The election of President-elect Trump and a low number of Republican Senate seats at stake in the 2018 midterm elections has the GOP mapping an attack plan for a highly unusual goal — upending the typical model of a new president losing seats in the first election after his victory.
While nobody inside the National Republican Senatorial Committee is predicting a runaway election, incoming Chairman Sen. Cory Gardner sees 2018 laying the groundwork for an eventual filibuster-proof majority of 60 seats or more.
In fact, he is talking about “building a majority for generations to come.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has told associates that there is a good chance of winning the 60 in 2018, according to one.
Besides Trump’s win, the GOP has been struck with some lucky math: 25 of the 33 seats up for election are held by Democrats and 10 are in states Trump won.
That math has some pundits, notably Stuart Rothenberg, suggesting that the GOP can get to the 60-seat threshold next year. That would crush the Democrats in their bid to stop Trump’s agenda and give him virtual carte blanche to pack federal courts.
But realists who work with Gardner, a Colorado senator, are urging caution.
“If anybody comes in saying we have this in the bag, they’re crazy,” said a GOP strategist familiar with Senate races.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
