The Senate map this year is a gift to Republicans. Nearly all the seats they are defending are safe, and they have several opportunities to flip seats in competitive states.
RealClearPolitics currently rates seven Senate races as toss-ups: Nevada, Montana, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. The Republican is only leading in the RCP polling average in one, Montana.
If Republicans flip West Virginia (which is a gimme) and Montana, and everything else stays the same, they will have 51 seats and therefore the Senate majority. But their failure to secure a majority of more than one seat given this year’s map would be a travesty.
More remarkable is that Kari Lake, the election-conspiracy candidate for Senate in Arizona, who has already lost one statewide race and will likely do so again, is currently performing better than the other five Republicans trailing in toss-up states, according to the RCP polling average.
Republican Tim Sheehy leads Democratic incumbent Jon Tester in Montana by 4.4 percentage points, according to RCP. He’s the only toss-up-state Republican with a lead right now. Here are the rest, in descending order of their polling deficit:
- Arizona: Lake trails Democrat Ruben Gallego by 3.4 points.
- Nevada: Republican Sam Brown trails Democratic incumbent Jackie Rosen by four points.
- Ohio: Republican Bernie Moreno trails Democratic incumbent Sherrod Brown by five points.
- Michigan: Republican Mike Rogers trails Democrat Elissa Slotkin by 5.4 points.
- Wisconsin: Republican Eric Hovde trails Democratic incumbent Tammy Baldwin by 6.1 points.
- Pennsylvania: Republican David McCormick trails Democratic incumbent Bob Casey by 6.8 points.
Of course, this wouldn’t be the first time that Republicans stand to flush away golden opportunities to flip Senate seats. But for just about everyone to be doing worse than proven loser Kari Lake is really something special.