The script reads in part: “With all that our country stands for, how can we have a president who thinks the law doesn’t apply to him? Who would bargain away the security of our nation and our elections for his own political gain? We are patriots who have always protected democracy. Will our senator?”
And that’s only the beginning of the headaches in store for the small group of endangered GOP senators whose votes on impeachment may eventually decide their electoral fates — and control of the Senate itself.
The 2018 Senate map was famously tilted against Democrats — so much so that Republicans wound up gaining two seats even though they lost the nationwide popular vote for all Senate races by 20 percentage points.
The 2020 map isn’t a slam dunk for Democrats, but it’s friendlier, according to the expert analysts at the Cook Political Report. Of the 12 Democratic seats in play, only one (Doug Jones in Alabama) is considered a tossup, and only three (Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico) are seen as remotely competitive (that is, not “solid” for Democrats). By comparison, there are 23 Republican-held seats on the board, and three of them are tossups: McSally, Gardner and Collins. One more (Thom Tillis of North Carolina) merely “leans” Republican, and an additional seven (including Ernst in Iowa and both Senate seats in Georgia) are considered competitive.
To regain their Senate majority, Democrats need to flip three seats (with a Democratic vice president, who casts the deciding vote in a tied Senate) or four seats (if Republicans keep the White House).
