Senate 2018

Bill Nelson will be 76 in SeptemberThere are no guarantees in electoral politics, but right now the smart bet would be that the Democrats win a majority in the House, maybe even substantial majority. The Senate is a lot tougher. Winning back the Senate, means that the Democrats keep all the red state seats that Trump won that they hold and pick up 2 more, bringing their caucus to 51 and redicinging the Republicans' down to 49.

Ohio is usually the last place to look for anything progressive happen-- except when it does. The Democratic Party passed away years ago and it's entirely up to individual candidates, like Sherrod Brown, to win elections.

Hopelessly red. The last Democrat elected to the Senate was Gale McGee. That was in 1958, although he was reelected in 1964 and 1970, only to lose to Republican Malcolm Wallop in 1976. The only other Democrat from Wyoming in the U.S. Senate in recent times was John Hickey. And that was an interesting case.

One strategy for conservative Democratic senators in Trump states to win reelection is to show voters back home how bipartisan they are. I wonder if touting the Wall-street friendly dismantling of Dodd-Frank is a good idea for Democrats. Republicans aren't going to vote for them; they have their own candidates.

by Dorothy ReikIn this crazy world of "top two" primaries, we Democrats who want to flip Republican congressional seats need to be strategic. We need to vote to be sure Democrats are the top two contenders in the statewide races for Governor and U.S.

The DCCC found something to run on that probably won't mean much as most voters decide who to pull the lever for-- nor will it get many people out to the polls-- the Republican tax bill. But Dan Sena, executive director of the DCCC, is all over it.

A couple of weeks ago we looked at a logical question: Will Blankenship Get Revenge Against Cocaine Mitch And Señor Trumpanzee? Early this morning, Alex Isenstadt had the answer at Politico: Yup. Start by watching the hilarious Facebook ad above.

Tennessee (R+14 PVI, worse than Texas, South Carolina, Kansas or Alaska) was a very Trumpy state in 2016. Trump beat Hillary 1,522,925 (60.7%) to 870,695 (34.7%) and won every one of Tennessee's 95 counties except Shelby (Memphis), Davidson (Nashville) and tiny Haywood, a black-majority rural agricultural county north of Memphis. So its hardly a state you'd think the Democrats would be targeting for a big Senate race. But they are.

The GOP, particularly the NRSC, is starting to acknowledge they have their first Todd Akin/Richard Mourdock of 2018: Lou Barletta. In 2012 when Joe Donnelly was winning a Senate seat in Indiana and Claire McCaskill was being reelected in Missouri because their opponents were judged by voters as too insane and extreme, Bob Casey was running in Pennsylvania against a mainstream conservative, Tom Smith.

Josh Hawley's not ugly... for a Republican politician. Other Republican politician (most of whom are) see him as their dream boy. That may be a mistake. The party went gah-gah over him and drafted him-- against his will-- to run for the Missouri Senate seat against incumbent conservative Democrat Claire McCaskill.