Politics Mitch McConnell Shouldn’t Get Comfortable Why Democrats are poised to recapture the Senate.

Doug Sosnik was a senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and co-wrote a New York Times best-seller on the future of politics in the United States.

After picking up nine seats in the 2014 elections, Republicans maintain a decisive 54-seat majority in the Senate. In 2016, they will face a much more difficult map that coincides with a presidential election year. Nineteen months before the 2016 elections, the contours of the race for the presidency are only now starting to take shape. But one thing that is clear at this point is that the outcome of the presidential race will likely determine control of the Senate.

The last time Republicans faced a similar map, in the 2008 presidential election — when there was an open seat for president — they lost seven seats. If Democrats can manage a repeat performance, they will win control of the chamber.


There are five principal factors putting Republican control of the Senate at risk next year:

1. The 2016 presidential and Senate target states are almost perfectly aligned.

With the exception of Virginia, every presidential battleground state could have a top-tier Senate race. Additionally, one of the most vulnerable Republican incumbent senators in the country is from Illinois — a safe Democratic state. In the 2012 presidential race the vast majority of money spent on general election television ads was targeted at these swing states.

In 2008 and 2012, Democrats ran superior grass-roots campaigns in these battleground states. Similar well-financed efforts in 2016 could prove decisive in determining control of the Senate.

2. A state’s vote for a Senate candidate increasingly mirrors the vote for president.

There are currently only 16 incumbent senators (five Democrats and 11 Republicans) who are holding seats in states that did not vote for their party in the last presidential election. Of the 11 Republican-held seats up for election next year, seven are in states carried by Barack Obama in 2012 — Florida (open), Illinois (Mark Kirk), Iowa (Chuck Grassley), New Hampshire (Kelly Ayotte), Ohio (Rob Portman), Pennsylvania (Pat Toomey) and Wisconsin (Ron Johnson).

3. Changing demographics and increased turnout during a presidential election year will benefit all Democrats on the ballot.

The demographic transformation that is taking place around the country is increasingly reflected in the makeup of our electorate. As the country has become more diverse, the share of white voters in the electorate has dropped from 88 percent of all voters in 1992 to 72 percent in 2012. In a presidential election year, we can also expect higher participation rates among African-Americans, Hispanics and Asians, as well as young people — voter groups that traditionally benefit Democrats all the way down the ballot. In the 2014 midterm elections, young voters made up only 13 percent of the overall electorate; in the 2012 presidential election they made up 19 percent.

4. The Senate math favors Democrats.

Republicans are defending 24 seats next year. Democrats are defending 10 — and only two of these races (Colorado and Nevada) are considered competitive.

5. The party that wins the White House will control a 50/50 Senate.

If the Senate ends up evenly divided following the election, the vice president will be in a position to cast tie-breaking votes.

The stakes are high for both parties in the upcoming presidential election. For Democrats, the Senate takes on greater importance in light of the fact that Republicans will almost certainly maintain their lock on the House, at least until the next round of reapportionment and redistricting prior to the 2022 elections.

The 2016 elections are the Democrats’ best shot at wresting back control of the Senate for the rest of the decade, given that the 2018 off-year elections will force Democrats to defend 25 of the 33 seats on the ballot (including the two seats held by independents who caucus with them).

In a recent interview, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus acknowledged the steep challenges Republicans face in 2016. When asked how Republicans will overcome the Democrats’ huge Electoral College advantage next year, Priebus summed up his party’s chances for the presidency this way: “[W]e have to be about perfect … and the other side can be about good. And so the fact is that we do have the higher burden.” In a year like 2016, their burden will extend beyond the presidential to the Senate as well.