GOP Has Built-In Advantage in Fight for 2018 Senate Races

Long-Term Structural GOP Advantage a huge burden for Democrats By Stuart Rothenberg Texas Insider Report: WASHINGTON D.C. These days Republicans have a structural advantage in the fight for the House because of how district lines were drawn earlier in the decade. But the partys current structural advantage in the Senate may be even more important since the Senate has responsibilities that the House of Representatives doesnt.

The GOPs structural Senate advantage is simply a matter of numbers the number of states that are reliably Republican or Democratic.

I would currently rate 21 states as reliably Republican and 14 states as dependably Democratic in federal races see list below.

If each party holds serve" in Senate seats in those states the GOP begins with 42 Senate seats while Democrats hold only 28 a substantial difference. (Readers surely will argue over my placement of some states but disagreements about where Montana Minnesota or Missouri should be placed does not dilute my point and in some cases strengthens it.) That advantage is particularly noteworthy because the 21 Republican states send 128 representatives to the House of Representatives while the 14 Democratic states send 156 representatives to the House. In those 35 states the Democrats represent more people but have fewer Senate seats. It has been widely noted that Democrats waste" voters in the Electoral College by having their voters bunched in relatively few states. The same holds true for the Senate. To be sure neither party is guaranteed to win every Senate election in its state. But there is not now a single Democratic state with a Republican senator and only three Republican states Montana West Virginia and North Dakota currently send Democrats to the Senate the result of cycle-specific and race-specific factors that surely played a substantial role in those outcomes. Exceptions dont diminish the larger point that the GOP has a built-in advantage in the fight for the Senate because more states lean Republican than Democratic. The remaining 15 states (with their 151 Congressional Districts) are to varying degrees competitive and they constitute the real political playing field in the fight for Senate control every two years. Not all of those states are equally competitive of course. Indiana North Carolina and Missouri are redder than other competitive states while Maine Michigan and Minnesota at the very least tilt toward the Democrats. Florida and New Hampshire are among the purest toss-ups. Opportunities for each party to gain or lose Senate seats largely depend on which competitive state races are up in a given cycle and which party controls most of those seats and the White House.

Next year Democrats (including two Independents who caucus with the party) will be holding 10 of the 11 seats up in competitive races as well as three seats in reliably Republican states.

That is a huge burden for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

The only saving grace for Democrats is that there is a controversial Republican in the White House which is likely to bring angry voters to the polls rather than contented ones.

Though at first glance the Senate class of 2020 provides great opportunities for the Democrats that isnt the case. While there are 22 GOP seats up for re-election and only 12 Democrats up that year 18 of those Republicans are in reliably Republican states. Only eight competitive state seats are up in 2020 and they split evenly between the parties with each holding four seats:

• Colorado Iowa Maine & North Carolina seats are held by Republicans
• Michigan Minnesota New Hampshire & Virginia are held by Democrats.

It is possible of course that some reliably Republican seats could be in play" if the president is extremely unpopular in 2020 but whether or not that happens the GOPs structural advantage places an additional burden on Democrats. The Senate class of 2022 which was just elected last year includes:

• 14 reliably Republican state seats
• 9reliably Democratic seats and
• 11 competitive state seats
• The GOP holds 8 of those 11 competitive seats

None of this means that Republicans have a lock" on the Senate. Short term factors a partisan wave a presidents popularity the state of the economy a war a partisan scandal or even a series of missteps by individual incumbents or nominees can override the structural dynamic for one party or the other. But the Democrats structural problems in the Senate cant be ignored and the party needs to become competitive in more states to alter the Senate arithmetic. Competitive states (15):

1. Colorado
2. Florida
3. Indiana
4. Iowa
5. Maine
6. Michigan
7. Minnesota
8. Missouri
9. Nevada
10. New Hampshire
11. North Carolina
12. Ohio
13. Pennsylvania
14. Virginia
15. Wisconsin

Republican states (21):

1. Alabama
2. Alaska
3. Arizona
4. Arkansas
5. Georgia
6. Idaho
7. Kansas
8. Kentucky
9. Louisiana
10. Mississippi
11. Montana
12. Nebraska
13. North Dakota
14. Oklahoma
15. South Carolina
16. South Dakota
17. Tennessee
18. Texas
19. Utah
20. West Virginia and
21. Wyoming

Democratic states (14):

1. California
2. Connecticut
3. Delaware
4. Hawaii
5. llinois
6. Maryland
7. Massachusetts
8. New Jersey
9. New Mexico
10. New York
11. Oregon
12. Rhode Island
13. Vermont
14. Washington

Stuart Rothenberg is Senior Editor at Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales. He served for over two decades as the Editor & Publisher of The Rothenberg Political Report.