Senate Election Prognosis: Miracle Needed, Several

I’m an optimist. I feel Trump will be defeated and the Democrats will take back the House by over a dozen seats. I see mad scrambles by mid-November of Republicans rushing to K Street to find a chance to make sleazy living: John James (MI), Mike Lawler (NY), Tom Kean (NJ), Maria Salazar (FL), Antony D’Esposito (NY), Don Bacon (NE), Brian Fitzpatrick (PA), Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Derrick Van Orden (WI), Brandon Williams (NY), Mike Garcia (CA), Michelle Steel (CA), Monica De La Cruz (TX), David Schweikert (AZ)… 5 or 6 more. And that’s pretty amazing considering how gerrymandered most of the country is.

But it’s hard to imagine the Democrats holding onto their majority in the Senate. They’re starting with a deficit— Joe Manchin is likely to be replaced by Jim Justice, who’s just like him, but a bit worse. Ask anyone which senators are in trouble and they’ll give you this list:

• Jacky Rosen (D-NV)

• Jon Tester (D-MT)

• Sherrod Brown (D-OH)

• Bob Casey (D-PA)

• + the open Democratic seats in Michigan and maybe even Maryland. But no Republicans.

Let me give you an optimistic perspective. Democrats only lose Rosen, for whom there’s no plausible case for reelecting.That would be an amazing feat but I think the only 50-50 race in Montana and all the others— besides Nevada and West Virginia— are leaning blue. The Democrats still have to win a GOP-occupied seat to retain their majority (a tie + Kamala Harris). But the Republicans all seem to be in fairly safe seats. If everything breaks the Democrats’ way, the are 4 steep climbs that aren’t completely impossible. The first three are based on the quality of the Democratic candidates and the last one is based on how horrible the GOP incumbent is.

• Alan Grayson beats Rick Scott

• Lucas Kunce beats Josh Hawley

• Zach Shrewsbury beats Jim Justice

___

• Colin Allred beats Ted Cruz

Unlike the other 3, Allread is a mediocre candidate, with a mediocre record as a House backbencher, pretty much as bad as Jacky Rosen, but without the incumbency. But… yesterday Rolling Stone asserted that Cruz is getting nervous about losing. “The Democrats are coming after me,” he whined on Fox News a couple of days ago. “They are gonna spend more than $100 million this year, George Soros is already spending millions of dollars in the state of Texas. My opponent a liberal Democrat named Colin Allred, is out raising Beto O’Rourke, my last opponent, 3 to 1. They are flooding millions of dollars into Texas— and the reason is simple. You remember my last reelection, it was a 3-point race. I won by 2.6 percent.” First off, Colin Allred is no Beto O’Rourke; not even close. Second, calling Allred a “liberal Democrat” is about as accurate as calling Cruz a “moderate Republican.” Anyone who wants a moderate Republican would be better off opting for Allred.

Nikki Ramirez reported that “Cruz’s fundraising concerns may explain a very shady financial arrangement the senator has with iHeartMedia, the hosting platform of his podcast Verdict with Ted Cruz. Last week, the Houston Chronicle reported that the radio network paid out $630,850 to a Cruz-affiliated super PAC, Truth and Courage. According to FEC data reviewed by the Chronicle, the six-figure sum represents about a third of the PAC’s fundraising haul since 2023. The LoseCruz PAC, a political action committee challenging the senator’s reelection, first reported a $214,752.98 transfer from iHeartMedia to Truth and Courage in March.  A Cruz campaign spokesperson told the Chronicle that the senator ‘appears on Verdict three times a week for free.’ A representative from the company said the funds were the proceeds of sales for the podcast’s advertising inventory, and that Cruz ‘volunteers his time to host this podcast and isn’t compensated for it.’ But if iHeartMedia is sending massive checks to a PAC affiliated with his reelection campaign, is there really no benefit to Cruz? According to Shanna Ports, a senior legal counsel at the Campaign Legal Center who was interviewed by the Chronicle, the payments raise questions of ‘whether this is an unlawful contribution,’ as federal officeholders are barred from soliciting contributions over $5,000 to PACs. 

Cruz got pissed off when he was asked about it and started whining about left wing attacks against him. Still, the most recent reliable poll I saw (Marist, March 25) shows Cruz comfortably up, 51-45%. And he’s romping in the fundraising race— $46.3 million to Allred’s 21.0 million. So, yeah… he was lying on Fox.

Cruz barely managed to eke out a win against O’Rourke in 2018, and the Republican Party at large is showing their concern that Texas— once a reliable red state— is quickly becoming a purple battleground. Cruz is prominently featured on the website for “Deploy Your Vote,” a Texas get-out-the-vote encouraging Republicans to vote early despite the GOP’s widespread villainization of early voting initiatives in the aftermath of Trump’s 2020 election loss. 

“When you vote early, Democrats can’t engage in last-minute games like running out of paper ballots,” Cruz says in a promotional video for the website. “When you vote early, they can’t cheat. When we all vote early, they can’t win.”