It’s been over two months since my last post on the 2020 Senate Race. Since then, a lot has changed and there have been slews of new polls. There are a total of 35 contested seats, one of which is Georgia’s special election. (As per usual, I don’t use the tossup characterization, I try to characterize every state.) Let’s take a deeper look at the Senate elections as they stand in August 2020.
Like all previous analyses, we’ll start by coloring in all the safe states.
Though Virginia and New Mexico were competitive in the past, they have now firmly moved out of swing state territory and are now Democratic states. As Joe Biden is also projected to win these states, Republicans don’t really have a realistic shot of making these seats competitive.
The same goes for Minnesota and New Hampshire—it is very unlikely that a Republican will win these states. For example, in a slew of polls from the University of New Hampshire, incumbent Joanne Shaheen’s seat in New Hampshire is projected to go to her by a safe margin (>15%) over the Republican candidate (the primary has not taken place yet). In Minnesota, again, Democrat Tina Smith is likely to keep her seat.
The rest of the states that I colored in are basically guaranteed to go to their respective parties. It is almost impossible that any of these seats will be even remotely competitive for the opposing party.
That leaves 16 contested seats, only two (Alabama and Michigan) of which have Democratic incumbents. Let’s color in all the likely states next.
Let’s discuss the likely Republican seats first. Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina have a long trend of voting for the GOP, and will be very difficult for the Democrats to win. Although Alabama’s incumbent senator Doug Jones is a Democrat, Alabama’s strong right-wing stance make it almost impossible for him to be reelected, considering he went against an alleged child molester in the 2017 special election there. The GOP’s ads say a lot—they say virtually nothing, except point out the fact that Doug Jones is a Democrat, which is probably enough to get voters voting for Tommy Tuberville.
Though Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell’s ratings are terrible, he is still likely to be reelected, since he is the only GOP candidate for the state. In addition, he has never had great approval ratings, yet he has been reelected five times. With Kentucky’s strong right-wing bias, the seat is almost certainly out of reach for Democrats. The same goes for Alaska: Dan Sullivan is very likely to keep his seat there. Alaska has a history of voting for Republican presidents by large margins.
Kansas is a recent addition to this list. Before the primaries last week, Kansas was characterized as a lean state as Kris Kobach was projected to be the Republican primary winner. However, Roger Marshall came out on top, in a surprising turn of events. As Roger Marshall is way more popular than Kobach and is also less extreme, the seat now looks increasingly safe for Marshall. It seems Barbara Bollier has lost her chance in this state.
Let’s now switch our attention to likely Democrat states, of which there are three: Arizona, Michigan, and Colorado. Michigan has a Democrat incumbent, and although it voted for Donald Trump by a very narrow margin in 2016, the state seems to have shifted back leftward and is now projected to go to Joe Biden, making it likely for Gary Peters to keep his seat here too.
In Colorado, a state that has moved significantly leftward in recent years, Cory Gardner, the incumbent Republican, is also behind John Hickenlooper, the Democrat candidate for Colorado’s Senate seat. Polls also show Hickenlooper leading Gardner by a large margin. Arizona also has an incumbent Republican, Martha McSally. Considering Arizona’s recent leftward trend (it voted overwhelmingly Democrat in the 2018 Midterms), it seems likely to go to Mark Kelly, the Democratic candidate.
Now, let’s shift our attention to the lean states. These states do have the possibility to go either way, but have an advantage for the indicated party, as per the map below.
Maine and North Carolina are projected to go to the Democratic Party. In Maine, longtime Republican incumbent Susan Collins has become one of the least popular senators around, partially because she has voted for more of Trump’s policies recently while representing a generally Democratic state. Just about every poll is showing Democrat Sara Gideon up by a lean margin, and so it will be very difficult for Collins to retain her seat. It would mark the first time since 1997 this seat has changed hands should Collins lose.
In North Carolina, Democrat Cal Cunningham’s ratings seem to have shot up significantly over incumbent Republican Thom Tillis’ recently, as indicated by RealClearPolitics below. Cunningham is now a whopping nine points ahead of Tillis, making the seat increasingly likely to go to the Democrats. It is also projected to go to Joe Biden for the presidency.
That leaves us with two states: Montana and Iowa. Theoretically speaking, if Joe Biden won the presidency, the Democrats would have a “majority” as the Vice President breaks ties in the Senate. However, that might not be needed as Montana is Tilt D while Iowa is Tilt R, as follows.
Montana is quite interesting because although it always votes Republican for the presidency, many voters choose to vote Democrat in other down-ballot races like governor and senator. As Montana’s previous (and very popular) Democratic governor Steve Bullock is challenging incumbent Republican Steve Daines, there is every possibility of the state flipping this year. Thus, it is classified as a tilt state. Winning this state would give the Democrats a majority in the Senate, a total of 51 seats.
Due to Iowa recently trending rightward and it voting for Donald Trump by over 10 points in 2016, it seems more likely that incumbent Republican Joni Ernst will be able to keep her seat over Democrat Theresa Greenfield.
And that wraps up our discussion of the 35 contested Senate seats for this year. Do you think that any characterizations should change? Leave them in the comments down below, and make sure to follow the blog as more predictions are coming.
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