Reminder: Republicans can still feasibly get 57 Senate Seats in 2024

[The Mikado]

It is feasible just as it’s feasible just as democrats winning 54/55. Are either going to happen? Very very unlikely.

You could've said "Ds winning 53" and it'd be comparable, and even that would require Dems holding every single seat (LOL West Virginia) and picking up TX and FL. And yeah, that result would be about as weird or arguably slightly weirder than the 57-43 R result OP posted.

But you went to 55 seats? That'd require Dems picking up...Missouri? Indiana? Dems lost both in the very good environment of 2018.

[The Mikado]

57 seats is the outer limits of feasible but it's not impossible.

That said, on even a good GOP night I'd expect 54-55 GOP seats. More requires Casey retiring as I just don't see any PA R able to beat him.

[The Mikado]

Democrats are in a better position than we thought they'd be last year if 57 Republican seats is the worst case scenario

And even then, 57 requires the GOP to win:

WV
MT
OH

NV
AZ

WI
MI (OPEN)
PA

All. Divided into difficulty tiers by my own estimation though they're not particularly controversial here.

I think Dems have a really solid shot at all three of the bottom tiers. Tammy Baldwin and Bob Casey have always overperformed and if WI and PA are roughly even (a safe bet given they're the nation's top swing states) even a relatively modest overperformance puts them both comfortably over. Like, I don't think anyone would be surprised to see PA be Biden +1, Casey +7...and that'd still be Casey's worst performance ever. MI seems to be a step more Dem than those other two in that tier, which maybe evens out with it being an open seat. Besides, who's the GOP gonna run? John James and leave a key House seat open?

Basically, 57 R Senate seats is a feasible best case scenario for the GOP but it'd still require a lot of luck and the GOP doing substantially better than it did in 2016 and Trump winning by the skin of his teeth nationally. Trump romping to victory in an election where he flat out wins the PV is probably the world where this becomes plausible.

If we're assuming a fairly normal national climate, 52-54 R Senate seats strikes me as  the most likely scenario. In a really good Dem night, maybe only 50-51.

What about Dem pickup opportunities? Texas is gonna be a hard lift in a Presidential year (or, frankly, anything other than the midterm of an unpopular GOP President) and Florida seems increasingly off the table but Rick Scott has never been as popular as other Florida Rs. Will Rick Scott win by more than one point for once in his life? We'll see...but I wouldn't bet on him actually losing.