Senate Transforms With Arrival Of 2 New Democrats

[Dulcinea]

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.

https://www.npr.org/2018/01/03/575214687/senate-transforms-with-arrival-of-2-new-democrats

[NewJeffCT]

1. we definitely need to sell it like holding even

is a huge upset and a repudiation of Trump and Trumpism, because it is. In a normal presidency and this sort of map, Republicans would be looking to get to 60 votes in the Senate because they have so many Democratic senators in red states.

The way it's being talked about on here and in the media, it seems almost inevitable that Democrats win back the Senate