Earlier this month, Montana governor Steve Bullock became the 23rd Democrat to announce his candidacy for his party's presidential nomination in 2020; a few days later, New York City mayor Bill de Blasio brought the field to 24 total. After two-plus years of the Trump administration slashing taxes for the rich, cynically ignoring a global climate crisis, and putting migrant children in cages, there is no shortage of Democrats eager to make the case that the country desperately needs a change in leadership.

When it comes to turning policy aspirations into reality, though, electing a Democratic president won’t matter unless Democrats win the Senate, too. Right now, Trump doesn't even need to veto something like H.R. 1, a groundbreaking voting rights bill which the Democratic-controlled House passed in March, because such proposals are dead on arrival in the Republican-controlled Senate. If Trump loses in 2020, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has already pledged to serve as the “grim reaper” for Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and any other Democratic initiative.

The GOP currently holds a 53-47 majority in the upper chamber, which means that if Democrats win the White House, they must net three Senate seats in order to take the slimmest possible majority. (In the event of a tie, the Constitution requires the vice president to break it.) Realistically, a working majority might require capturing four or five seats, though. In deep-red Alabama, Doug Jones is likely to face a more formidable opponent in 2020 than the credibly-accused child predator he beat in 2018, and in West Virginia, Joe Manchin’s annoying conservative streak—he was the only Senate Democrat to vote to confirm Republican justice Brett Kavanaugh—always makes him a shaky-at-best vote for anything ambitious his party puts forward.

On paper, Democrats have plenty of chances to accomplish this goal, since Republicans must defend 22 of the 34 Senate seats up for grabs in 2020. Yet even if Jones and his fellow Democratic incumbents in purplish states like Virginia, Michigan, and Minnesota all hang onto their jobs, ousting three sitting Republican senators will still be a tall order. That's because, with alarming regularity, the Democratic national Party has failed in recruitment and the most promising candidates have decided they’d rather do something else.

There is still time for good candidates to emerge, and for those who have passed to change their minds. (In 2016, Florida senator Marco Rubio didn’t decide to run for re-election until June of that year, some three months after his fledgling White House bid came to a humiliating end.) But with the viability of a progressive agenda potentially at stake, Democrats need people who will start early and campaign often. And in many important races, the party is still looking.

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