Dem
47
GOP
53
At this point, anyone who reads this site can probably name the list of seats that will determine control of the next Senate. To flip the upper chamber, the Democrats have to hold on to the seats in Georgia (Jon Ossoff), Michigan, Minnesota and New Hampshire (all of them open). Then, they will pretty much have to claim the GOP-held seats in North Carolina (open) and Maine (Susan Collins). And finally, they will need upsets in at least two of Texas (John Cornyn, but could end up open), Ohio (Jon Husted), Louisiana (Bill Cassidy, but could end up open), Alaska (Dan Sullivan), Nebraska (Pete Ricketts) and Iowa (open). (As a sidebar, Dan Osborn in Nebraska says he will join no caucus, but a win for him would still work as one of the two, because that would leave the Senate caucuses at 50 D/I, 49 R, 1 I, thus depriving J.D. Vance of his tiebreaker vote.)
The state of Florida could theoretically appear in the previous paragraph, for a couple of reasons. The first is that the incumbent, Sen. Ashley Moody (R), is appointed, and appointed senators have a mixed record when it comes to getting reelected. The second is that there is still some reason to think of Florida as purple; in the last four U.S. Senate elections where Donald Trump was not also on the ballot, the Republican candidate got 58% of the vote (2022), 50% of the vote (2018), 42% of the vote (2012) and 49% of the vote (2010). That works out to one big win, one big loss, one razor-thin win (0.12% in 2018) and one where it's hard to say (2010) because the non-GOP vote was split almost evenly between two other candidates. The third reason for some small measure of Democratic hope is that Moody is not Cuban, and the success of Marco Rubio (who is responsible for the one big non-Trump-year win in 2018) was powered substantially by Cuban voters engaging in identity politics. And the fourth reason is that some parts of Trumpism, particularly the ICE stuff, are not playing well in the Sunshine State.
The problem, as we have written a million times, is you can't beat someone with no one. And thus far, the Democrats basically had no one. Yes, there were a few folks who had jumped in, and a few more who had filed some paperwork, but nobody likely to get voters excited, and nobody with wide name recognition. In fact, there is only one candidate who has raised more than $200,000. That would be teacher and former House candidate Josh Weil, whose $14 million take dwarfed all comers. But he withdrew from the race, citing health issues.
As of yesterday, however, the Democrats may have someone, as Alexander Vindman has jumped into the race. He is, of course, a retired lieutenant colonel and a veteran of the Iraq War, as well as the brother of Rep. Eugene Vindman (D-VA). Most importantly, he was a whistleblower in the Trump-Ukraine scandal (when Trump tried to extort Volodymyr Zelenskyy) and a key witness during the first Trump impeachment.
The Democrats have tried various approaches to Senate races in the past 20 years. A Black Democrat, who will get minority voters to the polls! A centrist Democrat who used to be governor! A woman who has won elections in a swing district! Needless to say, none of these candidates was able to crack the code. We are skeptical that "military veteran" matters all that much these days, though it may help a little. However, if Florida voters are looking to poke Trump in the eye, what better way than voting for one of his nemeses?
If you would like to see Vindman's launch video, here it is:
It's not bad, though he's not a particularly dynamic speaker. At the moment, we'd probably rate Florida as something like the 8th most likely state to see its Senate seat flip in 2026. That's not that high on the list, but 48 hours ago, we would have had it more like 15th. (Z)