Senate Republicans begin the 2022 cycle defending more seats than the Democrats, with the added liability that President Trump plans to remain politically active after exiting the White House.
But they have been here before and preserved their majority.
Twenty Republican-held seats are on the ballot, compared to 13 on the line for the Democrats. Depending on the outcome of one of two Georgia runoff elections set for Jan. 5, that number will increase by one for one of the parties. Of those 20 Republican seats, at least six are in battleground states, seven if Sen. Kelly Loeffler defeats Democrat Raphael Warnock in Georgia. Trump’s presence could be another complicating factor.
Senate Republicans’ biggest advantage heading into 2022 is the rightward swing of Florida, where GOP Sen. Marco Rubio had been expected to face a tough challenge. Trump won Florida in 2016 and 2018, while Republican Sen. Rick Scott defeated an incumbent Democrat there in 2018. And this year, Republicans nabbed a pair of House seats.
But the Democrats have challenges, too. First and foremost: President-elect Joe Biden. Historically, the party that holds the White House loses seats in a president’s first midterm election. And, even in 2016 and 2018 and 2020, when Republicans were forced to navigate the twin political challenges of Trump and a perilous Senate map, they defended the majority even as many GOP candidates were significantly outraised by their Democratic opponents.
“Once again, Republicans start on the defensive, but we’re a long way from knowing what the overall political climate will be in the midterm elections,” said Nathan Gonzales, publisher of Inside Elections, a nonpartisan handicapper. “Voters’ satisfaction with the first couple years of the Biden administration will impact the most competitive races as well as the shape and size of the Senate battlefield.”
Senate Republicans are focused on Georgia, where, in a second runoff, Sen. David Perdue is trying to hold off Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff. If the Democrats are victorious in both runoffs, they will win the Senate by virtue of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’s tie-breaking vote. Once complete, the GOP will turn its attention to a 2022 Senate map that will feature contests for GOP-held seats in Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
In Florida, Rubio is running for reelection, Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio is likely to do the same, a boost for Republicans in each race. Unknown is what Sen. Ron Johnson plans to do in Wisconsin and what Sen. Chuck Grassley, 87, plans to do in Iowa. If he seeks an eighth term, that race is over. In North Carolina and Pennsylvania, Republicans are defending open seats.
With Biden in office, Republican insiders are confident of holding the Senate majority or winning it back if Loeffler and Perdue fall in Georgia. At the outset of the 2022 election cycle, the wild card in their projections is Trump. Some party operatives worry Trump will be ubiquitous on the national scene, elevating Biden’s image and generating headwinds for Republicans where there should be tail winds.
“If he’s in the news, that’s good for Democrats,” a Republican strategist said.
Meanwhile, Senate Democrats are running against history and their own recent futility, not to mention the fact that Minority Leader Chuck Schumer could face a competitive Democratic primary in New York.
The party lost seven seats in 2010, President Barack Obama’s first midterm election, although they retained the majority. But four years later, in Obama’s second midterm election, they lost the majority after shedding an additional nine seats. In 2018, even as Democrats won the House in a 40-seat swing, Democrats in the Senate lost two net seats even as they picked off incumbent Republicans in Arizona and Nevada.
With Biden in office, their task is unlikely to get easier in 2022. Democrats are defending incumbents in Arizona, where Sen. Mark Kelly just won a close race in a special election to finish the term won by John McCain in 2016. Democrats also are presumably defending incumbent Sens. Michael Bennet of Colorado, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire.
Although not competitive in the general election, Harris’s pending resignation from the Senate to assume the vice presidency could spark a competitive primary in deep-blue California. Democratic sources say that Alex Padilla, the secretary of state, is the favorite to receive Gov. Gavin Newsom’s appointment to succeed the vice president-elect. Other Democrats might challenge him in the 2022 primary. Under state law, the top two finishers advance regardless of party affiliation.
Here is a look at potential candidates in some of the key 2022 contests.
Florida: Democratic Reps. Val Demings, Ted Deutch, and Stephanie Murphy. Democrats might also try and recruit state Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, currently the only Democrat elected to a statewide office.
Ohio: Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan, outgoing state Democratic Chairman David Pepper, and Democrat Emilia Sykes, the state House minority leader.
Nevada: Republican former state Attorney General Adam Laxalt.
New Hampshire: Republican Kelly Ayotte, ousted by Hassan in 2016, military veteran Donald Bolduc, who sought the GOP nomination for Senate in 2020, wealthy Republican businessman Jay Lucas, and GOP Gov. Chris Sununu, likely the party’s first choice, although he has said he is not interested.
North Carolina: Among Democrats: Erica Smith, who sought the 2020 Senate nomination, and state Sen. Jeff Jackson. Among Republicans: Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law, and outgoing Rep. Mark Walker.
Pennsylvania: Among Democrats: Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, Rep. Brendan Boyle, and Rep. Conor Lamb. Among Republicans: Lamb’s 2020 challenger, Sean Parnell, former Rep. Ryan Costello, and former Rep. Lou Barletta, the party’s Senate nominee in 2018.
