WASHINGTON — More than eight months before the midterm elections, the battle for control of the Senate is already shaping up as a contest centered on entrenched Democratic incumbents and a handful of purple states President Joe Biden won by slim margins.
Well-funded incumbents are now planning to spend money earlier — and at greater volume — than ever before as they try to dissipate widespread voter frustration.
“It’ll vary race by race, but I think you’ll see candidates, and especially incumbents, go up on air earlier than ever before,” said Matt Canter, a Democratic strategist.
Democrats insist publicly that they are not on the defensive heading into the 2022 election. But two of the party’s endangered senators have put ads on the air, and strategists say the party is at risk of losing at least four seats held by Democratic incumbents.
The party’s razor-thin majority in the Senate — it controls 50 seats, with Vice President Kamala Harris as the tie-breaking vote — means the loss of even a single Democrat could give Republicans control of the legislative chamber. The dynamic could force Biden’s party to make difficult choices down the line about how much support to offer some of its nominees for Republican-held seats.
GOP operatives, for their part, say they are hopeful that a political climate that favors their party will net them enough victories to win back the majority and then some, though they caution that their candidates will have to prove themselves capable of running good campaigns first.
“As the national environment continues to tilt Republican, new things become possible for us in terms of being able to make the map bigger,” said Steven Law, CEO of Senate Leadership Fund, a big-spending outside group with close ties to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
The battle for the Senate is happening in a midterm election year in which Democrats up and down the ballot are scrambling to muster the level of support from 2020, when Biden ran against former President Donald Trump. Since then, voters have indicated disapproval of the way Biden has handled his job and irritation over the lingering economic and public health effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
Last fall, Democrats suffered a surprise defeat in the Virginia gubernatorial race, a loss in a blue-leaning state that many in the party interpreted as a significant warning about the midterm outcome.
Strategists on both sides agree that the main battlegrounds are four states defended by Democratic incumbents — Georgia, Nevada, Arizona and New Hampshire — and three states represented by Republicans — North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
North Carolina is the only state of the seven that Trump won during the 2020 election.
“I think that the map is one of the things that makes me most optimistic about this cycle, which is, number one, in order to hold the majority, all we have to do is win where President Biden won,” said Jessica Floyd, president at American Bridge, a Democratic super PAC.
Biden won narrowly in some of those states, and two Democrats running for reelection in swing areas, Sens. Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, have already launched commercials supporting their reelection bids. Those two senators plus Mark Kelly of Arizona and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada are widely viewed as the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents.
Warnock is likely to face Herschel Walker, the 1982 Heisman Trophy winner and football star at the University of Georgia, and Cortez Masto’s opponent in Nevada is expected to be former state attorney general Adam Laxalt. Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich leads a group of GOP candidates in his state, while in New Hampshire, which has one of the latest primaries in the country, the Republican field is still shaping up.
In North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Ohio, another purple state that Trump won, incumbent GOP senators are not seeking reelection. The retirements have helped drive up fundraising and interest in Democrats competing in primaries in those states, in addition to all the sitting senators the national party has vowed to protect.
“Even in states that typically seem like a reach for Dems, the map is pretty potent,” said Justin Barasky, former senior adviser to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “So I think Democrats are going to have the resources they need to do both.”
States on the fringe of the competitive map include Florida, where polling indicates GOP Sen. Marco Rubio holds a healthy lead over presumed Democratic opponent and current Rep. Val Demings, and Colorado, where Republicans failed to net a top recruit but party strategists contend the party could make inroads in a favorable year.
Democratic strategists say it is necessary to invest in battleground states that Trump won twice, even if their odds of winning are lower there than in a state that Biden won.
“You don’t want to completely let go of the rope in a place like Florida or North Carolina because even if you fight it to a draw, you still make Republicans invest resources, and still there is an off chance you get Republicans that nominate someone who’s nuts,” said Joel Payne, a Democratic strategist who worked for former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Rubio reported having $10.6 million in cash on hand at the end of last year. Demings had $8.1 million left to spend at the time of her last financial disclosure. But the state is one of the most expensive to compete in, and Rubio led Demings by 7 points in a recent poll.
Former top Rubio aide and veteran Republican strategist Alex Conant said Democrats may find that their resources are better deployed elsewhere if Demings’ fundraising flags or Rubio opens up a wider lead.
“In a world with finite money for Senate campaigns, they have to do a certain amount of picking and choosing,” Conant said. “You’re always going to defend your incumbents first, and then try to pick off the most vulnerable senators, especially if they’re in relatively affordable states.”
Republicans say they feel good about their prospects in battleground states, even though their party’s leading candidates have been outraised by Democrats at times.
Former chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court and Democratic Senate candidate Cheri Beasley raised more money than all of her Republican and Democratic competitors last year. She collected $5 million overall and had more than $2.8 million in the bank at the end of 2021.
North Carolina Republican Party Chairman Michael Whatley said he is confident that the GOP’s eventual nominee for Senate will be able to raise the money that is needed to compete in the general election.
“If Republicans can’t hold North Carolina, they’re not going to be able to retake the majority,” Whatley said. “So we feel like we’re going to be in a top-tier state, and we’re doing everything we can as a state party right now to get ready to support whoever comes out in the primary and feel like we’re going to be in a good position.”
Late primaries in some states, including Missouri and Arizona, could also prolong damaging Republican primaries.
The Democratic Party of Wisconsin says it has been organizing year-round since the 2020 election, and it is readying an apparatus that can take on incumbent GOP Sen. Ron Johnson once the party’s August primary wraps up.
“Wisconsin is the home of the nail-biter. It’s the only state where four of the last six presidential races have come down to less than 1 percentage point. So it’s a state where either side can win,” Democratic Party chair Ben Wikler said.
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