I was listening to Thom Hartman on the car radio and he told me something I didn’t realize. It seemed unbelievable.
How could these numbers be so askew? I had to have misheard what he said: 23 Democratic Senate seats and only 8 Republican seats up for election in 2018.
The first thing I did when I got home was look this up.
Like all of you, we’ve been hoping that Trump and the Republicans will screw things up so badly over the next year that when the campaigning began for the mid-terms disillusioned, disappointed, and/or angry Trump voters and other Republicans will vote out their Republican senators.
We’ve been hoping that the Democrats will win control of the Senate.
But 23 of them will be up for reelection. Obviously for them to keep control of the Senate, even by the two votes needed to override a tie, they will have to keep all the seats they need to offset the losses of Republican senators. I’d work out an equation, but math isn’t my strong suit, but you get the idea.
I’ll illustrate this the simple way:
We may have to wait until 2022 before the Democrats can have a chance to regain the Senate.
“Elections to the United States Senate will be held on November 8, 2022 with 34 of the 100 seats in the Senate being contested in regular elections, the winners of which will serve six-year terms in the United States Congress from January 3, 2023 to January 3, 2029. All class III Senators are up for election; class 3 was last up for election in 2016, when Democrats won a net gain of two seats. Democrats will defend 12 seats, while Republicans will defend 22 seats.” (Wikipedia)
The map in 2022 is very different than the 2018 map:
I see little reason for optimism when it comes to Congress. It will be a difficult proposition for the Democrats to take control of the Senate, let along the House.
The only hope for our future is to defeat Trump or whichever Republican runs in 2022. Then we’ll go back to an Obama situation where Congress blocks everything the Democratic president tried to do. It will be even worse because it’s likely that the Supreme Court will have a solid conservative majority.
I’m sorry if I ruined you day.