GOP Control Of The Senate At Risk As Trump Flounders

With Donald Trump floundering, there are a whole lot of nervous Republican Senators up for re-election.

Capitol Building Dusk

Two years ago, Republicans staged one of the more impressive mid-term election performances of recent memory when the picked up nine Senate seats to take back control of the upper chamber of Congress for the first time since losing control back in the 2006 election. Now, with the Presidential race titling strongly in favor of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, signs are beginning to emerge that the GOP Senate majority could be at serious risk on Election Day. Already, most analysts have written off Wisconsin Republican Ron Johnson, who is way behind in the polls in his rematch race against former Senator Russ Feingold, and Mark Kirk of Illinois, who has perhaps the worst uphill battle of any other incumbent given both his opponent and the fact that Illinois is a state where Democratic turnout for the Presidential race is likely to overwhelm Republican turnout by a significant margin. Winning two races isn’t going to be enough for Democrats to take control of the Senate, though. To do that, they’re going to need to pick up a net of six seats, although winning five along with the Presidency would be enough to give them control thanks to the tie-breaking vote that would be cast by Vice-President Tim Kaine. Unfortunately for Republicans, there’s a good possibility that this could happen.

The first piece of evidence in favor of this idea comes in the form  of a trio of new polls from Quinnipiac:

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey are running neck-and-neck with their Democratic challengers, according to a new poll.

Rubio is edging out Rep. Patrick Murphy 48%-45% and Rep. Alan Grayson 49%-43% in Florida — Grayson and Murphy face off in the August 30 primary — according to a new poll Thursday from Quinnipiac University.

Pennsylvania’s Toomey, meanwhile, would lose to Democrat Katie McGinty 47%-44% if the election were held today, the poll found.

The bright spot for Republicans looking to keep control of the Senate in November is Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, who is pulling away from Democrat Ted Strickland, 49%-40%, according to the poll.
Democrats need to pick up at least four seats in November to win control of the Senate, and the poll shows the Republican incumbents in these three swing states easily outperforming Donald Trump there. But if Trump continues his slide in the polls, he could pull down Portman, Rubio, Toomey and other vulnerable incumbents with him.

“In each of the three key swing states, the incumbent U.S. senators seeking re-election are running better than Trump. But if Trump continues to lag behind in the presidential race, that will make it more difficult for GOP candidates, logic holds, up and down the ballot,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, in a statement.

The good news for Portman and Rubio at least is that, at the moment, Trump appears to be running stronger in Ohio and Florida than he is in Pennsylvania or any of the other states where vulnerable Republicans face the prospect of having to find a way to win their Senate race despite the fact that the top of the ticket is losing. In some cases, they are at least succeeding in keeping the race competitive at the moment. Pat Toomey, for example, is doing far better in Pennsylvania than Donald Trump and he is largely running his own campaign independent of the Trump campaign in the state, such as it is. The same appears to be true for Rubio and Portman, this despite all three of these candidates have endorsed Trump or, as they usually put it, “the party’s nominee.” Notwithstanding that endorsement they are doing everything they can to stay away from Trump and his rhetoric, and that may be what ends up saving them in the end.

Beyond the three races included in this poll, there are a number of points of vulnerability for Senate Republicans, including one that is a recent addition to the list.

Up north in New Hampshire, Democratic Governor Maggie Hassan has a narrow one point lead against Senator Kelly Ayotte in the RealClearPolitics average. However, that narrow lead is arguably offset by a recent poll for a local television station that shows Hassan leading Ayotte by ten points at the same time that the same poll shows Clinton leading Trump by seventeen points in a head-to-head match and fifteen points in a four-way race with Gary Johnson and Jill Stein. If this poll is accurate, then it may mean that the race in the Granite State has changed significantly in favor of the Democratic candidates at both the Presidential and Senate levels. Another state where the GOP could be in danger of losing a seat is Indiana where Senator Dan Coats announced earlier this year that he was retiring, thus creating an open seat. For most of the spring and summer, it was looking as if that seat would easily stay Republican but that changed when former Senator Evan Bayh announced that he was going to mount a bid to return to the Senate. Bayh remains quite popular in Indiana, so it is expected he will prove to be a formidable challenger to the Republican nominee, Congressman Todd Young. Other Republican held seats that could potentially be vulnerable in November include North Carolina, where Richard Burr currently has a 4.0 point lead over his Democratic opponent in a state where Hillary Clinton is threatening to take a state that went to Romney four years ago away from Trump, Missouri, where Roy Blunt has a 4.7 point lead over his opponent while Hillary Clinton may be threatening in a state that has been up in the air for several election cycles and may be ready to go for a Democrat in a year with a candidate like Trump on the ballot, and even Arizona, where John McCain faces both a tough primary battle and a General Election that appears to be closer than usual thanks to Trump’s weakness in the state.  Finally, there’s the one state where the GOP stands a chance of flipping a Democratic seat. In Nevada, Congressman Joe Heck has a narrow lead over his opponent while Hillary Clinton has a narrow lead over Trump in both a head-to-head and four-way race.

As I said, Democrats need at least six seats to take control of the Senate this year. So far, they appear to have two of those seats — in Illinois and Wisconsin — firmly in their control. Assuming that continues, that means they need to net +4 of the remaining eight seats in order to take control of the Senate. Whether they succeed on that end may well depend largely on how much of a drag Donald Trump ends up being on the rest of the Republican field. With that in mind, it’s no surprise that top Republicans are already urging that the party move resources away from the race for President in an effort to protect down-ballot races:

More than 70 Republicans have signed an open letter to Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus urging him to stop spending any money to help Donald Trump win in November and shift those contributions to Senate and House races.

The letter comes as a number of Republican senators and high-profile GOP national security officials have come forward saying they cannot vote for Trump.

“We believe that Donald Trump’s divisiveness, recklessness, incompetence, and record-breaking unpopularity risk turning this election into a Democratic landslide, and only the immediate shift of all available RNC resources to vulnerable Senate and House races will prevent the GOP from drowning with a Trump-emblazoned anchor around its neck,” states a draft of the letter obtained by POLITICO. “This should not be a difficult decision, as Donald Trump’s chances of being elected president are evaporating by the day.”

Former Sen. Gordon Humphrey of New Hampshire and former Reps. Chris Shays of Connecticut, Tom Coleman of Missouri and Vin Weber of Minnesota are among the Republicans lending their name to the letter. Close to 20 of the co-signers are former RNC staffers, including Mindy Finn (former RNC chief digital strategist), Christine Iverson Gunderson (former RNC press secretary), Virginia Hume Onufer (former RNC deputy press secretary), Beth Miller (former RNC field communications division director), Heather Layman (former deputy press secretary), B. Jay Cooper (former RNC communications director under four chairmen) and Patrick Ruffini (former RNC ecampaign director).

Republican Andrew Weinstein, a vocal anti-Trump Republican, is one of the operatives organizing the letter, which began circulating earlier this week and is expected to be sent next week. Weinstein served as director of media relations for the Dole/Kemp presidential campaign and was deputy press secretary to then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Weinstein said that the letter is coming from “People who want the party to protect its majorities in the Senate and the House. It’s not an endorsement of anybody.”

A spokesman for the RNC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

If Trump continues to flounder,  you can except for the calls like this for a shift in strategy on the part of the RNC and other party organizations to become louder and, in the end, it seems as though it may be the most logical thing for the GOP to do. If Trump loses as badly as some polling already indicates he could, it seems likely that he’s not going to spend much time trying to help rebuild the GOP from whatever is left in his wake, and Republicans shouldn’t want his help in any case. With disaster looming, the smartest thing to do is to try to protect the Senate and House majorities, as well as the races further down the ballot at the state level, rather than waste resources on a Presidential race that even the candidate seems to be giving up on. 000

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Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. grumpy realist says:

    I expect a tirade of accusations from Trump’s Chumps howling that this just shows that the RNC was never intending to support Trump anyway and they’re only interested in their cushy DC jobs and getting invited to cocktail parties, etc. etc. and so forth.

    Aprez toi, la deluge, Monsieur Trump.

  2. Lit3Bolt says:

    Heh. Go ahead, GOP. Stick a shiv in Donald Trump’s back. Leak all the insider information you want.

    He and his followers won’t forget.

    And then you’ll have an angry, explicitly racist, explicitly fascist wing of your party to bring back into the fold, but they’ll want their Trump pacifier.

    What will you give them then?

  3. stonetools says:

    @Lit3Bolt:

    My hope is that the Trumpkins stay home this year, dooming the down-ticket candidates.
    Notice that Hillary is mostly keeping quiet?

    “Never interrupt your enemy while he is destroying himself”

    And Bill’s suggestion that Trump run for President has done its job.

  4. Just 'nutha ig'rant cracker says:

    @Lit3Bolt: “Lying” Ted Cruz?

  5. grumpy realist says:

    @Just ‘nutha ig’rant cracker: I think you’d still see a similar split with Cruz. He’s got his acolytes, and then everyone else who wants to simply punch the man in the face.

  6. OzarkHillbilly says:

    There is no way the RNC abandons Trump. If they did that the Trump acolytes would abandon the GOP for this election and quite a few more. Trump is who the GOP is, he did not win their nom because he’s a DEM.

  7. C. Clavin says:

    Toomey says Clinton poses a bigger threat to the country than Trump.
    Ridiculous. Especially given 50 Republican National Security experts who disagree.
    Desperation is ugly.
    He may have sealed his fate.

  8. grumpy realist says:

    Now Trump is claiming that entire ISIS Obama thing “just shows how the media don’t get my sarcasm.”

    Yeah, that’ll be a GREAT excuse when you get bombs dropped on the US from country X “because I was only joking.”

    “….unfortunately, the history of the United States of America came to a squalid end when the dangerous clown they elected as president, a Mr. Donald Trump, decided to make some comments about nuking Beijing in five minutes. The Chinese believed him.”

  9. Lit3Bolt says:

    You could also argue that the GOP has already done this, because I don’t see any old names helping out the Trump campaign. It’s mainly third stringers and people who have never run a national campaign before.

    It seems Rove has retreated into the SuperPAC shadow-world, and Steve Schmidt is on MSNBC. The fact guys like this aren’t banging on Trump’s door with a resume is telling. But are they helping Senate campaigns? I would bet money on it.

    There’s also the question of what is Trump doing with his donation money? Is he coordinating with district and Senate races, or will anyone even let him? How much money is HRC saving by not having to flood the Philly and Pittsburgh media markets since she’s comfortably ahead, and will she use that money on down-ballot races instead?

    It’s not even Labor day, and a lot of the old models and polls might not old true, since they assume 1.) a competent campaign, and 2.) a sane candidate who doesn’t repulse significant portions of his own party, 3). makes gaffes with such regularity that Democratic strategists are hugging themselves with glee.

  10. C. Clavin says:

    @Lit3Bolt:

    what is Trump doing with his donation money?

    He’s paying Trump, Inc.
    http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/21/politics/donald-trump-business-spending-fec/
    Which is likely a campaign law violation.

  11. stonetools says:

    Frankly, as against many liberals, I wanted the Republican Party not to repudiate Trump but to continue to uncritically support him . I wanted the whole Republican Party to go down with the Trump ship on Election Day. I didn’t want Republicans to be able to repudiate Trump, and then turn around and say, ” I’m not Trump. He’s not a real Republican like me. Vote for me , the real Republican, on Election Day.”
    It looks, though, like most Republicans aren’t dumb enough to continue to back Trump. Too bad. Rather, they are going to try to distance themselves from Trump and “localize” theelection. Will that work? It worked for the Democrats in 1972 and 1984.However,it didn’t work for the Democrats in the 2014 election. The Senate Democrats who distanced themselves from Obama that year all lost.Let’s hope it doesn’t work for Republicans this time.
    The Democrats message should be to hang Trump around every Republican’s neck , whether they denounce him or not. ( I also wish liberals would stop asking Republicans to repudiate Trump. That’s not helping. The message should be that Trump IS the culmination of all the Republicans stand for, and so the Republicans CAN’T disown him).

  12. Lit3Bolt says:

    @stonetools:

    I have mixed feelings about the constant triangulation as well, but then I remind myself that’s when Democrats get the most stuff done.

    If the GOP is going to go down in flames, it will be because the U.S. business can’t and won’t abide an explicitly white nationalist party. Democrats buy sneakers, too. And now the GOP’s problem is that there will be a lot of Trump wanna-bes who are realizing you can quickly become rich and famous on the Right by just saying pure, explicitly racist bullsh!t all day long.

    Call all Mexicans rapists! Call for a ban of all Muslims! Flirt with Nazis! Pal around with the KKK! And watch the tax free donations from extremely scared, extremely stupid white people come flowing in..

  13. Kylopod says:

    @stonetools: @Lit3Bolt: I would not call Clinton’s strategy “triangulation.” She’s running on possibly the most progressive platform for her party in decades–since before her husband ran, in fact. What’s amazing is that she’s getting away with it. It has to be a weird year when the candidate calling for a $15 minimum wage is the one looking more appealing to the Wall Street folks.

  14. Jen says:

    @Lit3Bolt: Trump’s comments on fundraising are telling–this guy just does NOT understand the concept of being a team player:

    “Trump argued that the RNC needs him more than he needs the committee, asserting: ‘I’m the one raising that’s funding, I’m the one that’s raising the money and other people are getting to use the money that I raised.'”

    (Emphasis mine.)

    This is going to be an ugly few months if we’re watching not just Trump v. Clinton, but also Trump v. RNC.

  15. CSK says:

    @grumpy realist:

    Oh, the Trumpkins, after frantically defending him yesterday, and claiming he was absolutely right, are now claiming they knew he was kidding all along.

    Never, ever underestimate the stupidity, gullibility, and desperation of a Trumpkin.

  16. grumpy realist says:

    Have you seen what The Hannity horked up?

    I’m starting to hate that cementhead with the white hot heat of a million burning suns. I also think we should revise our libel laws.

  17. Jen says:

    @grumpy realist: I have reached the point where I believe that Hannity is just aiming for a lead spot on the Trump TV network.

    We likely will have 4-8 years of these types of “investigations” in our future. Oh, joy.

  18. CSK says:

    @Jen:

    I think you’re right. Lead anchor on the Trump News Network would be the perfect consolation prize for not being appointed Press Secretary in the Trump Administration.

  19. Pete S says:

    @grumpy realist:

    Now Trump is claiming that entire ISIS Obama thing “just shows how the media don’t get my sarcasm.”

    The whole supposed strength of his campaign so far has been his media savvy. How could he not realize that more people will see him speak on TV than are at his rally? He should understand that his message is being filtered by a group that “don’t get my sarcasm” before it gets out.

    You know, if he was sane. Or trying to win.

  20. Just 'nutha ig'rant cracker says:

    @Jen: The 4-8 years of investigations was part of the argument that I was making 3 years ago against Hillary running for anything other than “Grandma.” I have reconciled my disappointment. I’ll have to reconcile it again when this election cycle doesn’t lead to the destruction of the GOP, but it hasn’t gotten to peak crazy yet and the leaders will go again with “it wasn’t the message, it was the candidate.”

  21. Andre Kenji says:

    Hillary is not doing triangulation, she is doing quadriangulation, trying to win neocons, neoliberals, sandernistas, etc.

  22. grumpy realist says:

    @Andre Kenji: I agree with you, but baby steps, man, baby steps. We’ve got to change the culture back away from the extremist’s “I can say whatever conspiracy theory I want because I can feed it to the nuts and make money off of it” and start really emphasizing reality again. Mama Nature doesn’t give a crap if your back-of-the-napkin theory makes you feel warm and fuzzy or not–if it ‘s not true, it won’t work. This holds for idiocy on the right such as trickle-down economics (hello Kansas, am looking at you!) and idiocy on the left such as the anti-vaxxers.

    Moral of the story: we have to get back to a system where stupidity hurts, big-time. And have people realize it.

  23. cian says:

    @stonetools:

    Yeah, this works well for the republicans. The worse he does the better their chances, but they need to get on the anti-trump train asap, before the polls really tank. Otherwise the ads write themselves- ‘Trump announced his candidacy for President June 16th 2015. A year and X days later, after 16 months of xenophobic, misogynistic and racist behaviour, Senator X has now decided, with x days to go to the election, he cannot support him after all’. All ads titled ‘Profile in Cowardice’.

  24. J-Dub says:

    @grumpy realist:

    Now Trump is claiming that entire ISIS Obama thing “just shows how the media don’t get my sarcasm.”

    Except nothing he said was sarcastic. He doesn’t seem to know the definition of sarcasm. Just because he was joking, or speaking figuratively instead of literally, doesn’t make it sarcastic.

    To accuse an organization such as CNN of not getting something that he clearly does not get himself leads me to believe that he’s just not an intelligent person.

  25. grumpy realist says:

    Ah. If any of us had any doubt that Trump’s run is nothing more than a mechanism to siphon cash from credulous marks…Josh has posted this.

    No wonder the collection of hucksters, fruitcakes, gifters, and people in love with the sound of their own voice continue to surround Trump. Anywhere else they would be tweeting conspiracies to each other in the deep fever-swamps of the Right while hawking the little blue pill on late night TV. (But wait! There’s more! If you call now you will receive this incredibly valuable Cuckoo Clock dating from the 1960s! Start your very own collection of antiques to hand down to your children!)

  26. C. Clavin says:

    Kinda OT…
    According to Josh Marshall at TPM, Clinton is ahead by at least 10 points in enough states to give her over the required 270 Electoral College votes.
    Absent some earth-shattering event…I think we are going to have our first female President.

  27. Jen says:

    @C. Clavin: I remain nervous as to whatever it is that Assange has up his sleazy sleeves.

  28. CSK says:

    @grumpy realist:

    Yesterday I got four emails (two from Eric Trump, two from Donald Jr.) promising me that if I sent three dollars to the Trump campaign, my name would be entered into a lottery and I might win a free trip to New York (no mention of whether I’d have to find and pay my own way back), a free tour of the Trump Campaign Headquarters (in glorious Trump Tower!), and lunch with Don Jr. I don’t know if the lunch is free.

    Prior to that, it was “send us $148 and we’ll send you an autographed copy of The Art of the Deal.’ Guess that ploy might not have worked out to well.

    Personally, I’m holding out till they offer me a free Popeil Pocket Fisherman.

  29. Kylopod says:

    @C. Clavin: And you know what’s a really bad sign for Trump? Here’s what Gingrich tweeted the other day:

    Republicans who are sure Trump can’t win should read history of Truman’s 1948 campaign. Pollsters were off by 9 to 19 percent.

    You know a campaign is in trouble when it starts talking about “Dewey Defeats Truman.”

  30. Jen says:

    @Kylopod: LOL. Yeah, polling hasn’t changed at all in the last 65+ years…I mean, it’s exactly the same!

    I cannot believe Newt is scraping that off the bottom of the barrel.

  31. CSK says:

    @Jen:

    Well, Trump probably blamed Gingrich for losing Georgia, and Newt has to get back in Trump’s good graces some way.

  32. C. Clavin says:

    @Jen:
    Me too…but I have to think if it was really significant he would have already dished it.
    Wikileaks is becoming more of a fever-swamp for conspiracy theorists, than anything else.
    Assange claimed the DNC staffer was killed by the Clintons. I don’t think even Jenos believes that. Well, maybe…
    No…I worry more about a serious terror attack here in the states, and people looking to an authoritarian to protect them. Not that Trump could…

  33. al-Alameda says:

    @C. Clavin:

    Wikileaks is becoming more of a fever-swamp for conspiracy theorists, than anything else.
    Assange claimed the DNC staffer was killed by the Clintons. I don’t think even Jenos believes that. Well, maybe…

    The mainstream conservative media complex is in a fever over the idea that the Clintons may have had Seth Rich murdered for leaking DNC/Hillary-related communications. You can imagine the excitement – this could be another Vince Foster situation. We might even get Dan Burton to stage a re-enactment of how Seth Rich was killed.

    Today, as we post to the OTB blog, conservative opinionista like Sean Hannity are creaming in their suits over this stuff. I purchased Dry Cleaning Futures this morning.

  34. Tyrell says:

    I look for the election to be postponed.

  35. Kylopod says:

    @Jen:

    I cannot believe Newt is scraping that off the bottom of the barrel.

    Knowing Newt, I can totally believe it. He’s the ultimate pseudo-intellectual. “Dewey Defeats Truman” has long been the go-to reference campaigns invoke when they know they’re losing but can’t say it outright to the press. Mondale invoked it in ’84, as did Dukakis in ’88, Bush in ’92, Dole in ’96, and McCain in ’08.

    I don’t recall Romney invoking it in ’12, but he did invoke Reagan’s 1980 landslide after having been neck-and-neck with Carter a week before Election Day. That was more in the spirit of his party’s Reaganolotry than the musty history lesson of Truman’s legendary upset, and I thought maybe he’d finally laid the latter trope to rest. But if anyone were to resuscitate it, Newt’s the man.

  36. al-Alameda says:

    @Tyrell:

    I look for the election to be postponed.

    I believe that was part of the Operation Jade Helm Plan:
    Confiscate all guns, call off the November election, force heterosexual conservative men and women to into gay marriages, and bus their children to Spanish-language schools.

  37. Mister Bluster says:

    @Tyrell:..I look for the election to be postponed.

    Please be more specific. Where in the US Constitution is the authority to “postpone” the balloting by citizens for the electors to the Electoral College?
    Article XII?

  38. Mikey says:

    @J-Dub:

    To accuse an organization such as CNN of not getting something that he clearly does not get himself leads me to believe that he’s just not an intelligent person.

    Yeah, that made me think he doesn’t get sarcasm OR irony.

  39. Just 'nutha ig'rant cracker says:

    @CSK: Hey, I’ve talked to guys who actually fish (I’ve never caught anything but a cold on the rivers and lakes of the PNW), and they say the pocket fisherman is actually a pretty good product for fishing.

    Compare that to “Art of the Deal.” I would probably vote for Ron Popeil before I’d vote for Trump–the products Popeil sells are in general reliable and at least so-so values for the money.

  40. Just 'nutha ig'rant cracker says:

    @C. Clavin:

    I have to think if it was really significant he would have already dished it.

    Not if he has any sense of timing; there’s a reason for October Surprises.

  41. grumpy realist says:

    @Jen: If we bolt due to what Assage and his sleezy Russian handlers can fake up, we deserve everything we get…..

  42. Just 'nutha ig'rant cracker says:

    @Tyrell: And speaking of fever swamps…

  43. JohnMcC says:

    @Just ‘nutha ig’rant cracker: Well, in high school wrestling the ref can call the match off and name a victor on the basis of ‘technical superiority’ (or could when I was in HSchool when dinosaurs roamed). Maybe if Scalia was still around the Bush v Gore crowd could have a reunion and name Sec’ty Clinton the winner on those grounds.

  44. Neil Hudelson says:

    @Tyrell:

    Yes…yes, I’m sure you do.

  45. Moosebreath says:

    @Mikey:

    “Yeah, that made me think he doesn’t get sarcasm OR irony.”

    As the old saying goes, irony is lost on the brassy.

  46. grumpy realist says:

    @Tyrell: Upon what grounds? Invasion by Martians?

  47. Kylopod says:

    Something just occurred to me about the Truman comparison that makes it even more absurd, even without getting into the obvious points about how the science of polling has improved in 60+ years: Truman was a steady, patient, and modest individual, and the way he reacted to the media and the polls being overwhelmingly against him in 1948 was that he basically tuned it all out, campaigned vigorously across the country, and did the work he needed to do to win.

    Even if we assume that Trump has a path to victory at this point, he lacks both the temperament and skills needed to take advantage of it. There’s no way he’s going to simply ignore the polls and do what he has to do, as Truman did back in ’48. Let’s put aside for the moment that he barely has much of a campaign in the first place and stick to the more immediate facts of his personality: he can’t stand being a loser, and his reaction to losing is always to grow even more unhinged than before. So the fact that he’s fallen so far behind is itself provoking him into behaving exactly opposite from what he would need to do to recover.

  48. Dividist says:

    “Winning two races isn’t going to be enough for Democrats to take control of the Senate, though. To do that, they’re going to need to pick up a net of six seats, although winning five along with the Presidency would be enough to give them control thanks to the tie-breaking vote that would be cast by Vice-President Tim Kaine” – DM

    Actually, Democrats only need a net pickup of 4 seats to get to 50-50 (assuming King and Sanders continue to caucus with Democrats). But point taken.

    Interestingly enough, that is exactly the current “No Toss-Up” Real Clear Politics Map. It’s going to be close one way or the other.

    I’d like to see the Republicans hold the Senate majority to moderate Clinton’s Supreme Court nominations. If the Democrats take the Senate majority, I would not be surprised to see them invoke the “Nuclear Option” for Supreme Court picks, which would permit them to steamroll the Republican minority for SCOTUS noms. The precedent has already been set for lower tier judges.

  49. Tyrell says:

    @Mister Bluster: The president could probably do it by executive order. He could finish his term and turn things over to Biden and hold elections in November of 2017.
    We face the Republican melt down and Hillary being investigated for three or four different things by election time. Sounds like anarchy.

  50. al-Ameda says:

    @Tyrell:

    We face the Republican melt down and Hillary being investigated for three or four different things by election time. Sounds like anarchy.

    Well, I can’t disagree with you on the notion that anarchy is what today’s RepublicanParty is all about.

  51. Tyrell says:

    @Mister Bluster: I am trying to find Article 12, but the sites I go to evidently don’t show all the articles. I did have my own personal copy of the Constitution, but I gave it away to some guy at the local coffee shop. What I did see did not have anything prohibiting elections to be cancelled.

  52. al-Ameda says:

    @Tyrell:
    Google does not care if you lost your copy of the Constitution.
    Article 12 U.S. Constitution
    The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;–The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;–The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President. (See Note 14)–The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.

    Proposal and Ratification The twelfth amendment to the Constitution of the United States was proposed to the legislatures of the several States by the Eighth Congress, on the 9th of December, 1803, in lieu of the original third paragraph of the first section of the second article; and was declared in a proclamation of the Secretary of State, dated the 25th of September, 1804, to have been ratified by the legislatures of 13 of the 17 States. The dates of ratification were: North Carolina, December 21, 1803; Maryland, December 24, 1803; Kentucky, December 27, 1803; Ohio, December 30, 1803; Pennsylvania, January 5, 1804; Vermont, January 30, 1804; Virginia, February 3, 1804; New York, February 10, 1804; New Jersey, February 22, 1804; Rhode Island, March 12, 1804; South Carolina, May 15, 1804; Georgia, May 19, 1804; New Hampshire, June 15, 1804.

    Ratification was completed on June 15, 1804.

  53. Mister Bluster says:

    @al-Ameda:Unbelievable! You are referencing Amendment XII. There is no Article XII in the USCon! Only in Donald Trumps syphilitic brain!
    http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/08/politics/sanford-questions-trump-constitution-gaffe/
    @Tyrell:..”The president could probably do it by executive order. He could finish his term and turn things over to Biden and hold elections in November of 2017.”

    NO! NO! NO! NO! The President can not do ANY of this!
    Well, Maybe Nixon…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiHN3IJ_j8A

  54. al-Ameda says:

    @Mister Bluster:

    @al-Ameda:Unbelievable! You are referencing Amendment XII. There is no Article XII in the USCon! Only in Donald Trumps syphilitic brain!

    LOL!
    Of course none of this is going to happen.

  55. Mister Bluster says:

    Mister Bluster says:
    Friday, August 12, 2016 at 14:42
    @Tyrell:..I look for the election to be postponed.

    Please be more specific. Where in the US Constitution is the authority to “postpone” the balloting by citizens for the electors to the Electoral College?
    Article XII?

    When I mentioned Article XII in the above post, I was being (wait for it)…SARCASTIC!