Can Democrats Retake the Senate in 2016?

While most political pundits are busy focusing on the 2016 presidential election, another serious issue has gained less attention: whether the Democrats can retake the U.S. Senate and provide a bulwark against the worse case scenario of a Republican in the White House.   The House of Representatives with its gerrymandered districts is likely a lost cause until after the 2020 census and further redistricting thereafter.  A piece in Politico Magazine by my UVA class of 1974 classmate, Larry Sabato, looks at the 2016 Senate races.  Here are highlights:

It’s still too early to predict the Senate’s makeup in 2016, but it’s not too early to start thinking about who could land on the list of endangered senators. And in the 2016 cycle, it’s more likely to be a Republican than a Democrat.

In 2016, the Republicans seem to have their backs to the wall, defending 24 seats to the Democrats’ 10. Just two Democratic seats—Harry Reid’s in Nevada and Michael Bennet’s in Colorado—are not solid, both in states where the GOP surged in 2014. In the Silver State, Republican Brian Sandoval would start as the frontrunner if he decided to challenge Reid, though the recently-reelected governor appears unlikely to run. It’s also not impossible that Reid, who says he will seek re-election, ultimately decides to retire. There are several potential Bennet opponents, such as Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, but no one that immediately suggests the incumbent is doomed. Moreover, both Reid and Bennet have an ace to play: Presidential level turnout will draw out a much larger group of Democratic voters, especially Hispanics and the young, than we saw in 2014.

Meanwhile, Republicans must defend seven incumbents that represent states carried by President Obama in 2008 and 2012: Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Mark Kirk of Illinois, Rob Portman of Ohio, Marco Rubio of Florida, and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania. An eighth state Obama carried in 2008 but narrowly lost in 2012—North Carolina, home to two-term Republican Richard Burr—also merits mention with these other states.

But under the right conditions—i.e., strong Democratic Senate candidates combined with a solid national lead for the Democratic presidential nominee—all seven of the other seats are vulnerable. Three of the states (Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) are more Democratic than the nation as a whole and have a history of voting Democratic for president even when the party loses a close race nationally, as in 2000 and 2004. This reality has placed Kirk, Toomey and Johnson at the top of the endangered senators list.

All Democrats have to do to re-take the Senate is to win the three yellow toss-up states where they have a natural advantage, plus a couple of the current “lean Republican” states that have voted for Obama. And Democrats will need only one “lean R” state if the party wins the White House, guaranteeing that a Democratic vice president would break a 50-50 Senate tie.

[A]nother Senate flip in 2016, this time to the Democrats, isn’t difficult to imagine, but it’s far from a sure thing.