Say what you will about Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (and Lord knows I’ve said plenty over the years), but one thing remains true about the Kentucky Senator: He knows how to read the political tea leaves, and the ones he’s reading at the moment are giving him some major heartburn.
Just yesterday, McConnell told a civic group in Kentucky that the chances of Republicans retaining control of the United States are “very dicey.”
2016 was already a heavy lift for the GOP due to the fact that they have 24 Senate seats up for grabs while the Democrats only have to defend 10.
Based on recent polls, the incumbent Republican Senators in the most trouble are:
- Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire
- Ron Johnson of Wisconsin
- Marco Rubio of Florida
- Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania
If those four senators happen to lose, there would be a 50-50 split in the Senate, meaning that if the Clinton-Kaine ticket wins the White House, Kaine would be the deciding vote on any ties. In essence, the Democrats would be able to do nearly anything they want and get any federal judges–including Supreme Court justices–approved with little or no problem.
A report from Time magazine yesterday suggested that Donald Trump has been warned by RNC Chair Reince Priebus that if he doesn’t stop spouting off at the mouth, the party might just pull all funding from the Trump-Pence campaign and redirect the money to races for the Senate and House.
Speaking of the House, it now appears possible that the Democrats could also make significant gains there, too. If indeed Trump causes a tsunami of revulsion among voters and they take out his comments on other Republicans, the House could be in range. It would take a lot of lucky breaks for this to happen, but the Democrats are in a prime position to take advantage of the backlash against the Orange Menace.
Featured Image Via Gage Skidmore for Flickr available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License
