We are now into the full swing of the 2020 election cycle and despite all the attention given to the Presidential race, the US Senate elections are nearly as important and are playing out with far less attention. Republicans currently hold a 53-47 majority but are defending the vast majority of the seats in the 2020 map. Do Democrats have a shot of retaking the majority? Let’s take a look in the first installment of our 2020 Senate race ratings. For these, I will be using the Civiqs Trump approval rating data as well, which will be listed immediately under each race, to provide context for statewide partisanship as we enter 2020. Let’s get to it:
Safe D (8): DE, IL, OR, MA, NJ, NM, RI, VA
These states are all safely Democratic at both the Presidential and Senate level and will remain that way in the 2020 elections. New Mexico is going to elect a new Senator with the retirement of incumbent Tom Udall, who flipped the seat blue in 2008. The replacement is all but certain to be US Rep. Ben Ray Luján, who is going to leave a cushy House leadership post to pursue the Senate seat. Meanwhile, Massachusetts has one of the most interesting Senate primaries of the cycle, pitting incumbent Ed Markey, an elder statesmen of Bay State politics, against US Rep. Joe Kennedy III, the newest member of the Kennedy political dynasty. The two are very similar on policy (although Markey may actually be more progressive) and it is likely to turn more into a generational battle between the old Markey and the upstart Kennedy. The primary is worth watching if only because the winner is guaranteed to win the general election in deep blue Massachusetts. Finally, Virginia has been upgraded to Safe Dem with the withdrawal of former US Rep. Scott Taylor from the Republican primary. Taylor was not a great candidate but he was at least someone who had once held public office, as it currently leaves the VA GOP with no one meeting that threshold in the race. Absent a viable candidate, the Virginia Republicans are all but handing a third term to Senator Mark Warner gift-wrapped.
Likely D (2): MN, NH
Minnesota: Tina Smith
Trump approval: 43% approve, 55% disapprove
Smith was the appointed incumbent for Al Franken who faced voters in a Special Election in 2018, a race that was once seen as potentially competitive. Smith faced Minnesota State Senator Karin Housley (R) in the 2018 election and by the time Election Day rolled around, Republicans had all but conceded, allowing Smith to trounce Housley en route to a resounding 10.6% victory. Smith proved her viability to the voters in that election and there isn’t a whole lot of evidence that she will be challenged in any major capacity in 2020. The problem for the Minnesota Republicans has long been that they have no bench whatsoever for statewide offices. Their candidate for the Senate seat this time around is former US Rep. Jason Lewis, who was a one-termer in Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District from 2017-2019. Lewis beat Angie Craig (D) in 2016 in a fractured field by a narrow margin before losing to her by 5.6% in 2018 in the key swing district. When your best option for Senate is a guy who got thoroughly ousted in a swing seat slightly to the right of the state as a whole, that’s not a good sign, and it’s a testament to where the Minnesota GOP is. Looking at Trump’s standing in the state, it’s not great, with Civiqs clocking him at 43/55, which via imprecise rounding is actually closer to net negative 13 points. While Trump did come within 1.51% of capturing Minnesota in 2016, it’s worth noting he got less of the vote than Mitt Romney did in 2012 (44.96% vs. 44.57%). Therefore, it is at this time fair to say that Trump is quite unlikely to win Minnesota in 2020 given his current polling, and absent a strong GOP challenger against Smith, the incumbent is likely to earn a full term in the US Senate as well.
New Hampshire: Jeanne Shaheen
Trump approval: 41% approve, 56% disapprove
Jeanne Shaheen has run for this seat three times in the preceding three cycles, being in a tight race every time. In 2002, she lost narrowly to then-Rep. John E. Sununu (R) by just over 4 points. In 2008, she challenged Sununu to a rematch, defeating him by just over 5 points. In 2014, she faced former Massachusetts Senator and carpetbagger extraordinaire Scott Brown, defeating him by around 3 points. However, Shaheen may have dodged the potential of a close race in 2020 when current and rather popular New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu (R, brother of John) decided against challenging her. This put the NH GOP in a bind because they lack a truly viable candidate to face Shaheen. Former Senator Kelly Ayotte, who lost narrowly in 2016, was rumored as a candidate but never bit and so was former Trump campaign manager/partisan nutjob Corey Lewandowski, someone the GOP actually did not want to run. This has left the NH GOP with former Speaker of the New Hampshire House Bill O’Brien as the current frontrunner, and the general election polling is not great. An August, 2019, Gravis Marketing poll showed Shaheen ahead by 13 points and over 50% (52-39), and while that is Gravis (a notoriously bad polling outlet), I have little reason to believe it is terribly offbase, with Trump 15 points underwater in this state. It’s also worth noting that Republicans got hammered in New Hampshire in 2018, losing nearly 60 seats in the State House, 4 in the State Senate, and Dems won the statewide US House popular vote by 11 points. Like Minnesota, this is not a state that the President is likely to win and with a solid incumbent and no strong challenger, Democrats start as the heavy favorite.
Lean D (2): MI, CO
Michigan: Gary Peters
Trump Approval: 44% approve, 54% disapprove
Outside of the obvious Alabama, Michigan is the Republicans’ best hope to pick up a Senate seat in 2020. The state narrowly supported the President in the 2016 election, famously falling to Trump by 0.2%, which in theory places incumbent Senator Gary Peters in trouble. However, Peters starts as a favorite for a few reasons. First off, he is an incumbent obviously, though he may be the Senate’s most anonymous incumbent, often registering higher shares responding to polls saying “don’t know” than favorable or unfavorable. As Bill Nelson showed, that can prove to be an issue if you don’t make an effort to rectify that problem. Still, Peters’ electoral track record is impeccable, narrowly losing an Attorney General race in 2002 (in a pro-GOP year) before flipping a traditionally Republican House district in 2008, holding it despite the GOP wave in 2010, beating a fellow incumbent Democrat in a primary when they were redistricted into the same seat in 2012, and then demolishing Republican Terri Lynn Land for the open Senate seat in 2014, also despite a GOP wave. Now Land was a highly problematic candidate with a litany of gaffes, so it should be expected that any Democrat probably would’ve won that race, but not every Democrat wins by 13 points in that national environment. Peters may seem like a rando, but he’s demonstrated a long track record of being very good at politics.
Peters seems slated to face businessman and veteran John James, the GOP’s candidate for US Senate in 2018. James ran against incumbent Democrat Debbie Stabenow, losing by 6.5% points. This respectable performance led many to deem James as a rising superstar but there’s a few things going on with that race. Most notably, Stabenow did not really run a campaign. She didn’t hold many rallies and rarely ran negative ads against James, despite him hammering her in numerous attack ads. Stabenow started with such an overwhelming edge that she played like a football team up 31-10 in the third quarter: playing prevent defense and just trying not to make a big mistake. This allowed James to paint himself in a very positive light with no opposition and close the edge respectably. That’s going to change in 2020. Peters, who doesn’t start with nearly the same edge as Stabenow, is going to run a ferocious campaign against James, and we’re finally going to see what the Republican really made of. All things considered, there isn’t a ton of evidence that James is significantly better (or worse) than a replacement Republican, which means we defer to Presidential partisanship, which is the final issue for the GOP. Trump is not popular in Michigan, in the net negative double digits and local pollsters Glengariff and EPIC-MRA recently both found all Presidential Democratic candidates leading the President, and most by mid-to-high single digits. Expect a close and expensive race, but also expect a Democratic hold.
Colorado: Cory Gardner
Trump approval: 42% approve, 56% disapprove
The most endangered Republican Senator is Cory Gardner, and it’s not particularly close. Gardner won a tight race in 2014, defeating incumbent Democrat Mark Udall off the backs of the national GOP wave by 2 points and has embarked on an odd Senate tenure. Rather than trying to take a page from Mark Kirk’s book and carve out a more moderate image, Gardner has voted as a hardline conservative, serving in Senate leadership and tying himself to Trump. This does not seem logical in a state that Trump lost by 5 points in 2016 and where Trump’s net approval is an ugly -14. Colorado is a state that continues to get bluer and Gardner seems bewilderingly unaware of this reality. His personal approval rating is under water and the national forces don’t help either. Even worse, popular former Governor (and Presidential candidate) John Hickenlooper is in the race and is currently crushing Gardner in the polls. Every poll taken shows Hickenlooper leading by double digits, and the lone nonpartisan one shows the Governor leading Gardner by 13 points. There’s not much to say here other than that Cory Gardner is in a lot of trouble and is a clear underdog to lose his seat this fall.
Tossup (3): AZ-Special, ME, NC
Arizona-Special: Martha McSally
Trump approval: 46% approve, 52% disapprove
McSally is an appointed incumbent for the deceased John McCain and will be forced to run in the Special Election for this seat in the fall. McSally ran in 2018 for the other Senate seat, losing by 2.5 points to Kyrsten Sinema, and then being appointed to this seat back in January. McSally gets a mulligan but nothing about her 2018 performance really inspires confidence and so far this race is not unfolding well for her either. Democrats seem to have found a strong candidate in Mark Kelly, a former astronaut who is also the husband of former Rep. Gabby Giffords. Kelly can use his space background as a political outsider, but can also speak from personal experience on the issue of gun control. Kelly is going to be armed with a gigantic war chest, for what it’s worth. He raised a whopping $6.3 M in Q4 of 2019, meaning he raised nearly $20 M on the year and has an astonishing $13 M in-hand for 2020, far outraising that of the incumbent Republican. The polling of this race does not look great for McSally either. She has not led in a poll since July, and the two most recent from Public Policy Polling (a Dem-aligned firm) and OH Predictive Insights (a GOP-aligned firm), show her trailing 46-42 and 47-44, respectively. That is not an insurmountable edge don’t get me wrong, but it’s rather clear that if the tilt rating existed in my ratings system, this race would be tilting Democratic. Kelly has the money and the momentum, and his poll numbers are outpacing Democratic presidential candidates, who are generally locked even with Trump, while Kelly consistently leads McSally. Given Kelly’s moderate stances, it is quite possible that the retired astronaut could run ahead of the top of the ticket Democrats in this state that narrowly disapproves of Trump. Lastly, it should be noted that there is some evidence that polls of Arizona underestimated Democrats across the board in that state in 2018, a problem that pops up in other heavy Latino states like Nevada and Texas, so if anything, the numbers could be underestimating Kelly’s strength. Still, this will be a close race and we must leave it in tossup.
Maine: Susan Collins
Trump approval: 39% approve, 58% disapprove
I wrote a lot about Susan Collins and the Maine Senate race back in the summer, so give it a read. That said, there’s been quite a few new developments since then. First was the entrance of Maine Speaker of the House Sara Gideon into the race, who was one of the best recruits Democrats could have landed. Gideon raised $1 M in the first week after jumping in, reeled in $3.2 M in Q3, and remember, will receive $4 M in free money once she is crowned as the nominee, due to the PAC created following the Kavanaugh hearing. In all likelihood, she will be more than well funded, and now it comes down to the race itself. The only poll we have of the race is far outdated and if there’s one race that we are starved for polling in, it’s this one. However, while we don’t have recent horse race polling, we do have Collins’ approval polling from Morning Consult, which has rapidly declined over the past year. In October 2018, the outlet had her at net +15 (53-38). In its new data released last week, it had Senator Collins at -10 (42-52), the most unpopular Senator in America. Plain and simple: something seems to have changed in Maine and Cook Political Report changed their rating from Lean R to Tossup some while back, and I have done the same. I would love to see updated head-to-head data between Collins and Gideon, but I still feel confident making this move.
Why? Well, Trump’s approval rating in Maine is dreadful. It clocks in at -19 in the Civiqs data, and it comes in about that bad across the board. The Fox News Voter Analysis survey taken back in Nov. 2018 had Trump at -18 in the state and Morning Consult’s own numbers have been similar. While it is true that Maine is a white working class state, which could mean that polls are underestimating Republican support, even a polling miss in favor of the GOP isn’t going to clean up this mess. PublicPolicyPolling’s October 11-13 poll found Trump at -12 in the state and Collins at -15 (!), with every Democratic candidate for President leading the President by at least 9 points. Part of the GOP optimism for Collins’ survival was the fact that Trump lost Maine by just 3 points in 2016. All of the evidence seems to be pointing towards the President being weaker there currently than he was 4 years ago, and a Maine that goes 10 or so points blue at the Presidential level may not be enough to save Collins in this partisan era. I wish we had more data, as Maine is a state that really likes its incumbents, but the idea of the Senator gliding to a fifth victory seems unlikely.
North Carolina: Thom Tillis
Trump Approval: 47% approve, 51% disapprove
Democrats have long been bitter about the result of the 2014 US Senate election in North Carolina, when Thom Tillis (R) defeated incumbent Kay Hagan (D) by 2 points in a race that Hagan was expected to win, as most all polls had shown her with a small but not invincible lead. Now is the Dems’ opportunity to get even in North Carolina and there are a few factors to assess here. First off, Tillis is in no way a strong incumbent. He’s one of the most anonymous Senators of this cycle, with middling approval ratings and high “unknown” responses to polls of his favorability/approval rating. A lot of North Carolinians just don’t know who he is, evidenced by a few early polls showing Tillis at just over 40%. While Tillis will have the “I” next to his name, this is in many ways, not unlike an open seat race. So after discussing Tillis, let’s take a look at who the Democrats have: Cal Cunningham. Democrats were unable to land a “featured” candidate like Attorney General Josh Stein or Hot Young Thing Jeff Jackson, but I think Cunningham could honestly prove to be as strong as either of those. Cunningham is young himself (45), has a military background (has done two active tours in the US Army), and has served in the state legislature (2001-2003). Cunningham ran for Senate in 2010, losing in the Democratic primary after a valiant effort against State Treasurer Elaine Marshall, who was the heavy favorite. Cunningham has served as a private lawyer since then and is in no way a retread. Fundraising numbers for Cunningham are solid, having raised $3.1 M for his race since entering in the middle of 2019. As it stands now, there is no real evidence that Tillis will run ahead Trump, and in fact, he’s probably the most likely GOP incumbent besides McSally to run behind him. I fully expect that whichever party wins North Carolina at the Presidential level will also claim the state’s Class II Senate seat.
So that brings us to the Presidential partisanship. Trump is currently at -4 net approval in the data, and other polls have largely corroborated that, with the President barely underwater. Presidential matchup polls have been pretty typical for a state where Trump is narrowly underwater: being within the margin of error in nearly every poll against Biden and Sanders. Just like in 2008, 2012, and 2016 North Carolina is likely to be a heavily contested state at the Presidential level. Still, North Carolina has been a bit of a tease for Democrats at the federal level since Obama carried it in 2008. While the NC Democratic Party had good success at the state level in 2016 (winning Governor and AG), they were unable to win the state at the presidential level, with Trump carrying it by 3.5. As it stands right now, North Carolina seems to be an R+5ish state in a neutral environment, with Democrats winning the State House popular vote by just over 2 points in 2018, a D+7 year (adjusted for uncontested races). Democrats would’ve carried the statewide popular vote for US House by about 1 point by my rough estimation had they fielded a candidate in every race (they left NC-03 uncontested). So this is one of those states that will likely be very competitive (and flippable) if Democrats continue to lead Trump by around 5 or so points nationally, as they do currently. If that topline GE margin stays the same headed into the fall, expect this race to be razor thin and a clear tossup.
Lean R (5): GA, GA-Special, IA, KS, TX
Georgia: David Perdue & Georgia-Special Election: Kelly Loeffler
Trump approval: 47% approve, 50% disapprove
I’m going to talk about these two races in tandem because Georgia is having a “double barrell election”, where both Senate seats are up at the same time, due to the health-related retirement of Senator Johnny Isakson. The first seat is held by one-term incumbent David Perdue, who is a mostly anonymous and non-controversial incumbent sporting very good approval numbers, while the special election seat is held by appointed incumbent Kelly Loeffler, who was previously a political outsider businesswoman. On the Democratic side, there is a pileup of candidates for the regular race and a dearth of candidates for the special election, which in some ways is logical and in others, counterintuitive. The Loeffler special election seat seems far more winnable for Democrats, yet it will come up again with its regularly scheduled election in 2022, and many candidates do not want to have to run two cycles in a row, despite the more winnable terrain. Starting with the regularly scheduled race, Democrats have a bizarre four-way primary between Mayor of Columbus, GA, Teresa Tomlinson, Mayor of Clarkston, GA, Ted Terry, former Lt. Gov. candidate Sarah Riggs Amico, and former GA-06 candidate Jon Ossoff. The latter is currently the fundraising leader thanks to all the contacts he has from his infamous special election run in 2017, in which he raked in the cash, but Ossoff may actually be the weakest candidate of the four, given that he failed to flip a seat left of the state as a whole (that then flipped in the Midterms just over a year later). His campaign was plagued by general blandness and it’s not clear what appeal he really has outside of fundraising prowess. Tomlinson seemed like the best of the four being a younger black woman, the one most in the Stacey Abrams mold, but her fundraising has left a lot to be desired. Meanwhile Riggs Amico and Terry are mostly total wild cards but both have arguments for electability.
In the special election, I think the GOP side is far more interesting as a matter of fact. Loeffler was appointed to be a mainstream Republican as opposed to noted Tea Party dingbat Doug Collins, who many Republicans saw as too controversial. Collins, however, is bitter that he was not appointed and seems primed to run in the primary. He established himself as a wannabe Devin Nunes during the impeachment hearings and his conduct was more or less a reason why he was not appointed to the seat. If he wins the primary, things could be a lot more interesting. The best that Democrats have so far is businessman Matt Lieberman, son of former Senator Joe Lieberman, which is not exactly great in the candidate department, but if Loeffler wins the primary this could be a race of two political outsider business-people going up against each other. While Democrats have a sizable amount of work to do in both races, the reason they fall in the Lean R column is simple: Trump is unpopular in Georgia and Georgia is very inelastic. Even if Republicans sweep both races, which they’re currently favored to do, they aren’t going to be blowouts, because blowouts are rare in Georgia politics. While Isakson won by 13 in his race in 2016, he was a long-time incumbent facing a Some Dude type candidate from the Democrats. Every other major race from 2014, 2016, and 2018 (three very different cycles) were within single digits. That’s Georgia. Trump’s approval rating has been struggling to tread water here and recent polls have shown Democratic Presidential candidates leading Trump in Georgia. I would expect a close Presidential race in Georgia and as a result, I would expect close Senate races as well, though Democrats need to do better than they currently are to be in better position to capitalize, hence the Lean R rating.
Iowa: Joni Ernst
Trump approval: 48% approve, 50% disapprove
Before the 2018 elections, I pegged Iowa as the most interesting state in 2018 and we got a lot of mixed signals: Democrats had some very tangible successes, but so did Republicans. Dems gained IA-01 and IA-03, held the State Treasurer and AG races, as well as flipping the State Auditor election thanks to rising star Rob Sand. But Republicans were able to narrowly keep the Governorship (by 2.7 points) and held onto the State House, though Dems did gain 5 seats. So what’s going on in Iowa? It’s tough to say. Trump’s approval rating continues to sag in Iowa, being consistently underwater, now at -2 (one of his better numbers). So Trump seems to be unpopular, but Democrats didn’t get the resounding victories that they wanted, with some of the white working class communities not showing tons of signs of flipping back (Howard County, Iowa, for example). Yet as Sand showed, the right type of Democrat can still win the state. One-term incumbent Senator Joni Ernst had a surprisingly solid victory, defeating Bruce Braley (D) in 2014 by a larger-than-expected margin. She’s a talented politician who I think will run ahead of Trump in Iowa, if I had to guess. According to some, she’s a Senator with middling approval ratings (37-40 in Morning Consult’s recent numbers), while others have her as quite popular, so again, it’s tough to tell what’s going on. Democrats seem ready to run Theresa Greenfield, a businesswoman who had a strong entry into the race. Greenfield has had solid fundraising and is an effective female counter to Ernst, but the reality right now is that despite Trump’s weak approval rating, the President still narrowly leads his Democratic foes in the general election. And if my intuition is that Ernst is running a bit ahead of Trump, that leaves her as a clear favorite. Finally, polls have underestimated Republicans to some extent in three straight elections in Iowa, and so I’m inclined to bump up my opinion of the GOP here, and so I have Ernst starting as a clear favorite.
Kansas: Open (Roberts)
Trump approval: 52% approve, 45% disapprove
Democrats have not won a Senate race in Kansas since 1930, the longest streak of any state in the country. Fresh off a strong 2018 that saw them flip one US House seat (KS-03), come very close in another (KS-02), and flip the Governorship, Kansas Democrats think they may have a shot in 2020, with longtime incumbent Pat Roberts retiring. Kansas is an interesting state politically, with a strong moderate GOP wing, as well as a pretty high education rate, leading it to be one of the few states that was more competitive in 2016 than in 2012. As you’d expect, Trump’s approval rating is pretty weak in Kansas relative to expectation at +7 which could lead to things getting wacky if the perfect storm happens. And as of mid-January, 2020, the perfect storm could well happen. That perfect storm is the Republican candidate being Kris Kobach, the highly controversial former Secretary of State who lost to Laura Kelly (D) in the 2018 governor’s race. Kobach is in the race and an internal GOP poll showed Kobach leading the primary at 43% without current Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in the race; Pompeo has publicly ruled out running. McConnell and Senate Republicans are in the process of doing everything they can to stop Kobach, as their own internal polling reportedly has Kobach trailing by 10% to a leading Democrat, and you have to think they are seeing visions of Roy Moore, Todd Akin, and Richard Mourdock from years past. McConnell will do everything he can to stop Kobach from getting the nomination, and that may include boosting US Rep. Roger Marshall in the race, but that still may not be enough. You never know. Democrats to their credit are in good position to seize the race should Kobach become the nominee, with State Senator Barbara Bollier being in the mold of Laura Kelly, who won the Governorship last fall. Bollier is a veteran female legislator and a former moderate Republican, the type of centrist who could win over the KS GOP’s moderate wing, necessary for a Democratic statewide win, and she raked in $1.1 M in Q4, unheard of for a Dem in a Kansas Senate race. A Bollier-Kobach combo could be enough to push this race into tossup territory, but it still would require Bollier to run far ahead of the Democratic ticket given Trump’s okay +7 approval rating, and that’s something to be skeptical about. But Kobach’s poor showing in 2018 (losing by 5) was bad enough to make you think he could blow a federal race too. For now, we rate KS-SEN as Lean R. Push it to tossup if Kobach gets the nomination and off the board if Marshall or someone else wins the nod.
Texas: John Cornyn
Trump approval: 50% approve, 47% disapprove
Texas had a famously razor close Senate race in 2018 and Democrats are trying to build on that momentum in 2020 against John Cornyn, a Senator who is a lot less known than Ted Cruz. Cornyn, despite having been around longer and serving in Senate leadership, is more anonymous and also less controversial, leaving the window open for Democrats to paint him in whatever light they like. The issue right now is that they don’t know who will be holding that paintbrush, as the party has a messy pile-up between former Congressional candidate MJ Hegar, former US Rep. Chris Bell, State Senator Royce West, and Houston City Councilwoman Amanda Edwards, with polls showing the primary wide open, despite the fact that Texas has a very early primary date that is now just six weeks away. With Trump narrowly above water in Texas, why is this race in Lean R?
Well, because I don’t believe that 2018 was a mirage. Texas is becoming more hospitable to Democrats and if they play their cards right, this race can be put in play. A Republican firm tested Cornyn against Democratic rivals back in November and while he had big edges against all of them, he was not higher than 45% against any of them either. An incumbent well under 50% even in his own party’s polls indicates that Cornyn isn’t super strong and I am inclined to believe that this race will track closely with the presidential numbers. The polling at the Presidential level shows it quite close, with Biden leading Trump in two polls over the summer, and Trump leading Biden by just 1 point in two polls in the fall. If the Presidential race in Texas is that close, I have no reason to think the US Senate race won’t eventually become close, too. Thankfully for Democrats the early primary gives them some time to build up their candidate in the spring before the real campaign begins. But for now, Cornyn is the favorite.
Likely R (3): AL, AK, MT
Alabama: Doug Jones
Trump approval: 60% approve, 38% disapprove
Doug Jones is the miracle Senator right now, elected to a three year term in 2017 in a special election gift wrapped and handed to him by noted pedophile Roy Moore. Alabama remains an inelastic and dark, dark red state however, giving Trump a +22 approval rating. Jones has done quite well for himself I have to say, with a respectable 41/34 approval rating, but the reality is that he is majorly, majorly at a disadvantage. Roy Moore is running again but does not appear likely to get the nomination, and Moore winning the nod again is Jones’ best hope. Instead it appears that either former Attorney General and Senator Jeff Sessions or former college football coach Tommy Tuberville will win the nomination. If those two, both mainstream Republicans, are the GOP nominee, Jones is probably toast and so I would expect this seat to flip back to the red.
Alaska: Dan Sullivan
Trump approval: 50% approve, 47% disapprove
The biggest sleeper race of the 2020 cycle in my opinion is Alaska. Trump’s approval has long been surprisingly weak in Alaska and the state had quite competitive races in 2018, with longtime US House incumbent Don Young hanging on by a narrow margin. Senator Dan Sullivan does not have nearly the same name recognition and he won the seat in a competitive race in 2014. His approval rating in Morning Consult is rather soft at 43/33 and Alaska is the type of weird state with a sizable third party contingent that things can get interesting with a strong Democratic candidate. And Dems may have found that in Al Gross, a surgeon and fisherman. Gross has the type of political outsider, independent background that can help Democrats in Alaska and he raised $1 M in Q3 of 2019, staggeringly high numbers for a low-cost state like Alaska. Gross is also wealthy enough to self-fund, kicking in $200,000 of his own money in that period. Don’t expect this race to become super close, because we’re still flying in the dark here, but all the ingredients are present in Alaska for a Senate race to get funky.
Montana: Steve Daines
Trump approval: 54% approve, 44% disapprove
This race makes the list purely because Democrats won the other Montana seat in 2018 and generally have done well in Montana overall. With Trump at +10 approval and Daines quite popular in Montana however, I would not expect anything from this race. Democrats have Wilmot Collins, the Mayor of Helena, Montana, lined up to run, and he seems fine. But this is a red state and Daines starts as a substantial favorite.
Safe R (11): AR, ID, KY, LA, MS, NE, OK, SC, SD, TN, WV, WY
These are very red states and they will remain very red in 2020. Wyoming and Tennessee will be getting new Senators due to the retirements of Mike Enzi and Lamar Alexander, respectively, and those are likely to be former US Rep. Cynthia Lummis and former Ambassador to Japan Bill Haggerty. Otherwise, 9 GOP incumbents will be re-elected. People talk a lot about the prospect of Mitch McConnell losing re-election in Kentucky. There’s a reason I said “talk”: because it is not close to reality. Trump’s +23 approval rating in Kentucky and a paper tiger of a candidate in Amy McGrath (despite the fundraising), as well as the fact this is a federal race, not a state one (ignore the 2019 Governor’s race) mean that McConnell isn’t going anywhere.
The Bottom Line
As we begin the 2020 year, Democrats have put the Senate in play but are still underdogs. The reason is because right now, taking the majority requires sweeping the tossups and winning the Presidency, a possible but not likely scenario. In the current 53-47 Senate breakdown, Dems are likely to lose one seat in Alabama, but are also favored to gain one back in Colorado. Those two states cancel each other out and so Dems still need 3 to pick up, and the path is quite clearly there: Arizona, Maine, and North Carolina. Democrats seem to have strong candidates in all three races and in two of those races, there is a weak Republican incumbent (McSally and Tillis), with details being more fuzzy in Maine, until we get further polling (although recent polling may well show Collins as weak; who knows). Still, taking back the Senate requires, above all else, a strong night at the Presidential level given how closely tied federal partisanship is between Senate and Presidential races. If Democrats have a good night and win by around 5 points nationally, carrying North Carolina and Arizona en route to a solid win, in all likelihood they will have flipped the Senate at 50-50, with the VP breaking the tie. But anything less than that, and it’s questionable.
However, as I stated previously, there is also the scenario where certain Democratic Senate candidates run ahead of the Presidential ticket. I’ve said that I see that scenario as likely in AZ, NC, AL, AK, and KS, in particular, while D Senate candidates probably run behind the Presidential ticket in IA, GA*, TX, and ME. Thus, there is a scenario where even if the Dems lose the presidency, they could still gain seats in the Senate. It’s not hard to imagine one where Dems lose at the presidential level but still gain AZ and ME because the former was hyper close and Kelly ran ahead, while they gain the latter because Collins proved to be weak and the D Presidential candidate still won Maine easily despite the national loss. North Carolina though, despite my bullishness on Cunningham, is not likely to flip unless the Dem presidential candidate either carries it, or comes very close.
The map has a chance to expand but Democrats need to do a better job to put themselves in position. They need a break to go their way in Kansas, sure, but in Texas and Georgia, they have work to do in helping narrow down a candidate and make sure that candidate is well funded. I still think Tomlinson is the best bet in the main Georgia race, but Democrats need to make sure she has the resources, and the same could be said for anyone in the pileup that is the Texas race. If Joe Biden is the Democratic nominee for President (the most likely scenario right now), both Georgia and Texas are probably in play at the Presidential level, given current polling. If they are in play at the Presidential level, there’s no reason to think they can’t be in play at the Senate level given polarization in both states, and Dems need to make sure they are ready to fight real races there. Iowa is a wildcard that I’m not terribly optimistic about for Democrats, and as I mentioned previously, the Alaska race is the total darkhorse, besides Kansas. The map could expand if Dems surge ahead in the presidential race (up by 7 or so nationally), but right now all the focus should be on Arizona, Maine, and North Carolina. Because chances are, if Dems can win all three, they will hold the Senate majority next year. But winning all three tossups is inherently not likely, and so the Senate still tilts to the GOP.