(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) Following the recent lead of the Cook Political Report, famed political forecaster and media pundit Larry Sabato‘s Center for Politics released updated ratings that showed Republicans making significant gains in next year’s midterm elections.
According to the Center, which is based at the University of Virginia, that could include a sweep of several gubernatorial races where Republican challengers stand poised to oust far-left figures like Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
Sabato’s Crystal Ball Gov Ratings
Updated Dec 19
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Predictit Favorites (Dec 19)
NV: GOP 58% Favorite
GA: GOP 61%
WI: GOP 65%
KAS: GOP 83%
PA: GOP 54%
FL: GOP 85%
TX: GOP 84%
MN: DEM 73%
AZ: GOP 62%
MI: GOP 58%
ME: DEM 64%GOP is betting favorite in all toss up States pic.twitter.com/RIXLwP152p
— InteractivePolls (@PollsandOdds) December 20, 2021
The Center also gave Republicans cause for optimism about reclaiming the US Senate.
Its most recent indicators, as of early November, suggested that freshman Sens. Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Mark Kelly of Arizona are both in serious danger of losing their seats.
Both successfully flipped the seats of now-departed GOP incumbents—Johnny Isakson and John McCain, respectively—after they retired without finishing their terms.
Former GOP-appointed Sens. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., and Martha McSally, R-Ariz., were unable to hold the seats in special races during the 2020 election.
The Center for Politics’s projections also saw Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nevada, in danger of losing her seat, but it warned that the open seat to replace Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Penn., might swing into the blue column.
Nonetheless, Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball website, said a 51–49 edge to the GOP seemed highly plausible.
“I think the bottom line here is that Biden’s numbers are going to need to improve for Democrats to hold the Senate, although the Democrats have a better chance to hold the Senate than the House,” Kondik told Headline USA via email.
The grim political outlook both explains Democrats’ mad rush to pass the controversial HR1 voting overhaul and undermines the process by which they intend to do so.
Because the current chamber lacks the votes from Senate Republicans—who have universally denounced HR1 as a power grab that would erode election integrity—the evenly split body would have to end the longstanding practice of the filibuster if Democrats had any hope of securing their endagered seats.
However, that gambit comes with its own perils—not only due to possible voter backlash from the perception that Democrats were rubber-stamping corrupt practices, but also the dangerous procedural precedent it would establish.
Doing so would empower Republicans to steamroll their own agenda through Congress next term. And by lowering the threshold to a simple majority, Democrats might even leave open the possibility that a GOP Senate could use a 51-vote majority to override a presidential veto.
Not surprisingly, several Democrat senators—including Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona—have already called ending the filibuster a nonstarter.
“[I]t does not appear as though the Democrats have the votes within their own caucus to make changes to the procedure,” Kondik said.
“A lot of Democrats see the filibuster as an impediment to their agenda, which it is, although … doing away with it would give the Republicans their own ability to pass more legislation the next time they hold the White House and Congress,” he added.
While the Left has been busy pushing the idea that the refusal of a single senator—Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.—to comply with its agenda has made the legislative process undemocratic and in need of reform, the reality is that Democrats’ refusal to seek bipartisan compromise is the only undemocratic aspect of its failed agenda.
However, their recent decision to attack Manchin personally—with the White House and members of the radical Squad assailing him on Sunday for failing to support the so-called Build Back Better social-spending bill—could open up another pathway to a GOP majority even sooner than next year’s midterms.
A play by current Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, to eradicate the filibuster might offer an ironic twist if Manchin were to use that occasion to switch parties, thereby delivering the majority to Republicans.
Thus far, the West Virginia centrist has shut down the idea that he would do so—while noting that the thought had crossed his mind.
“I don’t think the R’s would be any more happier with me than D’s are right now,” Manchin said in October. “I mean that’s about as blunt as I can put it, so I don’t know where in the hell I belong.”
But even if a mid-session flip were off the table, Manchin might consider running as a Republican when his term ends in 2024.
“One would assume that if Manchin wanted to switch parties, he already would have done so given his pivotal position in the Senate,” Kondik said. “That said, he could always change his mind—he seems to be acting like someone who wants to run again in 2024, and he’d have a much easier time if he was a Republican, presumably.”
Or, if the browbeating from his own party should entice Manchin simply to walk away from politics altogether, it would be left to Republican Gov. Jim Justice to replace him.
On a similar note, a third, more morbid, possibility exists that could also give Republicans a fast-track to the majority.
With Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Cory Booker, D-NJ, both having contracted coronavirus recently, an outbreak that left a Democrat senator unable to perform his or her duties may lead to a potential party flip.
Warren and 80-year-old Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., two of the Senate’s most progressive stalwarts, both hail from states with Republican governors who might be tempted to appoint more moderate replacements.
Thus far, two elected members of Congress are known to have succumed to COVID-related illnesses.
Rep.-elect Luke Letlow, R-La., died of a heart attack while undergoing a COVID-related procedure last December, just days before he was to be sworn in for his freshman term. His wife, Julia, was elected to replace him.
Not long after, cancer-stricken Rep. Ron Wright, R-Texas, died after contracting the virus.
