After a summer of doom-and-gloom predictions that the Senate was all but lost, Republicans are in the midst of an upswing that’s put them in better position to hang on than at any point since the 2014 midterms.

The GOP has hit a gusher of money from outside groups, forcing Democrats to shift their campaign tactics in difficult races. A spate of recent polls show Republicans gaining or even jumping ahead in competitive states thought to be slipping away.


And, above all, presidential winds have shifted unexpectedly in their favor. Hillary Clinton’s struggles are dragging down Democrats just as Donald Trump’s more conventional campaign of late has allayed fears of a down-ticket deluge.

There's still plenty of time before the election for fortunes to change again. Democrats are still favored to take the chamber by a narrow margin, thanks to an electoral map tilted decidedly in their direction. In a sign of bullishness, the party is pushing into some right-of-center states where GOP incumbents are more vulnerable than expected, such as North Carolina and Missouri.

But the fact that the GOP is even in the conversation is stunning to senior members of both parties.

“As you’ve seen Trump improve his game and you’ve seen the shrinking difference between Trump and Clinton, obviously he’s not the drag he was on our down-ballot candidates,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a two-time former chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “It makes people feel better about our prospects. But having said that, there’s 55 days until the election, and something could happen at the debates that changes the whole dynamic.”

The GOP’s financial advantage is the Democrats’ chief worry — and for good reason. The Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC with close ties to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and the related One Nation raised an astonishing $42 million in August, and Republicans are hoping wealthy donors prioritize cash for Senate races regardless of Trump’s fortunes.

Senate Leadership Fund currently has $58.7 million of television ad spending slated for the fall spread across eight key Senate races: New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Missouri, North Carolina, Indiana and Florida. SLF also spent about $3.5 million earlier this year in Florida and in Indiana, where the group played in favor of Rep. Todd Young in the GOP primary there. One Nation, the affiliated nonprofit, has spent $25 million on issues ads in seven of the Senate battlegrounds, a spokesman said.

While Democrats have kept pace at the campaign committee level — the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has consistently outraised the NRSC — the concern is that GOP outside groups will swamp Democrats in fundraising in the final weeks of the campaign.

Senate Majority PAC, the main super PAC dedicated to electing Democrats to the Senate, has spent $30.3 million as of Sept. 19 and has reserved an additional $31 million in Florida, Pennsylvania, Nevada and New Hampshire, according to a spokesman — figures that will likely change as the landscape evolves. Majority Forward, the group’s allied 501(c)4, has spent about $5.3 million.

But in a sharp contrast, Senate Majority PAC had raised $31 million this entire cycle as of July 31 — a figure dwarfed by Senate Leadership Fund’s one-month haul in August. Majority PAC, which files its reports monthly, will disclose its August numbers next week.

“Yes, it’s more challenging now than it once was,” Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the second-ranking Senate Democrat, said Wednesday. “Our candidates, I think, are quality candidates and are going to win and give us the majority. But it’s tougher now because of all this money.”

Polling is also trending the GOP’s way. Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), who’d been running neck-and-neck with Democrat Maggie Hassan in polling, posted an 8-point lead in the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll, released earlier this week. In the Nevada Senate contest, a Monmouth Poll released Wednesday had Republican Joe Heck leading Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto by 3 points in a race long believed to tilt toward Democrats.

And in Florida, Democrat Patrick Murphy has never led in public polling since Republican Marco Rubio decided at the last minute in June to run for reelection.

“I think the fact that Marco’s putting away the race in Florida is good for us because it saves a ton of money,” said South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the No. 3 Senate Republican.

If Florida is increasingly out of reach for Democrats, the party could have opportunities in a pair of states that are cheaper to advertise in: North Carolina and, to a lesser extent, Missouri. Democrats are angling to take out both Sens. Richard Burr of North Carolina and Roy Blunt of Missouri, hoping that anti-incumbent sentiment in those states will play in their favor.

The topic of Senate control dominated both parties’ caucus meetings this month, even as congressional leaders try and hash out a deal to keep the government open. Republicans on Tuesday praised vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence for steadying the ticket, and McConnell, stressing the GOP’s brightening prospects, persuaded GOP senators to funnel $4 million from their own accounts into Senate Republican coffers.

At one recent lunch meeting attended by Senate Democrats, DSCC Chairman Jon Tester went into detail about how close the battle for Senate control has become, especially as Trump has closed the gap with Clinton.

Rather than a blue wave, Democrats are girding for a dogfight — and hoping their donors aren’t taking the favorable map for granted.

“The last few days have been a wake-up call,” said one Democratic senator.

“We’re worried about our donors becoming complacent,” added another.

Democrats need to pick up five seats, or four if Clinton wins. Republicans currently control 54 seats, to 46 for Democrats.

“I’m not counting on a wave. What I’m counting on is my candidates to perform,” Tester said in an interview. “What I am saying to everybody in our caucus and to Democrats around the country, is: Don’t assume things will happen just because somebody said it’s going to happen. It’s going to take a lot of work.”

Democratic officials still believe Illinois and Wisconsin — where incumbent Republicans Mark Kirk and Ron Johnson, respectively, have struggled — are all but in the bag. They remain bullish about Indiana, though Democrat Evan Bayh’s once-massive polling advantage over Young has shrunk.

If those three states hold, Democrats would need to win just one more seat, assuming Clinton prevails. A number of states could be the majority-maker in that scenario, such as New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, North Carolina or Missouri. Democrats have ramped up spending in the latter two states recently.

“The only ways they are doing better than I expected is the many millions of dollars the Koch brothers are dumping in,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said in an interview Wednesday. “She’s going to win the presidency, and we’re going to take control of the Senate.”

But Democratic strategists who’d been salivating over a national wave — one that might gush into lower-tier territory like Iowa, Kentucky, Arizona and Georgia — are now narrowing their sights a bit. They concede the Senate will likely be won or lost in a small number of battleground states inundated with outside money. As of Wednesday, outside spending had reached $50 million in both Pennsylvania and Ohio, $30 million in New Hampshire and $25 million in Nevada.

“The amount of money being spent is outrageous,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.). “Despite all of the money that’s been spent, people view Gov. Hassan very favorably.”

Though Ayotte posted the recent 8-point lead, the RealClearPolitics polling average shows a much closer race in New Hampshire. In Pennsylvania, Republican Sen. Pat Toomey has made up some ground in recent polling and is now essentially tied against Democrat Katie McGinty, according to the RCP average. And in Nevada, RCP shows Heck leading Cortez Masto by 1.5 points. Republicans probably need to take all three states to have a shot at keeping the Senate.

In another encouraging sign for the GOP, Democrats have a 3.3-point edge in the generic congressional ballot, according to RCP, a smaller advantage than is typical before a wave election.

“I think we would squeak through with a victory today,” NRSC Chairman Roger Wicker of Mississippi said Wednesday. “It’s a very close contest with a lot of seats in play, and we’ve had a very good couple of weeks. That doesn’t make me the least bit overconfident.”

