The GOP's chances to reclaim control of the Senate is looking pretty good right now. Today, Cook Political Report issued an update on the closely watched Senate race in Montana.
Democrats began this cycle with their toughest map in decades, having to defend the red states of West Virginia, Montana and Ohio — in addition to a handful of other presidential battleground states.
Less than two months before Election Day, they are defying political gravity in some key states, such as Arizona, Nevada and Wisconsin. But glaring problems remain in those deep red states. With the now-open seat in West Virginia sitting in Solid Republican, the map begins at 50-50 for Democrats. That means that if former President Trump wins, Republicans will already have the majority.
But today we are making a major shift — moving the Montana Senate race from Toss Up to Lean Republican. This means that Republicans are now an even heavier favorite to win back control of the Senate, regardless of the result at the top of the ticket.
This shift comes after and AARP poll released last week found Tim Sheehy leading Democrat Jon Tester by 8 points.
Republican Tim Sheehy took 49 percent of the vote, compared to Tester’s 41 percent, on a four-way ballot, according to the late-August survey of 600 likely voters in the state commissioned by AARP.
There seems to be a consensus now that this race is leaning toward the GOP.
The newsletter Inside Elections updated its rating to “Tilt Republican” later that day. Last week, the Crystal Ball, from the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, also declared the race “Leans Republican.”
There are other seats still in play, most notably the one in Ohio currently held by Sherrod Brown. That seat is considered a toss-up by most observers and recent polls seem to show Brown's lead narrowing slightly down to 2-3 points.
Democrats are counting on ticket-splitters and Brown’s personal brand to boost him over Republican businessman Bernie Moreno in a state that’s expected to back Trump. Brown, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, has raised $53 million so far this cycle, the most of any endangered Senate Democrat. He had $10.7 million on hand to $4.5 million for Moreno. An Emerson College poll released last week put Brown up by 2 points even as Vice President Kamala Harris was 10 points behind Trump.
There are also several races that lean toward Democrats right now where the gap is still in the single digits including Arizona, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
Nothing is certain until the voting is done but at the moment it's looking like GOP control of the Senate is going to happen with a chance to pick up at least one additional seat beyond that.
There's a good point made near the end of this clip. Even if the GOP controls the Senate by a seat or two, that does not mean that Trump's agenda is suddenly a given. You still have very moderate Senators in Alaska and Maine who will likely not go along with any conservative social policy.
