Rate the Senate (two weeks to go)

[Xing]

No Toss-Up option, since we're getting pretty close.

I'll go with Tilt D. Republicans have a narrow but very plausible path to holding their majority. Democrats have a high ceiling, but are slight underdogs in many races and are probably only clearly favored in enough seats to get to 48 or 49. I think it's more likely than not that Democrats at least win a couple of very close races (especially in this kind of environment), but if things break toward Republicans at the last minute, it's not a given.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Lean D in this sort of national environment.

MA, RI, NJ, DE, OR, and IL are objectively safe.

VA, NH and NM are prolly safe in this national environment; unless somehow we narrow up to an even or R leaning Trump leaning national environment, they’re safe

MN Is likely D. Definately could be close, but I really have a hard time seeing how Smith loses after winning by 10% in a similar national environment, except this time the GOP basically isn’t spending any money. There has been a lack of polling on this, and the few polls we have had have been all over the place, but Smith always leads.

CO and AZ are both likely D gains, with CO being a slightly safe bet. If Ds lose these at this point, something has to go terribly wrong. Kelly won’t outperform by a crazy amount, but it’s ahead to see Trump losing AZ by like 2% or more at this point, so he should be fine.

ME is lean D, close to likely. The only thing working in Collins favor is incumbency, which seems to be less and less important. She trails in polls, Biden is on track to win ME by more than Hillary, and Gideon has raised more. She will almost certainly outperform Biden, but it’s hard to see her getting over the edge at this point, especially since her race has become so nationalized hence increasing polarization.

MI is lean D, also close to likely. Peters has underperformed in polls, and JJ is a good challenger, the issue is this is just not the right environment for James, though he might run ahead of Trump by a few %. Not impossible James win, but again, it would take a 2016-esk election.

NC is lean D (tipping point). Polling has been all over the place recently, but Cunningham always leads and keeps getting pretty close to 50% in polls, while Tillis struggles to get past the mid 40s, which is a bad place for an incumbent to be. The sexting scandal has seemed to die down. Right now, Biden seems like a favorite in NC, he’s consistently led in polls with or close to 50%, Biden would still win even in a 2016 error. Considering how many folks have voted in NC, it’s going to be hard, but definately not impossible, for Trump to close the gap, since over 40% of the vote have been cast in roughly a D + 10 national environment.

IA is pure tossup. Polling generally has Greenfield as a slight favorite, but Ernsts sometimes leads. As we all well know, undecides in IA tend to break pretty hard for Rs. Definately a race to watch.

GA(R) is lean R. Hard to see Osoff getting above 50% as he is likely to underperform Biden by a tad bit, and Biden seems to be in a dead heat with Trump right now in GA. If Biden wins and it goes to a runoff, it’ll be interesting to see what happens. Partisanship will prolly win out but Idk if it’ll be enough to put Osoff over the edge

GA(S) is lean R. R v R runoff seems unlikely at this point; it really depends upon weather it’s a Warnock v Collins runoff (Collins would prolly be favored) or a Warnock v Loeffler runoff (Loeffler would be favored)

MT is tilt R, close to lean. Partisanship will prolly win out, but unlike ME, this race hasn’t been as nationalized. It’s also interesting how both canidates are fairly popular, so at face value, Daines should win semi-easily, but polling has been somewhat close, and 2018 proved there were a lot of Dems in MT who just didn’t vote in 2016, (Tester actually got very little crossover appeal and still won 75k more votes than Clinton). My guess is Bullocks overperformance will be underwhelming, but at the same time Biden may come close.

TX is lean R. The early vote numbers are really good for Ds, and less reliable voters tend to be more partisan in their voting habits. Cornyn will outperform Biden but it won’t be much by the end of the day, considering how unknown he is and how large of a state TX is.

KS is lean R. I want Bollier to win but I’m afraid KS is too red

AK is lean R. I could see a very wide range of outcomes here, and polling has been all I’ve the place. Sullivan could easily win by 15% or Gross could pull an upset and win by a few %.

SC is lean R. I want Harrison to win, and I want him to, but the only way he can win Is by getting 47 or 48% and hoping 3rd party takes away a few % from Graham. Biden already needs to already be performing well on the top of the ticket too. It definately can flip, but it would take a lot to go right.

The rest aren’t worth talking about

Overall, lean D, Democrats should win at least 49 seats unless something goes terribly wrong, and there are a lot of opportunities for seat 50. However, certainly not a lock.

[MillennialModerate]

Lean R

NC is now in the R column which flips the Senate it into the R column.

[WD]

Lean D, closer to likely than tossup. Dems win CO, AZ, NC, ME, MT, IA, GA-R.

[Kuumo]

Tilt D. I think Democrats will get exactly enough seats by picking up CO, AZ, ME, and NC in that order and losing AL. If Republicans overperform, Democrats would lose NC and ME (and potentially MI). If Democrats overperform, they also win GA-regular, MT, and IA (and a couple of TX, KS, AK, SC, and GA-special in a true landslide).

[MATTROSE94]

Probably Tilt R. I reverted back to the 290-248 map, so the Senate likely stays at 52 Republicans 48 Democrats.

[Ferguson97]

Likely D.

The question is if it's a useful majority or not.

I think getting to 50 seats (ME, CO, AZ, and one of IA/NC) is easy enough.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Tilt R. I wanted to say tossup, but that's not an option.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Tilt D AZ, CO, ME
Tossup AK, GA, IA, KS, MT, NC and SC
R AL, KY, MS, TX

It Tilt D due the GA runoffs, which D's have a good chance of taking 1 for 4 net seat gaim

[GeneralMacArthur]

Honestly, Likely D.

With CO+AZ Dems have 48.

They need to win 3/4 of ME/NC/IA/MI.  They're favored in all 4 states.

And if they lose 2+ of those, then there's a pretty solid bench of backup seats.  MT, SC, AK, KS, TX.

Finally, if they miss on all those seats, there's the backup-backup plan:  Warnock-Loeffler, the race of a lifetime.  Also the Ossoff runoff.

At the end of the day only 3 of these Democrats need to win:

Sara Gideon (ME)
Gary Peters (MI)
Theresa Greenfield (IA)
Cal Cunningham (NC)
Steve Bullock (MT)
Jaime Harrison (SC)
Al Gross (AK)
Barbara Bollier (KS)
MJ Hegar (TX)
Jon Ossoff (GA)
Raphael Warnock (GA)

That's 11 chances.  And with the exception of Peters, all of them have massive fundraising advantages over their Republican opponents, and the advantage of Biden's coattails and high enthusiasm.  Feels pretty likely that they'll hit on 3 of them.

[Orser67]

Lean D, closer to likely than tossup.

Democrats (+D-aligned independents) hold or have a clear lead in 50 seats, including the key flips of AZ, CO, ME, and NC. They also are about even in IA and MT and have put several other seats in play, so they could potentially make up for one or even multiple losses in NC, ME, MI, AZ, or possibly even a more Democratic-leaning state like MN.

On the other hand, Democrats are largely playing on Republican turf, and it's really not that hard to imagine Republicans dominating in the more Republican-leaning states. James and especially Collins could also run ahead of Trump by just enough to win re-election even in a Trump defeat. Personally, I'm pretty skeptical of Republican chances in MI+AZ+CO, but I'm not definitely not willing to write off Collins or Tillis.

[jamestroll]

If Democrats do not win the senate I am literally going to roll around on the ground ... break all my windows.. and bang my head against the wall

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

If Democrats do not win the senate I am literally going to roll around on the ground ... break all my windows.. and bang my head against the wall

Why politics is politics, they are all crooks, anytime you raise that amount of cash its gonna be difficult to not be corrupted. That's why they only want you to donate to their campaigns but after election, you have to know someone to get a job from them or be a lawyer

[Mr.Phips]

If Democrats do not win the senate I am literally going to roll around on the ground ... break all my windows.. and bang my head against the wall

I think it will almost be worse if Biden wins and Dems don’t win the Senate than Trump winning and Dems not winning the Senate.  The former would likely mean that voters bought into the idiotic “checks and balances” argument.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

James pool always say things like that, but nothing is assured in politics both Hunter and Don Jr are corrupted anyways.  We are having dialing investigations depending on which party controlling Congress on emails since Benghazi

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

The Senate is even Safer D than the presidency at this stage.

[ProgressiveModerate]

The Senate is even Safer D than the presidency at this stage.

I would have to disagree with this. If they lose NC, Biden is only winning by 7% nationally, and partisanship wins out, they don't really have any other back ups. If one of the core 4 fails, they have to hope to win in Trump territory (not to mention AZ and NC could both still go to Trump on the Presidential level, though it's getting increasingly unlikely by the day). At least in the Presidential race, Biden would have to drop by over 6% in the national polling average (at least 0.5% loss a day) which seems pretty hard at this point. Only way he could lose is a last second disaster that more than cancels out the national environment for all the votes cast in already, and/or  a HUGE unprecedented error in polling, over 2 times the size of the 2016 polling error

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

D's are gonna max out at 8 seats the same as we won in 2008, AL wont flip if D's get anything close to 60 votes just like when that internal poll showed AL Jones plus 1 when Ds were getting close to 60. Jones is down by 15 and Senate is back to 51/55

[It’s so Joever]

Coin flip.

[Peanut]

I'm feeling good about it, but the crazy range of outcomes is very frustrating.

[ShamDam]

Senate is Lean D, presidency is Likely D, House is Safe D.

[ShadowRocket]

Lean D.  I'm fairly confident that the Dems get to 50 with the usual suspects of AZ, CO, ME, and NC, with a likely VP Harris serving as the tiebreaker. 

The more interesting question to me is whether or not they can expand past that number. As of right now, I think they manage to net another two or three. I'm thinking IA, MT, and GA-Regular in that order.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

D's probably get 8 seats AZ, CO, 1 GA, IA, ME, NC and SC and pronly 1 more from AK, KS or MT that's the max we got in 2008, but in 2006, 2008, 2014 a word of caution only 5 incumbents got defeated, 8 seats this time will be well over 5 incumbents and that rarely happens in history, since the 1990s

Dems should expect not a 60 seat Senate but a 51/55 seat majority, Jones, McGrath, Espy and HEGAR are done, making 60 seats impossible

[morgieb]

I'm saying Lean D because I feel very confident regarding Colorado and Arizona, quite confident about Michigan and Maine, and I think we have a high chance of picking up at least one more seat.

The question is what kind of majority can we get to mitigate Manchin/Sinema/other procedural hawks. That I think is probably still under 50%.

[S019]

Lean D, the path to 50 for Republicans looks tough, unless NC, MI, or ME trend towards them and also they have to sweep a bunch of surprisingly competitive states in red and purple states where they're playing defense.