinois, Sen. Mark Kirk looks like a goner against a top Democratic recruit in a blue state, even after disavowing Trump, but the attempt to keep that seat red was always going to be an uphill battle. And in Wisconsin, Sen. Ron Johnson has been a strong voice for conservative principles, but again, running in a blue-leaning state in a presidential year, with Donald Trump at the top of the ticket and former Senator Russ Feingold as an opponent, Johnson would have struggled even had he run on a voting record as moderate as Kirk’s. Both Johnson and Kirk seem likely to lose in November.

The three races that could truly decide control of the Senate, and also depend on Trump’s performance to a large degree, are North Carolina, Arizona, and Missouri. None were seen as likely to be competitive in 2014, but all three states demonstrate how much can change in two years. John McCain’s race in Arizona has been getting a lot of attention, but even though Roy Blunt in Missouri and Richard Burr in North Carolina haven’t received much attention yet from the national media, both the polls and a general sense on the ground among members of both parties point to close races in the final two months of the campaign.

From a conservative standpoint, it wouldn’t be a great loss if either McCain, Burr, or Blunt lost. None have exactly been known to stand for principle, all are considered members of the Republican establishment, and all rolled over and accepted Donald Trump early on in the primary process when there was still a chance at denying him the nomination. The only honest argument that could made for hoping for their reelections would be that their victories would dramatically increase the chances of a Republican Senate majority in 2017, a majority that could be important in checking the power of President Hillary Clinton.

Of course, seeing how successful that majority has been in stopping liberal excesses under a lame-duck Barack Obama, and how eager all three have been in the past to compromise conservative principles, that argument quickly becomes less convincing.

Overall, then, the Senate in 2017 will likely be little changed from the Senate today. I personally don’t believe McCain, Burr, or Blunt will actually lose (as things currently stand), but one or all of them could be in for a long, agonizing night in November.

As far as whether Republicans in general will keep the Senate, it’s basically a coin flip at this stage—although again, a Republican Senate in 2017 would be almost identical in composition to the one today, which has consistently failed to fight Obama on just about anything.

The only non-incumbent conservative to win a Senate primary this year was Darryl Glenn in Colorado, who the incumbent Democrat currently leads by a wide margin. Coupled with Ron Johnson’s likely defeat, about the only bright spots to be seen on the Senate map are in Florida, where Rubio thankfully changed his mind about reelection and will continue to be a semi-reliable conservative voice in Congress; Kentucky, where Rand Paul is virtually guaranteed another term; and Utah and Texas, where, barring some sudden resignation, both Mike Lee and Ted Cruz will continue to be two of the clearest voices for conservatism in decades.

As with the House, 2016 will likely shape up to be a largely status-quo election, although with Cruz, Lee, Rubio, and Paul in the Senate, it’s obvious that the status quo could be a lot worse.