Though they are still more than a year away, the 2022 Senate elections are already shaping up to be one of the most competitive cycles, with many states expected to be battlegrounds. The result of the 2022 Senate elections will be a key indicator of the popularity of the Biden administration and will determine the balance of power between the parties in Washington.
Midterm elections have typically seen big swings away from the president’s party. In fact, since the midterm election held in 1826 during President John Quincy Adams’s term, in only six other elections did the president’s party not lose seats in the House during the midterms. In modern history, since George W. Bush’s first term, each president has seen a net loss of at least a dozen house seats. The 2002 midterms were likely influenced by the 9/11 attacks that occurred only about a year earlier.
As seen, the House is likely to be a bloodbath for the president’s party. However, we must remember that we are currently in an unprecedented situation amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The much more infectious and deadly Delta variant is now (and has been for a while) the dominant COVID-19 strain in the U.S., and it is showing no signs of residing soon, especially among the unvaccinated — which are disproportionately in rural, Republican states. This could be important in the midterms.
The 2018 midterms are also interesting. During that year, the Democrats gained 40 seats in the House, flipping seats in states such as Iowa, Utah, and Oklahoma. However, the Senate elections were very close, and ultimately, the Republicans were able to net two extra seats in the Senate after Democrats lost by exceedingly small margins in key battleground states. Florida saw the Democratic incumbent lose by 0.2 percent, for instance, while Democrat Beto O’Rourke was just about two points away from flipping Texas blue. Yet, in that election, Democrats were able to keep Montana, West Virginia, and Ohio blue. This proves that Senate midterms can often play out differently.
That brings us to the races of the 2022 Senate elections. As of writing, there are no scheduled special elections to be held in 2022, so there are 34 seats up for election.
Let us first discuss retirements. Currently, five Republicans have announced they are not seeking reelection, with up to two more possible. No Democrats have announced retirement, but Sen. Patrick Leahy from Vermont might retire. Retirements are important because they create competitive open races. Parties often have a much higher chance of flipping an open race than one with an incumbent.
The five Republican senators announcing retirement are Sens. Richard Shelby of Alabama, Roy Blunt of Missouri, Richard Burr of North Carolina, Rob Portman of Ohio, and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania. Now, except for Alabama, all of these races are competitive, which we will get into later.
Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin are also likely to retire. Grassley is 87 years old already and will be 89 by the midterms. He has announced that he would decide later this year or early next year. Considering his age, retirement is likely.
Johnson has also previously stated that he expected to retire in 2022 but walked back on that promise a while ago. He still has not announced his intentions yet but given that he still hasn’t announced reelection even after receiving Donald Trump’s endorsement, it is increasingly likely he won’t run.
These retirements are bad news for the Republicans, especially since most of these are in swing states. On the contrary, no Democrats in swing states are retiring, making winning extra seats an uphill battle for the GOP.
Let us get into discussing the 13 potential battleground states I have marked out, approximately in increasing order of competitiveness. These states are Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, and Wisconsin.
We won’t spend much time on the solid states since these states are often solid for their respective parties and unless something dramatic happens, the possibilities of these races tightening are slim. Here, I’ll try and give a brief description of each of the battlegrounds.
(Note: the margins I use here are “safe” or “solid” if a state is expected to go to a party by more than 15 percentage points, “likely” if it is expected to be between 5 and 15 percent, “lean” if it is expected to be 1 to 5 percent, and “tilt” if the margin is expected to be within 1 percent. The darker the color, the more solid it is for a party.)
The first state to discuss is Alaska. This state is not on here because the Democrats have a chance of winning it (they don’t), but because there will be an extremely competitive race between two Republicans: incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a moderate, and Trump-endorsed Kelly Tshibaka.
As Alaska is using a newly-implemented top-four runoff election for the first time, there will be no direct Republican primary between Murkowski and Tshibaka, making the general election competitive. Instead, all candidates will run on a nonpartisan blanket primary together, with the top four vote-getters advancing to a ballot on the general election, which will be decided using ranked-choice voting.
Murkowski has shown a clear dislike for Trump, voting to convict him in his impeachment and speaking out against him. She has also cooperated with the Democrats on many issues, including establishing a Jan. 6 commission investigating the Capitol riots. The Alaska GOP has even censured her for this, and Trump has promised to campaign against her. Pro-Trump groups have largely coalesced around Kelly Tshibaka, Alaska’s former Department of Administration commissioner.
Because of this, though this race will be safe Republican, it will be a key indicator of how well Trump’s rhetoric still holds up two years after he is out of office. A more detailed post will come later.
Probably the least competitive state here is Missouri, and the only reason it is here is that it will be an open race. The race will only be competitive if former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, who resigned in disgrace over a major sex and campaign misconduct scandal in 2018, wins the Republican primary. If he makes it through what will likely be a messy primary with candidates such as Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Rep. Vicky Hartzler of Missouri running, Democrats are hoping he will be just unpopular enough to be able to edge out a victory in what would otherwise be a solidly red state.
There is precedence, though, in Missouri being competitive recently. In 2016, Democrat Jason Kander came within three points of beating now-retiring Sen. Roy Blunt, outrunning Hillary Clinton by almost 16 percent. However, Kander has opted not to run in 2022.
Unless Greitens wins, however, this race is solid Republican.
The next state is Colorado. Colorado was once a swing state, but it has gotten more and more solid for the Democrats in recent years. In 2020, Biden won the state by 13.5 percent, the most for any Democrat in recent history. Concurrently, Democrat John Hickenlooper also flipped the state blue, winning by 9 percent. As such, Colorado will only be competitive if it is an exceedingly red year. If this is the case, most other states on this list would likely be uncompetitive. This state is ranked as likely Democratic.
Ohio has been quite solid for Republicans lately, with Trump winning it by likely margins in both his elections, but it could be competitive in 2022. It is important to note that Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown won reelection here in 2018 by about five percentage points, so Democrats are not entirely shut out, but the stars would have to align for Democrats to win. Democrats’ hope is that a messy Republican primary, currently consisting of former Ohio State Treasurer Josh Mandel, former Ohio GOP Chair Jane Timken, author J.D. Vance, and a few others will be messy enough that coupled with leading the leading Democrat’s name recognition — Rep. Tim Ryan from Ohio — will be enough to put them over the top.
Still, Ohio is not going to be very competitive, and so it is likely Republican.
It may seem strange that Florida is next to relatively safe states such as Ohio and Missouri, but this election, in particular, is safer for Republicans than most others. The incumbent Republican, Sen. Marco Rubio, has carved out substantial name recognition for himself in the swing state, doing very well among Hispanics in his last election, which he won by 7 points. This is despite Rubio tying himself closely with Donald Trump, who won it by only 3 percent in 2020 and just over 1 percent in 2016.
Rubio’s name recognition, coupled with a Republican internal showing him leading by 20 points (the actual margin is expected to be far under this, as internals often overestimate candidates, but such a poll should still not be dismissed), means this will be an uphill battle for Democrats. Democratic Rep. Val Demings and former Rep. Alan Grayson are running. Demings is well-recognized and is a former Orlando police chief — which could help wear down Republican attacks of Democrats being soft on crime and wanting to “defund the police.” However, as it stands, Rubio is still on track to winning by above 5 percent, so it is likely Republican.
Iowa will only be competitive if Grassley retires. If Grassley runs, this race will be safe Republican, as Grassley has consistently won by 20- to 30-percent margins in his last few elections.
Even if he retires, though, this race will still be likely Republican. Republicans’ progress in the state in recent years — the party’s dominance in recent U.S. House, Senate, and presidential races are clear — just can’t be ignored, and it will take a formidable Democrat running here to even give the party a chance.
That wraps up the likely states, leaving us with the more competitive lean races. The remaining seven states — Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — fit this characterization.
Like Colorado, Nevada is another state that has been getting more Democratic and less of a swing state lately, though at a rate much slower than Colorado. The Democratic Party has a majority in the state’s legislature, captured a majority of the state’s U.S. House delegation and both Senate seats, won the governor’s mansion, and Democratic presidential candidates have won there for the past 15 years. It, therefore, doesn’t come as a surprise that incumbent Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto, is favored to win.
Though Nevada’s other Democratic senator, Jacky Rosen, was able to win by a slim likely (just over 5 percent) in 2018, considering the fact that 2022 is a midterm year, a lean characterization seems more plausible.
Arizona has been trending more Democratic in recent years, and the state now has a majority-Democratic U.S. House delegation and two Democratic U.S. senators, and it voted for Biden in 2020 as well. Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, who won by 2.4 percent in a special election in 2020, will be up for reelection in 2022. Given the state’s clear turn against the pro-Trump wing of the Republican party — all of these candidates lost statewide in recent years — and Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, one of the few statewide Republicans who aren’t blatantly pro-Trump isn’t running, Kelly is likely to win reelection by a lean margin.
If New Hampshire‘s Republican governor, Gov. Chris Sununu, decides to run, New Hampshire could get very competitive. The governor, who has consistently won by safe margins even in the relatively liberal New England state, is exceedingly popular among his New Hampshirites and has a chance of winning if he runs. Even so, incumbent Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan is an electoral powerhouse, winning narrowly against then-incumbent Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who previously won by 23 points in 2016.
Hassan definitely has a chance even if up against Sununu, especially as governing is very different from legislating, and we have seen many popular governors in the opposing party lose a Senate race, such as former Gov. Steve Bullock in Montana, who lost in 2020 after making the race competitive. Even if Sununu runs, this race still favors the Democrats, and so it is being rated lean Democratic for now.
North Carolina has been competitive now for over a decade but has often been a disappointment for the Democrats. Besides winning the governorship there in 2016, the state has failed to come into fruition for the party since Barack Obama won it in 2008. Because of that, even though the state will be an open race in 2022, the race still favors the Republicans by a lean margin. Trump has endorsed Rep. Ted Budd here in the Tar Heel State, but former Gov. Pat McCrory and former Rep. Mark Walker are still running for the Republican nomination here. The Democratic frontrunner is currently former North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley.
We are now in the most competitive of races. Georgia, which saw exceedingly competitive runoff elections in January that decided Senate control, will be having a race in which Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, who won a special election there earlier this year in a runoff, is running for a full term. Warnock is popular among Georgians, and Trump isn’t particularly popular here, either, especially after he lost the state and then-Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler lost big against Warnock. Thus, even the Trump-endorsed Herschel Walker, a football player, will be facing an uphill battle in what is expected to be a lean Democratic state.
The two most competitive races both have Republican incumbents, and both are Rust Belt states — a region that has been extremely competitive lately.
Regardless of whether Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin chooses to retire, the state will be competitive. Johnson has tied himself closely with Trump and consistently downplayed COVID-19. He has peddled misinformation about the vaccines and at one point said they weren’t safe. He has also spewed misinformation about the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 insurrection — not a winning strategy in a state Trump lost. This pro-Trump rhetoric may not do him well in this highly competitive swing state, which has been quite favorable to Democrats in 2018 and 2020 — Democrats won statewide there both elections.
Johnson has already received the coveted endorsement from Trump and raised $1.2 million in the second quarter, but he still has not announced whether he is seeking reelection. In fact, in June, he even said he believed he “may not be the best candidate” for 2022, making it seem increasingly likely he isn’t going to run. If he retires, this will be an open race.
Lots of Democrats have announced bids in this potential open race, including Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, State Treasurer Sarah Godlewski, state Sen. Chris Larson, and Tom Nelson, former majority leader of the Wisconsion Assembly, among many others.
This will likely be one of the most competitive races of the 2022 Senate elections. A Democratic internal poll by Change Research conducted in April showed Johnson’s favorability at a net negative 13 points, and Nelson leading Johnson by up to four percentage points. This is a state in which Democrats would definitely feel more confident running against Johnson than anyone else. It gets a lean Democratic characterization —a flip — for now.
The other extremely competitive race in the 2022 Senate elections is in Pennsylvania. The swing state has turned away from Trump after voting for him in 2016, with favorable results for the Democrats in 2018 and 2020 — Trump lost the state by just over 1 percent. This race will be open, adding to its competitiveness.
Lots of Democrats and Republicans alike have flooded into the race. On the Democratic side, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman has announced he is running, as is state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, Pennsylvania Democratic Party vice chair and state Sen. Sharif Street, and Montgomery County Commissioner Valerie Arkoosh. Republicans Sean Parnell and Sean Gale, who ran for the U.S. House in Pennsylvania in 2020, are running, as will Jeff Bartos, the Republican candidate in the 2018 Senate race. Political commentator Kathy Barnette is also running.
Democratic Rep. Conor Lamb, who narrowly won a race in the 17th district special election in March 2018, is also considering running. Lamb’s race attracted national attention as that district was rated R+11 by the Cook Partisan Voting Index, indicating that Lamb successfully won over crossover voters.
Given Pennsylvania’s recent history, however, the state is indeed tilting more for the Democrats than for the Republicans, and so at this point in time, it gets a lean Democratic rating, completing our map.
The final map gives us two flips — Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — with all other states expected, at this point in time, to vote for the incumbent party.
As more information comes out, however, we will likely see some of these race characterizations change, perhaps giving us more flips or seeing some races move into more competitive columns. In-depth analyses of each election will come closer to the election. In the meantime, I will make new posts on this blog if major developments occur in any of these races.
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