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There will be 33 senate seats up for election in 2018. The Democrat's caucus will defend 25 senate seats, while the Republicans will defend only 8. By comparison, this time the Republicans defended 24 seats and the Democrats defended 10. The Democrats gained two, one in Illinois (Tammy Duckworth defeated Mark Kirk) and one in New Hampshire (Maggie Hassan defeated Kelly Ayotte).
A long list of Senate Democrats who face re-election in 2018 are from states Donald Trump won or nearly won on Election Day. That could mean a politically excruciating next two years for many of them, and for party leaders trying to chart a legislative path as the new age of Trump.
The election two years from now had already looked difficult for Senate Democrats, who must defend 25 seats compared to just eight held by Republicans. The Democrats’ list includes two independents, Vermont’s Bernie Sanders and Maine’s Angus King, who align with them. Of those 25 senators, 13 are from states Trump captured or narrowly lost. Among those are Maine, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which hadn’t backed a GOP presidential candidate since the 1980s, leaving both parties trying to discern how much Tuesday may have reordered the lineup of blue, red and swing states.
Five Democrats are from states Trump easily carried, by 19 percentage points or more — Indiana, North Dakota, West Virginia, Missouri and Montana. “They should be terrified,” Ward Baker, executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Senate GOP’s political organization, said of the Democrats.
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Among the 25 seats being defended by the Democrats, five are in solid red states that Trump carried by at least 19 points (Indiana, North Dakota, West Virginia, Missouri and Montana), while and additional eight are in states Trump either won, or narrowly lost. So it is estimated that about 13 of the Democrat's seats will be competitive in 2018.
The Republicans will defend eight seats in 2018, with the only competitive seats being in Arizona and Nevada, as shown on the map above. Unless you believe Senator Cruz's seat in Texas is likely to be competitive during the 2018 midterms.
So the prospects of the Democrats gaining ground in the Senate in 2018 are not really very good, baring a major disaster or sea change in the direction of our politics, especially in the five states that Trump carried by at least 19 points. Even if the Democrats win both Arizona and Nevada, they are likely to lose all five of these states that Trump dominated in. If that is the extent of the movement in the Senate race in 2018 - and it could well be - the Republicans would gain three seats. But with all the of the marginal seats that the Democrats are also defending, the Republican gains could be potentially greater.
So it appears that 2016 really was probably the Democrat's best chance to retake the Senate for a while and that things are not going to be nearly so rosy in 2018, or depending how many seats the Republicans gain in 2018 (if they do win seats), maybe not in 2020 either.
It is usually tough for a party that has far more senate seats at stake in an election year. That is why many thought the GOP was in trouble this past year but they only ended up losing two senators. Midterm elections however usually do not favor the party in power (particularly when it comes to the President). With the Republicans in control of all the national branches of the government - President/Senate/House/Judiciary), they are clearly Washington and the government. Any disaffection will be pointed toward them. It will not come just from the Democrat opposition side. Many that voted Republican this past week will not be pleased when many of the promises made to get elected are not kept.
If Trump stays on track and starts turning the Obama mess around. I predict 0 chance of the liberals taking back seats. Especially after all the snowflake rioters
It depends. If Dems can promote some ideas and policies that actually are focused on making America a better place, that creates jobs, protects American lives, they have a chance. If all they do is to keep attacking anyone that doesn't agree with them as bigots, racists and misogynists, they will remain irrelevant.
Coming into the 2016 with the Republicans defending 24 seats, in a presidential election year, with the Republican presidential candidate being either Donald Trump or Ted Cruz, and with the media not even really trying to pretend not to be totally in the tank for Hillary Clinton, Dems had to be shooting for a net pickup early on of around 10 seats or maybe even more. Considering this was probably the last chance for the Democrats to make gains until at least 2020, this really was a big lost opportunity for the here.
Tough to make this call at this moment, although it is a good discussion.
Who in November 2008 could have foreseen the sweeping GOP victories of 2010? Those only came about because Obama and other Democrats (Rangel and Waters come to mind) created so much discontent in his first two years in office, so much of which came from Obamacare and the lack of a real economic recovery. If Trump has a bad first two years as far as policy and the economy, Congress could go back blue purely as a protest vote, for lack of a better term, although Democratic voters are notoriously poor at voting in anything other than presidential elections.
Bottom line is Democrats can't spend the next two years whining as much of their constituency is doing now. If they do, they are toast and this country will be more red than it showed this week.
Trump makes economic and national security progress. Enough Dem Senators seen as not going along, particularly in basically pin, red states and we could be looking at 57 - 60 Republican Senators. A lot of pieces have to line up in order for that to happen.
The opposite could be true. Disenchantment with Trump Admin & Republican Congress could lead to a flip in Congress.
That depends pretty much solely on how badly (or not) Trump admin ****s things up between now and then.
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