Dem
49
GOP
51
Usually we put Congressional news at the bottom of the page, but there is a race going on that is somewhat under the radar, but is almost as important as the race for president. The Senate is up for grabs this year with 34 seats up for election. While it is not a run race yet, in all the seats where the incumbent is a Democrat (or a Democrat-turned-independent), the Democrat actually running (even for open seats) is currently ahead in the polling—except two: Montana and West Virginia. If Democrats hold all their current seats, including the open ones, they will have 51 seats in the new Senate. However, the chances of holding West Virginia are probably less than 0.01%. If Gov. Jim Justice (R-WV), were caught in bed with a live boy, a dead girl, and a petri dish with a new variant of COVID that he himself engineered, he'd still win in a landslide. It's probably all going to come down to Montana.
Here is the polling for the most competitive Senate races for which there is polling:
As you can see, the Democrats are doing fine in all the seats they hold except Montana. Nobody has bothered to poll West Virginia, because it is hopeless for the Democrat. Florida and Texas don't look good for the Democrats unless there is a blue wave (but with an abortion initiative on the ballot in Florida, that is possible there). So control of the Senate will probably come down to whether Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) can win a fourth term over Tim Sheehy, the owner of an aerial firefighting company that lost $77 million last year.
Tester beat Conrad Burns (R) in 2006 by 0.9%, Denny Rehberg (R) in 2012 by 3.7%, and Matt Rosendale in 2018 by 3.6% in a state that Donald Trump won in 2020 by 16.4%. Tester has never run when Trump was on the ballot. To win, Tester is probably going to have to outrun Kamala Harris by something like 16 points. That's a steep hill to climb, although the fact that Tester is a third-generation Montana farmer and Sheehy is a carpetbagger from Minnesota certainly helps.
Now here is the actual news in this item. Tester is going to need every vote he can get in such a difficult environment. He could lose some votes to the Green Party Senate candidate Robert Barb if Barb appears on the ballot. Democrats tried to block him from being on the ballot, but Tuesday, the Montana Supreme Court ruled that Barb will be on the ballot. It was a tricky case because the Green Party held a primary in Montana and then the winner dropped out and the Party appointed Barb to take his place. Democrats argued that the correct procedures were not followed, but the Court said they were. The Democrats' one consolation here is that the chairman of the Montana Libertarian Party, Sid Daoud, will also be on the Senate ballot, and Libertarians often get 3-4% in Montana, with most of that coming out of the hide of the Republican candidate.
What is also noteworthy (and deep under the radar), is that Republican donors often donate to third-party candidates where needed to keep them viable in races where that candidate could pull votes away from the Democrat. It's rat**cking at its finest.
If Tester loses and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell comes up short in Florida, Republicans will control the new Senate 51-49. If Kamala Harris wins, Senate Republicans could block all her cabinet appointments, judicial appointments and much more, which would create all-out war in the Senate and the country. Harris could try to make temporary appointments, as Donald Trump did several times, but there is one other thing that Democrats could do. Yesterday, Taegan Goddard made an interesting remark. The terms of the president and vice president end at noon EST on Jan. 20, 2025. The cabinet officers' terms do not expire. Ever. De facto, they have lifetime appointments unless they resign or are fired by the president. If Harris wins and it looks like the Republicans are going to play hardball and refuse to confirm her cabinet, Kamala Harris could decide to keep some of the current cabinet secretaries, since they have already been confirmed by the Senate.
Going further, Biden could replace his entire cabinet with Harris' picks in December and get the current Senate to confirm them. Of course, if Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV) and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) both balked, the plan would fail. If one of them was willing to play ball (probably in return for some goody), then President of the Senate Kamala Harris could break the tie. Of course, if Biden and Harris did this, that would so inflame the Republicans that they would not approve any other Harris appointment, but if that is their game plan from the start, Harris would have nothing to lose. It is also possible that Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) might be willing to break ranks with her party on female nominees. Imagine a cabinet of only women. (V)