Trump's Unpopularity May Hand Senate Control to Democrats

The Republican Party has become something hideous under Donald Trump not only because of Trump himself but also due to the self-prostitution of congressional Republicans to Trump and their unwillingness to ever say "no" to his trashing of institutions and norms of presidential behavior or even common decency. Such has particularly been the case in respect to Mitch "Moscow Mitch" McConnell and Lindsey :Lady G" Graham. If Trump is Darth Vader, Graham has been the loyal commander of the Death Star.  Now, analysis done by Larry Sabato's UVA Center for Politics suggests that Senate Republicans may be about to pay a much deserved price: loss of the Senate majority which, combined with predicted Democrat gains in the House of Representatives and Biden/Harris in the White House would set the stage for the undoing of the evil and mismanagement that has defined the Trump/Pence regime.  Here are highlights from a piece that analyzes what may happen to Republican control of the Senate:

Over the past three decades, U.S. Senate elections have become increasingly nationalized. Presidential coattails have always been a factor in Senate elections, but the connection between presidential and Senate elections is much closer now than in the past. This trend reflects rising partisan polarization and straight-ticket voting. Thus, in 2016, for the first time in modern history, the candidate of the winning presidential candidate in the state won every Senate contest.

There is every reason to expect that the 2020 Senate elections will continue this trend. The overwhelming majority of voters have strong opinions about President Trump, and Republican and Democratic Senate candidates are generally emphasizing their support or opposition to the president and his policies in their campaigns. We expect to find a very close connection between the 2020 presidential and Senate elections, . . . Therefore, it should be possible to use polling data on the presidential contest to predict the outcome of the U.S. Senate election even in states for which little or no polling data is available on the Senate contest.

In order to test the hypothesis that there will be a close connection between the 2020 presidential and Senate election results, we can examine recent polling data from the states with Senate contests and recent Senate polling. . . . The correlation between the average presidential and Senate margins is a remarkable .95, which means that the presidential margin explains 90% of the variance in the Senate margin. In other words, the polling margins for presidential and Senate races are very closely linked.

Incumbents typically are able to gain some support beyond their party’s voter base by providing constituency service and claiming credit for bringing federal projects and dollars into their state. However, this advantage has been shrinking in recent years because of rising partisan polarization and straight ticket voting.

[S]even Senate seats are the most likely to change party control in the 2020 election. Republicans are strongly favored to pick up a Democratic seat in Alabama. Democrats are strongly favored to pick up two Republican seats — one in Maine and one in Colorado. In addition, Democrats are slightly favored to pick up Republican seats in Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, and North Carolina. If all of these predictions hold, Democrats would end up with a net gain of five Senate seats and a 52-48 seat majority.

[T]hree additional Republican seats appear to be potentially vulnerable. Republican candidates are only slightly favored in Alaska, South Carolina, and Texas. If Democrats win all of these contests, along with the ones in which they are favored, they would end up with a net gain of eight seats and a total of 55 seats in the Senate. Thus, the likely seat swing range appears to be somewhere between a net Democratic pickup of one seat and a net Democratic pickup of eight seats, with the number of Democratic seats in the new Senate somewhere between 48 and 55.

My analysis of this polling data indicates that Democrats are likely to achieve a net gain of between one and eight seats with the most likely result a net gain of five seats, which would give them a 52-48 seat majority.

Let's hope the Dems pick up 8 seats.