Senate Transforms With Arrival Of 2 New Democrats
Source: NPR
There will be two new faces and a slimmer GOP Senate majority when the chamber returns to kick off 2018 on Wednesday.
Alabama Democrat Doug Jones will take the seat once held by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, after his December victory over controversial GOP nominee Roy Moore, who was accused by several women of sexual assault and misconduct against them when they were teens and he was in his 30s.
The upset victory by Jones narrowed Republicans' hold on the Senate to only one seat, 51-49. That's noteworthy going into a midterm election year, making Democrats' impossible path to a Senate majority now just improbable. They're still largely on defense, with 10 Senate Democrats up for re-election in states that President Trump won. But if they can flip the GOP-held Arizona and Nevada seats — which are highly competitive — and defend all their incumbents, there's a way.
Democrats also have a new seat to defend with the swearing-in of Minnesota Democrat Tina Smith. The state's former lieutenant governor is set to take the place of former Democratic Sen. Al Franken, who resigned amid allegations of sexual misconduct. Smith will run for the remainder of Franken's term in November, though she could face a primary. Republicans are eyeing their chances in a state that Trump lost by less than 2 points. Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty could run, and former Rep. Michele Bachmann said recently on televangelist Jim Bakker's radio show that she is also considering a bid.
Read more: https://www.npr.org/2018/01/03/575214687/senate-transforms-with-arrival-of-2-new-democrats
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Minnesota has been part of the trio of upper midwestern states, along with Michigan and Wisconsin, that have been moving from reliably blue to purple over the past thirty-odd years. We all saw what happened with the other two in 2016, and Minnesota has shown a tendency to elect a Jesse Ventura or a Norm Coleman over such reliably DFL figures as former VP Walter Mondale and HHH's son. And Tim Pawlenty was quite popular there.
The ultimate irony would be if Democrats, facing long odds to recapture the Senate in November, somehow managed to run the table on vulnerable Republicans and held onto their own at-risk seats...only to have a Pawlenty victory over Smith swing the Senate back into a Pence-broken 50-50 tie.
