GOP All But Certain To Keep Senate After Democrats Spend Over $1 Billion To Flip Seats
According to data released Thursday by The Daily Poster, Democrats have spent more than $1 billion on competitive Senate races this election cycle. Despite record spending, they have not achieved much, since the Republican Party is all but certain to maintain a firm grip on the upper chamber.
In North Carolina, Democratic candidate Cal Cunningham is trailing incumbent Republican Thom Tillis by 97,000 votes. In the traditionally red state of Georgia, Democrat Raphael Warnock and incumbent Sen. Kelly Loeffler are headed to a January runoff.
In South Carolina, incumbent Lindsey Graham defeated his Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison in a landslide.
Kentucky candidate Amy McGrath was blown out by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Texas Democrat MJ Hegar and Democratic Sen. Doug Jones of Alabama are also losing by double digits.
Maine Democrat Sara Gideon, who challenged vulnerable GOP Sen. Susan Collins, also lost, despite raising more than $68 million. Similarly, former Montana Gov. Steve Bullock spent an enormous amount of money in his race against Steve Daines, but lost.
Only two Democrats won their races: former Gov. John Hickenlooper in Colorado and astronaut Mark Kelly in Arizona.
In some states, candidates lagged far behind the party’s presidential nominee, Joe Biden. In Maine, for example, Biden defeated Trump by 10 points, but Collins was re-elected by a comfortable margin.
In a tweet, The Daily Poster founder David Sirota blasted Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, saying that he “hand-picked corporate-friendly Senate nominees and then lit a billion dollars on fire, with little to show for it.”
A GOP-controlled Senate is expected to be a major obstacle to Biden should he win the presidency, which is looking increasingly likely.
As reported by Reuters, ambitious policy proposals will probably be off the table. Senate Republicans will almost certainly oppose Biden’s plan to raise taxes on corporations, vote against climate change legislation and obstruct voting rights reforms as well as campaign finance reforms.
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, Biden will likely be forced to compromise and settle for smaller economic stimulus packages.
As Jon Lieber, a former McConnell aide, put it, “The message from Senate Republicans is going to be: ‘The American people elected us to tap a brake on this unrequited socialism that Democrats are going to try to bring to this country.'”
For at least the first two years of his presidency, Biden will most likely have to rely on executive action. As the publication noted, he could pursue student loan relief and implement certain consumer protections.
