‘Candidate quality issues’ aside, Republicans have a real shot at the Senate
While Republicans are seen as heavy favorites to win control of the House of Representatives in this year’s midterms, the fate of the Senate is much less certain, though Democrats do appear to have a narrow advantage.
One explanation for this disparity is the nature of House and Senate contests. House races are primarily tied to public sentiment and correlate with presidential approval, while individual candidates matter much more in Senate races.
Presidents with an approval rating below 50 percent — as President Biden’s has been for most of his term — see their party lose an average of 37 House seats in the midterms. When Americans are dissatisfied with how things are going in the country — as the public is today — this also typically translates into considerable gains in the House for the out-party.
However, a wave election in the House does not guarantee the same in the Senate. 2010 was a historically strong midterm year for Republicans — the GOP picked up 63 House seats — yet Democrats retained their Senate majority.
This year, the combination of the anti-Democratic national political environment, historical midterm trends that benefit the out-party, and high levels of GOP voter enthusiasm will likely be enough for Republicans to flip the House by a comfortable margin.
However, the weaknesses of individual Republican Senate candidates in toss-up races are a drag on the GOP’s chances of flipping the upper chamber and are giving Democrats a reasonable chance of retaining their slim Senate majority in an otherwise weak year for the party.
But will Republican candidates’ extreme positions and lack of experience ultimately prevent the party from flipping the Senate, or will traditional midterm forces and a favorable national issues agenda for the GOP enable them to prevail?
Control of the Senate will come down to a handful of races — including Arizona, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Ohio — all of which are states that Biden carried by less than two points in 2020, or in the case of Ohio, Donald Trump won.
Georgia — which Biden carried by two-tenths of 1 percent in 2020 — is one state where the broader anti-Democratic sentiment is most likely to trump candidate quality.
Even though the Republican candidate, Herschel Walker, is a former NFL star with no political experience who has promoted conspiracy theories about evolution, he is effectively tied in the race with incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock.
Anti-Democratic and anti-Biden sentiments are strong in the state, 57 percent of voters disapprove of the president, per recent CBS polling. And in addition to having overwhelming support from his party, Walker leads among older voters, White men and women, and conservatives — generally considered to be the most reliable groups to turnout — and, just as importantly, has a narrow advantage with Independents.
Further, as is the case nationally, the economy and inflation are Georgia voters’ top concerns, and these issues favor Republicans. The majority of voters who say the economy is very important to their vote are supporting Walker (56 percent) over Warnock (44 percent).
In Pennsylvania, Republican nominee Dr. Mehmet Oz is faring slightly worse than Walker. Pennsylvania is a solidly purple state — and a more traditional Republican would likely lead this year — yet Oz is seen as an inexperienced, out-of-touch millionaire from a different state, a characterization that Democrat John Fetterman’s campaign has worked to reinforce.
