2020 US Senate Election- Tipping Point seats.

[nkpolitics1212]

35 Democratic US Senate seats are not up for re-election in 2020.
36) RI(Reed-D) unopposed
37) DE(Coons-D) unopposed
38) OR(Merkley-D)
39) MA(Markey-D)
40) NJ(Booker-D)
41) IL(Durbin-D)
42) NM(OPEN Udall-D)Lujan-D
43) VA(Warner-D)
44) MN(Smith-D)
45) NH(Shaheen-D)
46) MI(Peters-D)
47) CO(Gardner-R) Johnston-D
48) AZ(McSally-R) Kelly-D
49) NC(Tillis-R) Cunningham-D
50) GA(Perdue-R) Tomlinson-D
51) ME(Collins-R) Gideon-D

[boomer_wv]

1. Interesting.

I think Maine is probably more likely to flip than NC or GA so I'd swap those. There is also the issue of Alabama. On the surface it seems like it should flip back, but Jones has proven that he can win there, even if under unique circumstances. There is also the question of who he is running against. There are also races that could become more competitive such as Iowa, Texas, and Montana.

I think the main theme for 2020 is that Democrats are not going to be playing defense on most of the map like they were in 2016. Instead they will be playing offense everywhere and only having to truly defend in one state, Alabama. If the national political environment is similar to 2018, Democrats have an excellent chance to walk away controlling the Senate.

I think in order of likelihood, the Democrats are most likely to retain the House, win the White House, and take the Senate in that order. I don't see a scenario where they could win the Senate and manage to lose the Presidency, for example. Of course, winning the White House would mean they could hold one less seat in the Senate and still gain control. It would take some kind of Roy Moore Part 2 situation for, let's say, Stacy Abrams to win the GA Senate race and Trump to win GA at the same time. So if Democrats take GA, Trump has probably lost there. If Trump is losing in GA he has almost certainly lost the EC as well.

I'm really rambling on here, but I think the point I'm trying to get to is that winning in 2020 is going to need to be a join effort. We need a good candidate at the top for sure, but we also need to recruit excellent candidates for Senate and House seats nationally. A strong Democrat challenger in Arizona would help drive turnout as well. Arizona is a state that looks primed to flip to Democrats this time around, so having multiple reasons to turnout would be a big help.