ICYMI: The GOP shouldn’t count on retaking the Senate. Remember 2010 and 2022? [The Washington Post] 

The Washington Post: Opinion: The GOP shouldn’t count on retaking the Senate. Remember 2010 and 2022?
By Jennifer Rubin 
March 26, 2024 

Key points: “With such a divergence in candidate quality, the contest for control of the Senate is taking on some 2022 vibes.” 

• Before Republicans start measuring the drapes in the majority leader’s office, they should take a hard look at their candidates.

• In Arizona, Republicans are bent on nominating MAGA maniac Kari Lake, who lost her gubernatorial bid in 2022.
  
  
• For their Ohio nominee, Republicans went with Bernie Moreno.
  
  
• Republicans cleared the field in Pennsylvania for David McCormick, whose residency in Pennsylvania is in doubt — bringing back memories of Mehmet Oz, the New Jerseyan who never recovered in 2022 from gibes about his residence.
  

• By contrast, Democrats are running some of their savviest incumbents, each with a knack for ticket-splitting, such as Jon Tester in Montana, Sherrod Brown in Ohio and Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin.
  
  
• Tester, you might recall, won by four points in 2012 despite President Barack Obama losing the state by almost 14 points. Likewise, Brown won in 2018 by about seven points while a Republican won for governor by four points and House Republicans won 12 of 16 seats with 75 percent of all votes cast in House races in Ohio. And in Wisconsin, Baldwin won in 2018 by 11 points, running about six points above the Democratic governor at the top of the ticket.

• In addition, Democrats have recruited for open seats rising stars well-suited to their states (such as Reps. Elissa Slotkin in Michigan and Ruben Gallego in Arizona). Unlike with the GOP, the most extreme elements in the Democratic Party do not dominate the Senate primaries. Democrats also caught a break when incumbent Kyrsten Sinema, an independent, decided not to run as a third-party candidate in Arizona.

• With such a divergence in candidate quality, the contest for control of the Senate is taking on some 2022 vibes. Then, Republicans thought they would win the Senate going away. However, as Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) let on, they suffered from a severe “candidate quality” problem. Election deniers and assorted weak candidates in Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Nevada doomed their chances. Democrats actually picked up a seat, nearly unheard of in a president’s first midterm.

• The disparity in candidate quality is one reason many analysts rate the Senate as a toss-up.

• Democrats have another major advantage: abortion. Republicans post-Dobbs have run into a buzz saw of public opinion in individual races as well as in referendums (Kansas, Michigan, Ohio) that demonstrated how unpopular the Republican position is even among GOP voters.
  
  
• Moreover, a number of states might feature abortion measures on the ballot in November, including some with competitive Senate races (Arizona, Montana, Nevada). Those ballot measures might help drive Democrats to the polls.
  
  
• Abortion measures will likely also appear on the ballot in Florida and Texas, giving Democratic Senate candidates a lift in two states. (In particular, keep an eye on moderate and telegenic Rep. Colin Allred in Texas. He is already declaring he will protect abortion access, so Republican Sen. Ted Cruz “can’t force women to flee their own state to get the health care that they need.”)

• Finally, the money race so far favors Democrats, who are simply outraising their opponents. Roll Call reported last month that, according to Federal Election Commission filings, “most Democratic incumbents and challengers in battleground Senate races raised more than opponents during the last three months of 2023 and had bigger bankrolls at the start of the year.”
  
  
• That might be why Republicans are running so many self-funding millionaires. That, however, leaves them vulnerable to the argument they are trying to “buy” Senate races and do not understand the problems of ordinary voters.

• Democrats remain competitive in large part because Republicans have gone off the deep end, tying themselves to Trump, espousing radical views that don’t even sell in red states and scaring off a segment of donors.

See also: The Washington Post: Could Republicans blow it with bad candidates — again?; The New York Times: Republicans Are Counting on Millionaires to Flip the Senate; TIME: Trump Is Mapping Out a More MAGA Senate; The Washington Post: In Ohio, Republicans keep taking the tougher road to the Senate; ICYMI: DSCC Chair Sen. Gary Peters Discusses Senate Republicans’ Flawed Candidates  Like Bernie Moreno on Morning Joe; HuffPost: Senate Republicans Have Rich People Problems; Axios: Democrats attack Senate GOP’s wealthy “carpetbagger” candidates; The Washington Post: Democrats highlight GOP Senate candidates’ out-of-state ties; MSNBC: How problematic is the Senate GOP’s ‘carpetbagger’ problem?; Heartland Signal: Republicans are now running three Senate candidates with loose ties to their state; POLITICO: “Can Republicans shake the carpetbagger charge?”; NBC News: Democrats are trying to turn the GOP’s 2024 Senate contenders into Dr. Oz.

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