U.S. President Donald Trump lspeaks about legislation for additional coronavirus aid as U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) listens in the Oval Office at the White House in Wash., on July 20, 2020.LEAH MILLIS/Reuters
Winning the presidency this fall is not enough for the Democrats. Not if they leave Mitch McConnell and the Republicans in control of the Senate.
If that’s the case, it’ll be a truncated triumph.
Without a majority in that chamber, Joe Biden’s promise of a new deal and a new morality for Americans will be next to impossible to achieve.
A Republican Senate led by the shrewd, experienced and odiously partisan Mr. McConnell would thwart progressive legislation addressing mass unemployment, the coronavirus pandemic, racial injustice and the climate crisis. There would be much less chance for gun control, expansion of health care or amnesty for immigrants in the country illegally.
The raging partisanship that has poisoned Washington and other stains of Trumpism would remain in place.
Democrats recall how Mr. McConnell stymied them in the latter stages of the Obama administration. Sean Hannity of Fox News once expressed surprise in an interview with him about why the Democrats left so many vacancies on the federal courts. “I’ll tell you why,” the Kentucky Senator responded. “I was in charge of what we did the last two years of the Obama administration.”
To win the Senate, the Democrats have to gain three or four seats. At the moment, chances look promising. As President Donald Trump’s standing has fallen in recent months, polls show his Senate candidates sliding on his coattails. The political climate is so polarized that as Mr.Trump goes, so go his Senate and House candidates.
Polling shows that the Democrats are being assisted by Mr. Trump’s woeful performance in addressing the COVID-19 calamity. The affordable health care issue was a big winner for the Democrats in the midterm elections and will likely be again this fall. Another positive indicator for them is that they are far outstripping the Republican Senate candidates in fundraising.
Numerically, the Democrats have a big advantage this November. Of the 35 Senate seats being contested, 23 of them are held by Republicans and only 12 by Democrats.
While most of the Grand Old Party’s seats are in safe deep-red states, several of their candidates are still on the ropes. The best bets for Democrats, according to the Cook Political Report and handicapping by pollsters, are in the states of Colorado, Arizona, North Carolina and Maine.
Other states where upsets are quite possible include Georgia, Montana, Alaska and even Kansas, where the Democrats have not elected a senator since Amelia Earhart flew solo across the Atlantic in 1932.
In Kansas, the Sunflower State, Democrats have a popular candidate in former state legislator Barbara Bollier, a physician who was a Republican but switched parties in 2018. “Morally, the party is not going where my compass resides,” she said of the Trump version of the GOP. She has cross-party appeal and is crushing her rivals in donations, raising US$3.7-million in the past quarter.
The Democrats are expected to hold on to their existing seats with the exception of one. In heavily conservative Alabama, Doug Jones won a special election for them in 2017, but that was primarily due to the discredited candidacy of Republican Roy Moore. Mr. Moore faced accusations of sexual aggression by several women, dating back to when some of the women were in their teens.
In the House of Representatives, the Democrats should have no problem maintaining their majority. In the 435-member chamber, the GOP would have to pick up 19 seats to wrest power away from them. Trends suggest the opposite happening, with Democrats likely to gain that many.
Given the alarming conditions facing the country – the coronavirus crisis worsening by the day, the economy on its knees and ongoing racial strife – the projections for Democratic gains in Congress could be understated. Those afflictions, in combination with collapsing confidence in the chaotic Trump administration’s ability to deal with them, could lead to a rout by the Biden forces.
The Democrats could torch Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell and their rebellious brand of Republicanism, which dates back to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his politics of personal destruction; it continued with the Tea Party and then Mr. Trump himself. It brought on the nativism, the demonization of opponents, the race-baiting and the contempt for mainstream media and long-standing institutions.
Now is the moment when sense and stability can be restored. Senator Jeff Merkley, the Oregon Democrat who will easily be re-elected, is campaigning across the country for other candidates with a slogan that captures the objective:
“Dump Trump. Ditch Mitch. Save America.”
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Lawrence Martin