Democrats will Control the Senate

The Republicans seem determined to make sure the Democrats continue to control the Senate. At the moment Democrats have 51 seats, Republicans 47 seats and there are two independents who caucus with the Democrats. At the start of this year it looked like the Republicans were going to win back the Senate. Since then things have changed.

In North Dakota and Nebraska the Democratic senators decided to retire, many viewed this as an easy opportunity for the Republicans to flip both seats from blue to red. In Missouri, the incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill was becoming increasingly unpopular. Scott Brown is the Republican senator for Massachusetts; it was believed that he had a strong chance to keep his seat considering his moderate credentials.  Republicans were also expected to put up strong performances in Wisconsin (where the current Senator is retiring) as well as Pennsylvania, Ohio, Montana and Connecticut, all these states currently have Democratic senators. Indiana was regarded as safely Republican due to the extremely popular Richard Lugar; in fact he is so popular in the state that in his last re-election in 2006, the Democrats didn’t even bother to run an opponent. The only disappointing news before the primary season began was the when Olympia Snowe announced her retirement, Snowe represents liberal Maine; her retirement gave Democrats a chance to flip her seat.

Despite all indicators pointing to a return to a Republican majority in the Senate, things have gone less well for the Republicans in 2012; much of this damage was self-inflicted. In Missouri they chose the weakest candidate available, Todd Akin, and in Indiana they chucked out the popular Richard Lugar and replaced him with a Tea Party radical. Although Nebraska is certainly going to the Republicans, North Dakota has been surprisingly competitive with the Republican, Rick Berg basically tying Democrat, Heidi Heitkamp in most polls. Republicans have also been disappointed with their candidates’ performances in Wisconsin, Connecticut, Ohio and Pennsylvania; all four states are likely to remain Democratic. There is bad news in Maine for the Republicans and Democrats, currently an independent candidate, Angus King, is leading both parties by up to 20 points. Although this may appear bad on the surface for both parties, it is a lot worse for the Republicans; the seat is currently held by a Republican and King is expected to caucus with the Democrats for Senate leadership.

There are a few states that need looked at specifically; Massachusetts, Missouri and Indiana. Of those three states, by far the most liberal is Massachusetts; in 2010 Scott Brown was elected senator in a special election to replace the recently deceased, Ted Kennedy. It was expected that he would experience a struggle to hold on to his seat, yet for most of the year he was ahead in the polls. He has attempted to portray himself as a moderate, he has distanced himself from much of the Republican leadership and was one of the first Republicans to condemn Todd Akin after his rape comments. In recent weeks his lead has completely evaporated and his Democratic challenger, Elizabeth Warren is leading by good margins.  Part of this can be placed on the perceived racism of his campaign, against Native Americans. Warren has Native American blood in her, yet Brown claims that this is not possible! Just look at her, she’s clearly white!  Since then a number of Brown staffers have been seen making fun of Native Americans, something that has not gone down well with Massachusetts voters.

In Missouri, the Republicans were expecting to beat the unpopular Democratic incumbent, Claire McCaskill. This was, of course, before Todd Akin got himself mired in scandal. Akin was leading in every poll, until he went on TV and said the following on the issue of women getting pregnant as a result of being raped and whether they should be allowed an abortion:

“If it’s a legitimate rape, then the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

Naturally this caused a major up-roar across the US, Republicans across the country called for him to quit the race. He did not, since then he has trailed McCaskill in the polls by 7%.

Todd Akin isn’t the only candidate to ruin his chances due to his stance on abortion, in Indiana Richard Mourdock said the following in a recent TV debate:

“Even if life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that is something God intended to happen.”

Shocking right? Implying that God intended a woman to be raped is never a good thing to say, regardless of what your views on abortion are. In an attempt to salvage his election chances, Mourdock later tried to clarify what he meant by that comment saying that God didn’t intend the rape to happen, but whilst you were being raped God decided to give you the ‘gift’ of life. That, naturally, just made things worse.

With the Presidential race as close as it is and the Republicans likely to keep the House, the Democrats can at least take comfort knowing they will likely keep the Senate. If you look at the poll averages over on the Huffington Post, you can clearly see that the Senate races are going the Democrats’ way.  If each state that is deemed lean or strong Democrat votes Democrat and every state that is deemed lean or strong Republican votes Republican, then the Democrats have 50 seats and the Republicans have 43. This leaves one independent and six seats that could still go either way. Since polling is sparser in Senate races, Indiana is still deemed tossup but we should expect Donnelly to win this seat with relative ease. The other tossup races are Nevada, North Dakota, Arizona, Virginia and Montana; even if all these states vote against the Democrats it would not be enough for the Republicans to control the house.