Hot take:2026 senate won’t be that bad for Dems even if Biden wins in 2024

[LobsterDuck]

Here are my guesses for the competitive seats.

Peters loses in Michigan
Ossoff probably loses in Georgia, but the D base might just be stable enough for him to hold on.
Sheheen could lose to a strong challenger, like Sununu, but would probably still be favored against a generic R
Minnesota:Smith could lose, but she would be strongly favored
New Mexico:there is a path to defeat Lujan, but it would take a strong candidate. Maybe a Ronchetti rematch?

Tillis wins again
Susan Collins would definitely win another term if she makes it through the primary, but I could honestly see her losing it, in which case it could be a flip to D

However, that’s really all I see. Even in the worst case scenario, it really only seems like a loss of 3 seats. And in the best case scenario with Maine drama, they could end up with no net change.

[ElectionsGuy]

Agree with "not that bad" in relative terms. I would still say Dems have more vulnerabilities on the map than R's (MI, GA, MN, and NM vs NC, ME... TX? AK?). Many of the red states could get close but would still be longshots. But the real issue Dems are going to have is that they may lose too many seats in '22 and '24 that it may not matter. They're #1 concern should be about preventing R's from getting to 60 in this scenario. It's somewhat to very likely Dems will come out of 2024 with less than 45 seats, even if they win every purple state Senate seat in '24.

[MT Treasurer]

1) The exact same thing was said about this year's "very D-friendly Senate map" (in fact, it seems like initially every midterm is predicted/expected to be 'atypical' until... it’s not).

2) There’s not much reason to believe Smith would be "strongly favored" on a night when Ossoff is losing unless Democrats lose substantial ground with black voters between now and 2026 (and in that case, GA will be the least of D problems...).

3) Republicans would have a good chance of holding ME even without Collins in a R-leaning year (although it would certainly be more competitive than without Collins). I don’t think it would be any worse than a Toss-up for the GOP.

[Xing]

Relatively speaking, it wouldn’t be as bad as Class I, but Democrats could still lose several seats in a bad midterm, even if most other than Michigan would likely be six-year rentals. It’s sort of similar to how it wouldn’t be as much of a trainwreck for Republicans in a Republican midterm as Class III would be, but they could still easily lose 3-4 seats, possibly more.