At Least At Some Point, Every Senator Looks In The Mirror And Sees A Future President

Trump Already Thinks He Runs The 119th Congress— Does He?

Blue America endorsed our first candidate for the 2026 Senate election today. The first time we endorsed Jeff Merkley was in 2008 when he was still Oregon’s House Speaker, just beginning what turned out to be a successful campaign against GOP incumbent Gordon Smith. He won that race and has never let us down. In fact, when Bernie ran for president in 2016, he was the only senator with enough foresight and courage to endorse him. 

2026 should be an exciting midterm after 2 years of Trump’s excesses. Ed Markey (D-MA), Tina Smith (D-MN), Cory Booker (D-NJ) are the other progressives running for reelection. The other Dems mostly range between centrists and conservatives, careerist corporatists like Chris Coons (D-DE), Mark Warner (D-VA), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Gary Peters (D-MI), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM)… The most exciting primary could turn out to be in Illinois, where hideous corporate whore Rahm Emanuel is angling to run if Dick Durbin, who will be 81 then, retires.

On the other side of the aisle, there will be a race in Ohio to finish JD Vance’s term and a race in Kentucky to replace McConnell. Republicans who could be beaten by Democrats include Susan Collins (R-ME) and— depending how things play out with Trump— Joni Ernst (R-IA), Thom Tillis (R-NC) and… no one else really. If Bob Casey really did lose in Pennsylvania, likely— he’s got 3,330,330 votes (448.43%) to McCormick’s 3,369,980 (49.01%)— and Ruben Gallego really did win in Arizona—even more likely since he’s up by over 2 points— then the final score to begin the term will be 53-47, meaning, among other things that even if Collins and Murkowski take a couple of stands against MAGA extremism, it won’t matter. In fact, even if Casey manages to pull off a win in Pennsylvania and the Democrats can win over Collins and Murkowski, that would only result in a tie that would be broken by Vance.

And if you would like to get an idea of what that’s going to look like, John Bresnahan and Andrew Desiderio began the week like this: Trump is bending Washington to his will, particularly the stiff-necked senators. Does this tweet look like a shot across some bows?

Blocking the rest of Biden’s nominees doesn’t look likely— unless lame ducks Manchin and Sinema… But what’s really in that message was Trump’s decision about how his most extreme nominations would be handled— you know, the MAGA versions of Heinrich Himmler (head of the SS and Gestapo), Reinhard Heydrich (“the Butcher of Prague”), Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Eichmann and Hans Frank. “Speculation over whether Trump is going to endorse,” they wrote, “in the Senate GOP leadership race— and efforts to persuade him to do so— is already having a big impact on the contest. In fact, Trump is testing whether Senate Republicans will defend the chamber’s independence as an institution or bow toward his victory and his agenda… [Rick] Scott is making a play for Trump’s endorsement, and prominent [hard core fascist] figures including Tucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk are backing him. Even mega-billionaire and Trump confidante Elon Musk is supporting Scott. Musk— who was with Trump on Sunday— ran his own poll that Scott won. [The Nazis around Trump] argue that Thune and Cornyn are ‘RINOs’ who are too close to Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. For their part, the two senior Republicans argue they have the experience and know-how to turn Trump’s agenda into reality. Trump had stayed out of the race publicly to this point, though he’s been bringing it up in conversations with GOP senators in the days since his election victory.”

Bresnahan and Desiderio noted that yesterday Señor T “demanded that the next majority leader commit to allowing recess appointments. Scott quickly fell in line, pledging to do ‘whatever it takes’ to get Trump’s nominees confirmed. Thune and Cornyn also signaled they’d make confirmation of Trump’s nominees a top priority, including looking at recess appointments. Some important context here: Senate leaders of both parties have worked to prevent recess appointments through “pro forma” Senate sessions that occur every few days during a scheduled recess. The House does something similar. This goes back to the Obama era. But recall that in 2020, McConnell and then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi opposed Trump’s suggestion that he’d adjourn Congress in order to make recess appointments, bypassing the Senate confirmation process. Whether Trump could do this is constitutionally questionable. Adjourning takes a vote in the House and the Senate. Yet this is ‘Mandate Trump,’ who helped Republicans win the Senate majority. Trump won’t go along with things he was forced to accept in his first term. And his allies argue he shouldn’t have to, even if that means bypassing the Senate confirmation process. This will be a big challenge for Senate Republicans.”

I should add that Trump’s coattails certainly didn’t extend to the House’s battleground districts, where GOP candidates— both winners and losers— out-performed Trump. In Nebraska’s second district, for example, Don Bacon managed to retain his seat by outpolling Trump 157,246 (51.2%) to 146,044 (47.2%). There were many other Republicans who won despite Trump not because of him, Derrick Van Orden in Wisconsin, Mike Lawler in New York, Tom Kean in New Jersey and Brian Fitzpatrick in Pennsylvania being 4 more examples. And some, like Brandon Williams, Marc Molianaro and Anthony D’Esposito all lost their seats because of him.

Back to the Senate, Bresnahan and Desiderio reported that things are spinning out of control as “a number of Republican senators and aides are privately complaining about what they see as an effort by outside forces to influence an internal decision for the GOP Conference. Remember that this is a secret ballot election, so there’s nothing forcing senators to go public with their picks. And it’s getting so that no GOP senator has an incentive to come out for Thune or Cornyn…  Of the three candidates, Scott has the most public endorsements from GOP senators so far, although none are particularly surprising. The question is whether the pressure campaign will translate into a Trump endorsement for Scott and, in turn, enough votes to be elected leader. ‘They’re trying to bully us’: We spoke with a GOP senator who sees this as an effort to intimidate Republicans and isolate Thune and Cornyn. This senator won’t vote for Scott but hasn’t decided whether to support Thune or Cornyn. ‘I really don’t much care what Tucker Carlson thinks. They’re trying to bully us. That’s not how these elections work,’ said the GOP senator, who was granted anonymity to give a candid assessment. ‘President Trump won decisively, and he deserves to have someone with actual experience who can get his agenda enacted.’ The senator is referring to Thune and Cornyn’s extensive records of passing legislation— including the Trump tax cuts— which far exceeds what Scott has done.”

I guess Trump and his team assumes that all Trump has to do is snap his fingers and his will becomes law. Let’s see how long that works for them.