There may be some detail I am missing, but I have been looking at the 2018 races.
The judicial filibuster will almost certainly be broken in the new Senate. But much of what the GOP want’s to do can be done via reconciliation.
If the pattern from 2016 holds, the GOP may get to 60 votes in 2018.
This is the cheat seat for the Senate.
A couple of things to say here:
1. The 2018 electorate will not be as friendly as the one in 2016. This is particularly true in the Midwest, where we saw enormous swings from 2012 to 2016. Consider 2014:
Iowa – lost by 8
But the opposite was true in:
Michigan – Peters won by 13, but the Dems lost the governor’s race.
Minnesota – Won by 9.5
Democratic Seats are up in Ohio (Trump won by 8), Pennsylvania (Trump won by 1.1), Wisconsin (Basically a tie, but the GOP won the Gov’s race in 2014 and the Senate race in 2010), Michigan and Minnesota.
This tells me the Democrats need to figure out what happened in the Midwest quickly.
2. I think we can start by assuming the following seats are gone:
North Dakota
Montana
Indiana
Cook says that Montana and Indiana are Likely Democratic, and Indiana leans that way. I don’t agree. The evidence since 2010 is overwhelming: Red State Democrats lose.
Manchin holding on in West Virginia isn’t a foregone conclusion, but I do not include him in this list.
To get to 60 the GOP needs to win, in order of this sheet:
Ohio
Florida
Wisconsin
Michigan
Minnesota.
They also need to hold Nevada and Arizona, which may be fights.
To summarize: There is a long way to go until 2018. But the potential for a GOP stranglehold on the Senate, and on Government, is much bigger than anticipated.
Most, including myself, underestimated Trump.
I would not do that again.
