Statistician and analyst Nate Silver of 538 may be a liberal at heart, but this is a pretty solid and interesting piece:
I’m not that impressed by long-term projections of Democratic doom in the Senate. Mostly that’s because I’m not that impressed by long-term political projections in general. Political coalitions change; not many people would have had it on their bingo card that Democrats would obtain a Senate majority in 2020 by winning two runoffs in Georgia, and then would actually expand on that majority in 2022 following another runoff in Georgia despite their party controlling the White House.
With that said, while I don’t think we can say very much about what politics will look like 10 or 20 years from now, a medium-term look-ahead is possible. Do Democrats have a reasonable hope of regaining a trifecta — control of the House, Senate and presidency — at any point in the near future (2024, 2026 or 2028)? And how long will they hold onto control of the Senate and the presidency, allowing them to appoint Supreme Court justices without Republican help?
My colleague Geoffrey Skelley already took an initial look at the 2024 Senate map, which is bad for Democrats, but I wanted to dig slightly deeper and also consider 2026 and 2028. Like Geoffrey, I’ll be focused on the Senate, because that’s the weakest link in Democrats’ effort to win back the trifecta. Despite some disadvantages in the Electoral College, Democrats obviously have no trouble winning the presidency. And they nearly held onto the House this year despite losing the popular vote for the House. The current House map doesn’t have much — if any — of a Republican skew, and Democrats should be able to win back the House if the national political environment is reasonably good for them.
So let’s look at the 2024, 2026 and 2028 Senate maps (yes, 2028 features the same map as the midterm we just finished; I just can’t let go, I guess). We’ll classify races into bronze, silver, gold and platinum “tiers” in terms of how feasible they are as pickup opportunities. I’m deliberately using this goofy metallurgical theme as opposed to the categories FiveThirtyEight typically uses (e.g., “toss-up,” “lean Republican”) so you’ll recognize these as being back-of-the-envelope suppositions rather than any sort of official race ratings.
In general, these ratings lean heavily on looking at how close a race was the last time it was contested, with some subjective adjustments for candidate quality. I’m also considering how the electoral environment has shifted within the state — Florida has gotten redder since Rick Scott was elected in 2018, for instance — although it is definitely not always safe to assume a state will continue trending in the same direction.
2024
Republican pickup opportunities
Platinum tier: West Virginia (Manchin), Montana (Tester), Ohio (Brown),
Gold tier: Arizona (Sinema), Nevada (Rosen)
Silver tier: Wisconsin (Baldwin), Michigan (Stabenow), Pennsylvania (Casey)
Bronze tier: New Jersey (Menendez), Virginia (Kaine)
Democratic pickup opportunities
Platinum tier: None
Gold tier: None
Silver tier: Texas (Cruz), Florida (Scott)
Bronze tier: None
2026
Republican pickup opportunities
Platinum tier: None
Gold tier: Georgia (Ossoff), Michigan (Peters)
Silver tier: New Hampshire (Shaheen)
Bronze tier: Minnesota (Smith), Virginia (Warner)
Democratic pickup opportunities
Platinum tier: None
Gold tier: Maine (Collins), North Carolina (Tillis)
Silver tier: Alaska (Sullivan)
Bronze tier: Texas (Cornyn), Iowa (Ernst)
2028
Republican pickup opportunities
Platinum tier: None
Gold tier: Nevada (Cortez Masto), Pennsylvania (Fetterman), Arizona (Kelly), Georgia (Warnock)
Silver tier: New Hampshire (Hassan)
Bronze tier: Oregon (Wyden)
Democratic pickup opportunities
Platinum tier: None
Gold tier: Wisconsin (Johnson), North Carolina (Budd)
Silver tier: Vance (Ohio)
Bronze tier: Alaska (Murkowski), Florida (Rubio), Utah (Lee), Iowa (Grassley)
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/democrats-senate-chances-2024-and-beyond/
