Democrats in mourning over Donald Trump’s victory can consolation themselves with the truth that, if the US follows the sample of different democracies that elect wannabe strongmen, their occasion ought to have an excellent likelihood to win again the White Home in 2028. The identical can’t be mentioned for the US Senate.
With only a few votes left to rely in final week’s election, the Republican Social gathering seems to have flipped 4 Senate seats—in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, and Montana—giving it a presumptive 53–47 majority. On the floor, that end result could not appear dramatic, and actually represents a superb efficiency for Democrats. The occasion had no real looking pickup alternatives this election cycle. In the meantime, it needed to defend three seats in purple states and 5 seats in swing states. Democratic incumbents misplaced all of the red-state races, however received 4 of the 5 purple-state contests: in Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, and Michigan—all states that voted for Trump.
The actual downside for Democrats is that the 2024 map was solely barely harsher than regular. Going ahead, each Senate election goes to be brutal. The establishment is so skewed in favor of the present Republican coalition that Democrats want no less than a number of red-state seats to win constant majorities. Now they’ve none.
The partisan divide of the 50 states just isn’t an immutable reality of nature, however right here’s how issues search for the foreseeable future: 24 states are solidly purple; 17 are solidly blue. Over the previous three presidential cycles, solely six states have swung backwards and forwards: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada. Throw in New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Minnesota—the place Trump or Kamala Harris received by about 4 factors or much less—and America has 9 purple states in whole, representing 18 Senate seats. To carry the chamber, Republicans have to win simply two of these seats in the event that they management the presidency, and three in the event that they don’t. Democrats want to comb virtually all of them. They need to pitch good recreation after good recreation to have a shot at even the narrowest majorities.
And even an ideal recreation is not going to be sufficient within the 2026 midterms. That yr’s map options simply two real looking pickup alternatives: Maine and North Carolina. Democrats, in the meantime, might want to defend seats in Georgia, Michigan, New Hampshire, and Minnesota. Except they pull off a serious upset, they’ll at most reduce the GOP majority to 51. In that best-case state of affairs, they are going to then have to flip both North Carolina or Wisconsin in 2028 with out shedding seats in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, or New Hampshire. Barring any surprising deaths or retirements, Democrats can afford to lose just one swing-seat race over the following 4 years to have a shot at 50 senators.
Something wanting that signifies that, even when a Democrat retakes the White Home in 2028, that president shall be instantly hamstrung. Even a slender GOP majority will make it not possible for, say, President Josh Shapiro or Gretchen Whitmer to cross liberal laws. They’d as a substitute, from the second they’re sworn in, need to deal with congressional investigations, authorities shutdowns, and debt-ceiling hostage negotiations.
Their troubles would hardly finish there. A GOP Senate majority would slow-walk and even block a Democratic president’s Cupboard nominations and personnel appointments. An administration with out directors can be unable to situation new laws and guidelines. No matter insurance policies the administration did handle to make would then be tied up by an ever extra hostile judiciary. With out management of the Senate, Democratic presidents will wrestle to get nominees confirmed at even the district and circuit ranges. They will overlook concerning the Supreme Courtroom.
Democrats have been conscious of their Senate downside for years. That’s why, in the course of the first Trump time period, many liberals urged the occasion to prioritize scrapping the filibuster and making Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico states as quickly because it had the chance. However the alternative by no means really arrived, as a result of the Democrats’ transient trifecta beneath Joe Biden relied on average senators, akin to Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who refused to entertain any such hardball ways. Addressing the Democrats’ Senate downside legislatively would seem to require a extra substantial Democratic Senate majority, which is exactly the problem.
And so, if they’re to increase their choices within the Senate, Democrats should discover some solution to broaden their enchantment within the states the place voters appear to have irrevocably deserted them. That’s not a brand new thought, and it isn’t an concept that anybody has but found out how you can implement. However it’s the solely possibility. If Democrats don’t work out how you can compete in additional states, Trump and his allies received’t have to dismantle the free press, imprison their enemies, or overturn election outcomes to make sure perpetual GOP dominance. The essential math of the Senate will try this for them.
