Last-Minute Take: What Will the Senate Look Like in 2021?

 by Ray Keating

The Keating Files – November 3, 2020

 

Today’s election not only is about the White House, but the control of the U.S. Senate as well. Currently, Republicans hold the Senate by a 53-47 margin.

 

What are the polls telling us about where the Senate might wind up in 2021?

Alabama. Senator Doug Jones is a Democrat who looks destined to lose to Republican Tommy Tuberville.

 

Arizona. Senator Martha McSally is a Republican, and she looks to be in serious trouble against Democratic challenger Mark Kelly. (Read my piece on this race.)

 

Colorado. Republican Senator Cory Gardner is trailing Democrat and former governor John Hickenlooper by a yawning margin in the polls.

 

Georgia. The Peach State actually has two Senate races. Republican Senator David Perdue is up for re-election, and the current seat held by Republican Kelly Loeffler. Perdue holds a tiny edge in the polls, while Loeffler is running in a crowded field. Georgia requires the winner to clear the 50 percent mark. If that isn’t hit, there would be a runoff on January 5. Heading into today’s vote, the Loeffler race is destined for January 5, and the Perdue seat could be determined then as well. It wouldn’t surprise me to see the Perdue seat remain Republican and the Loeffler seat go to the Democrats – eventually.

 

Iowa. Republican Senator Joni Ernst is running ever-so-slightly behind her Democratic challenger, Theresa Greenfield. But this race is way too close to call.

 

Maine. Senator Susan Collins is a Republican who always seems to be hanging on, but she is trailing Democrat Sara Gideon in a tight race.

 

Montana. Republican Senator Steve Daines is in a dead heat with Democratic Governor Steve Bullock.

 

North Carolina. Republican Senator Thom Tillis is fighting for his political life against Democrat Cal Cunningham. And despite the fact that Cunningham is embroiled in a scandal involving an affair, he still holds a small, steady lead over Tillis. (Hey, this is 2020, and neither Democrats nor Republicans apparently care about such controversies any longer.)

 

South Carolina. Republican Lindsey Graham is in a dead heat with Democrats Jaime Harrison.

 

The polling numbers heading into tonight do not bode well for Republicans holding onto the Senate. In the end, Democrats could grab a Senate majority with 52-54 seats.

 

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Recent and Related Columns by Ray Keating…

 

“Trump, Biden, the Pandemic and the Polls”

 

“Get Serious on Polling: No, Reagan Really Didn’t Trail Carter in 1980”

 

“Is Trump Turning Texas Purple?”

 

“A Flood of Bad Economics on Tech and Immigration”

 

“Voting Your Conscience Isn’t Wasting Your Vote”

 

“Character-Rich Sci-Fi: Take the Netflix Journey with ‘Away’”

 

“Applaud, Don’t Attack, Robinhood”

 

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Ray Keating is a columnist, novelist, economist, podcaster and entrepreneur.  You can order his new book Behind Enemy Lines: Conservative Communiques from Left-Wing New York  from Amazon or signed books  at RayKeatingOnline.com. His other recent nonfiction book is Free Trade Rocks! 10 Points on International Trade Everyone Should Know. The views expressed here are his own – after all, no one else should be held responsible for this stuff, right?

 

Pre-order the forthcoming Vatican Shadows: A Pastor Stephen Grant Novel. Signed books at https://raykeatingonline.com/products/vaticanshadows and the Kindle Edition at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08L1HLRP3

 

Also, choose your 2021 TO DO List planner today, and enjoy the pre-order sale! Perfect for you and as Christmas gifts. Choose between The Lutheran Planner 2021: The TO DO List Solution, The Film Buff’s Planner 2021: The TO DO List Solution, and The Disney Planner 2021: The TO DO List Solution. Get more information at https://raykeatingonline.com/t/todolistsolutionplanners

 

Keating’s latest novel is  The Traitor: A Pastor Stephen Grant Novel, which is the 12thbook in the series. The best way to fully enjoy Ray Keating’s Pastor Stephen Grant thrillers and mysteries is to join the Pastor Stephen Grant Fellowship! For the BEST VALUE, consider the Book of the Month Club.  Check it all out at https://www.patreon.com/pastorstephengrantfellowship

 

Also, tune in to Ray Keating’s podcasts – the PRESS CLUB C Podcast  and the Free Enterprise in Three Minutes Podcast  

 

Check out Ray Keating’s Disney news and entertainment site at www.DisneyBizJournal.com.

 

Is Senator McSally Poised to Make History, Again? If So, Not in a Good Way

by Ray Keating

The Keating Files – June 27, 2020

U.S. Senator Martha McSally, Republican from Arizona, has a knack for making history. However, the history she might make this November is not the kind that she would appreciate.

Without a doubt, McSally is a fighter. She became the first female fighter pilot in history to fly in combat, as well as the first to command an Air Force fighter squadron in combat. She served in the Air Force for 26 years, and retired a full colonel in 2010.

McSally subsequently dove into a political career. She first lost a Republican primary in Arizona to fill the rest of the term for Democrat Rep. Gabby Giffords’ House of Representatives seat after Giffords was badly wounded in a 2011 shooting in Tucson. Ron Barber, a former Giffords’ aide who also was injured in the shooting, eventually won the seat. As the GOP candidate, McSally then narrowly lost to Barber in 2012.

McSally came back to win the seat in a tight, brutal race in 2014, and then was re-elected handily in 2016.

After Senator Jeff Flake, a Republican critical of President Donald Trump, announced in 2017 that he was retiring, McSally entered the race. She largely was seen as the traditional Republican conservative candidate in the primary versus more fringy candidates, namely, Kelli Ward and Joe Arpaio. McSally won the primary, had a tough time then uniting the GOP vote, and failed to handle the death of U.S. Senator John McCain very well, which happened just before the GOP primary. 

McSally wound up losing the November election by an extremely tight margin to Kyrsten Sinema. So, McSally lost the Senate seat that had been in Republican hands since 1995.

Meanwhile, former Senator Jon Kyl, a Republican, came out of retirement to be appointed by Republican Governor Doug Ducey as a kind of placeholder for the McCain seat. Kyl then retired, again, in December, and Ducey appointed McSally to the seat – just 55 days after she lost to Sinema. According to a Smart Politics analysis, that was the quickest turnaround from losing a Senate seat to being appointed to a Senate seat.

McSally is now in a race to finish out McCain’s term, and her Democratic opponent is Mark Kelly, who is Giffords’ husband and a former astronaut.

The latest polls show Kelly holding a strong lead over McSally. For example, in the two polls on the race released in June (so far), McSally has failed to top 38 percent, and trailed in one poll by nine points and in the other by 13 points. Of course, the four-plus months remaining until the election can be an eternity in politics. But it’s clear that McSally is in deep trouble. 

Part of the problem might be that Trump is not faring well in the state, either, and McSally clearly has moved closer to the Trump camp. The most recent polls show Trump either in a dead heat or slightly behind his opponent, Democrat Joe Biden, in Arizona. Since Harry Truman won Arizona in 1948, the state has only gone for a Democrat once in a presidential race – by a tiny margin for President Bill Clinton in 1996.

If McSally goes down to defeat, it would not only mean losing a seat held by Republicans since 1969 – by Barry Goldwater and then John McCain – but it would mean that McSally would make history, once again. She will have lost both Republican Senate seats in Arizona to the Democrats within a mere two years. Yep, that would rank as making history. Of course, though, it’s not the kind of history any politician wants to make.

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See recent...

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“The Ills of Labor Unions, Part II: Public Schools and Policing”

“The Ills of Labor Unions, Part I: Baseball”

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Ray Keating is a columnist, economist, podcaster and entrepreneur.  You can order his new book Behind Enemy Lines: Conservative Communiques from Left-Wing New York from Amazon or signed books at RayKeatingOnline.com. His other recent nonfiction book is Free Trade Rocks! 10 Points on International Trade Everyone Should Know. Keating also is a novelist. His latest novels are  The Traitor: A Pastor Stephen Grant Novel, which is the 12^th book in the series, and the second edition of Root of All Evil? A Pastor Stephen Grant Novel with a new Author Introduction. The views expressed here are his own – after all, no one else should be held responsible for this stuff, right?

Also, tune in to Ray Keating’s podcasts – the PRESS CLUB C Podcast and the Free Enterprise in Three Minutes Podcast