STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Here in the United States, Democrats are facing one of the toughest electoral maps in decades. A big part of democracy is math. The majority sets the U.S. Senate agenda, and Democrats and their allies have that majority now, 51-49. But they will have to do unusually well to keep that majority. Republicans are favored. Democrats are trying to address this. The campaign of Vice President Harris says it's going to transfer money to help down-ballot candidates, including Senate candidates.
Let's talk this through with Jessica Taylor, who edits coverage of the Senate for the Cook Political Report and is an alumna of NPR News. Jessica, welcome back.
JESSICA TAYLOR: Always great to be back, Steve.
INSKEEP: Glad you're with us. Glad you're with us. I want to work through the basics here. If I look at polling of what they say is a generic ballot, like a national poll - do you want Democrats or Republicans in charge of Congress? - Democrats are a little bit ahead lately. So why does that not transfer over to Senate races?
TAYLOR: Well, it matters which third of the Senate is up every six years. And unfortunately, for Democrats this cycle, it's in some very, very red territory or swing territory. So Democrats are defending 23 seats to just 11 for Republicans, and they have seats up in West Virginia - an open seat that is going to flip to Republicans. And then you - they're also defending seats in Montana with Jon Tester - that's a state that Donald Trump won by 16 points four years ago - and in Ohio with Sherrod Brown, a state that Trump won twice by eight points. And then you have other swing states at the presidential level - Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania. So it's really, really - this is essentially an entirely defensive map for Democrats.
INSKEEP: Yeah. You mentioned West Virginia, where Joe Manchin is retiring. I just want to note he was a Democrat until he declared - left the party recently. But progressives hated him - hated him in the Senate passionately, and now they get to find out what the world is like without Joe Manchin.
TAYLOR: Yeah, he was the only Democrat that could even keep this seat. He managed to outperform the president by - you know, Obama and Biden by 20, 30 points.
INSKEEP: Yeah.
TAYLOR: And that seat's absolutely going to flip. You're going to have the Republican governor there, Jim Justice. So that puts it at a 50-50 map. Even though Democrats have a 51-49 majority, it starts at 50-50. And that means that there is no room for error - that not only do Democrats have to defend every single seat, including in that very red territory in Montana, which is the most vulnerable seat, but they also have to have Harris win the presidency in order for there to be the vice president, Tim Walz, breaking the tie. So there is no room for error.
INSKEEP: Is there no state - I don't know - Florida, Texas, anywhere, that Democrats might conceivably pick up a seat?
TAYLOR: Those are the ones that Democrats are still watching. I still think it's very difficult in a presidential year. Texas, I think, slightly more so than Florida because you have - Ted Cruz is a very polarizing figure there. You have Congressman Colin Allred that they've recruited there. He's raising very good money. Both states are incredibly expensive, though. And I think we just go back to this fact - that, in the past two presidential cycles, we have not seen voters split their tickets.
In 2016, every single Senate race went the same way as the presidential vote did in the state. And in 2020, only Susan Collins managed to win reelection, even as Biden carried her state. So I think it's just increasingly difficult for a state like Texas that we - and Florida, that are going to go red at the presidential level, to vote for a Democratic Senate candidate.
INSKEEP: With that said, I wonder what the prospects are for ticket-splitting in Montana, where Jon Tester, a Democrat in what has primarily been a red state, has been able to win several elections in the past over the years.
TAYLOR: He has been, but I do think he's facing his strongest opponent really ever in former Navy Seal Tim Sheehy. Now, they're trying to paint him as unauthentically Montana, that he's moved to the state recently. You know, he rebuts that, well, he was serving in the military and recently moved there. But, you know, Democrats are trying to say he's a fake rancher. And, you know, they pointed to, you know, him - his stance on public lands and different things. But we've seen - you know, this is where other states are - Republicans are being vastly outspent. When you add in sort of the outside spending together, it's almost a parody. And we've seen Jon Tester go from positive approval ratings to underwater now.
INSKEEP: Wow.
TAYLOR: And that doesn't bode well for him. I think this is still a very close race, but I think that it's a race that Republicans feel increasingly good about, with good reason.
INSKEEP: I want to ask about one other aspect of this. Democrats are very unhappy about what they see as a structural disadvantage because small-population states get two senators, California gets two senators, and they don't like that because Democrats perform poorly in rural states. You can look at that as an unfair advantage for Republicans. But could you not also look at that as weakness for Democrats? They used to do better in rural areas than they do now.
TAYLOR: They did. And I think that's just the reality of the way that they have to do better. You know, if someone like Jon Tester is struggling - but, you know, we've also seen them win in Georgia, an increasingly urban state. But, you know, I think, you know, the South used to be the bastion of Democratic senators, and we really haven't seen that. So I think it's just the changing map and geography that we've seen on the electoral side. And, you know, Democrats have to try to compete everywhere, and I think this map is just incredibly difficult for them.
INSKEEP: Jessica Taylor of the Cook Political Report - pleasure to talk with you.
TAYLOR: Thanks, Steve. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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