Seeing Some Sobering Senate Surprises

In Texas here in the final weekend of the 2018 midterms, Democratic Rep. Beto O'Rourke is throwing everything he has at GOP Sen. Ted Cruz, and Cruz is in a lot more trouble than Republicans are willing to admit.

Early Friday afternoon, on the last day of early voting, Jacque Callanen strutted out of the Bexar County Elections Department with a noticeable pep in her step and a smile on her face, her red, white and blue American flag slip-on shoes pounding against the pavement and her “Bexar County Elections” lanyard swinging freely back and forth.

“If you got to see the people behind the scenes right now, you would see them high-fiving,” said Callenen, who is the elections administrator of Bexar County.

That’s because her county, the fourth largest in Texas, saw what she said was record-breaking turnout during early voting this year. By the time the polls closed Thursday, 33.7 percent of registered voters in Bexar County had voted, well past the 17.3 percent turnout at the same point in 2014, the last midterm, and close to the presidential-year turnout recorded at the same point in 2012 and 2016.

And Bexar County’s election officials are not alone in having a lot to high-five each other about. Turnout during early voting in the state’s 30 largest counties easily surpassed the entire turnout – during the early voting period and on Election Day – of the 2014 midterm and continues to race toward the turnout seen in presidential election years.

In Harris County, the state’s largest county, 32.3 percent of registered voters had voted by the end of Thursday, compared to 15.5 percent at the same point in 2014. In Dallas County, the number was 35.1 percent, compared to 15.2 percent at the same point in 2014. Early voting turnout in Travis County had already surpassed total early voter turnout in both the 2014 midterm and the 2012 presidential election by the end of Thursday.

“We’ve got a lot of unhappy and activist voters out there who have been wanting to vote for a long time,” said Dana DeBeauvoir, the Travis County clerk. She attributed the bump in the number of voters to President Donald Trump.

Texas isn't a purple state or even a red state.  It's a non-voting state.  As I said earlier today, if turnout numbers really are as high as people are predicting, then all bets are off come Wednesday morning. Yes, the generation low turnout of 2014 was quite literally the lowest bar to overcome.  If early voting turnout in Texas hadn't easily eclipsed the total from four years ago, I wouldn't just be worried, I'd be despondent. But it has crushed those numbers, and Ted Cruz is fighting for his political life right now.

Unfortunately for Dems, the most vulnerable Senate seat they are in danger of losing is one many people are overlooking. Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota is in trouble, but so is Bob Menendez in New Jersey.

New Jersey Democrats are growing increasingly worried that Sen. Bob Menendez could lose his seat next week in an outcome that would undercut the party’s effort to take back the Senate.

Democratic strategists working on races across the state said in interviews that they have seen a remarkable decline in support for Menendez as his Republican opponent — former pharmaceutical executive Bob Hugin — poured $36 million of his own wealth into his campaign. Hugin has used much of the money to run a seemingly endless stream of negative campaign ads. Even as public opinion polls show the senator up by double digits, some insiders say a post-summer boost, hoped for by team Menendez, never arrived.

Hugin’s relentless attacks, which took a dark turn the last three weeks, have chipped away at the scandal-scarred senator’s standing with suburban voters and women, some strategists said. Menendez, running in a state that has 900,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans, is now struggling to hold on to areas where he should have massive support, some said. In several competitive congressional districts, internal polls show votes for Menendez running far behind support for a generic Democrat, one strategist said.

As Menendez’s aides insists they’re “confident” he’ll win, some allies are openly admitting things may not turn out as planned, saying the massive advertising campaign on the other side has been difficult to overcome.

“I think the race is a toss-up,” Loretta Weinberg, the Democratic majority leader of the state Senate, said in an interview. “I think it’s a fight, and we’re all in to continue fighting up until 8 p.m. on Election Day.”

Now, with three days until the election, Menendez is swinging wildly at his opponent, linking him to President Donald Trump, former Republican Gov. Chris Christie and even suggesting — falsely and without evidence — that Hugin was fired under questionable circumstances by investment bank JPMorgan nearly two decades ago. He’s furiously working to get out his base, cranking up the urban turnout machine with the help of Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and others.

All of that is playing out as national Democrats are dumping some $7 million into a state that hasn’t elected a Republican to the Senate since 1972.

I hope New Jersey comes to their senses and finds a way to reelect Menendez, but I have a feeling that when we find ourselves in "all bets are off" territory on Tuesday, there are going to be several surprises in the Senate.

There's no way Ted Cruz should lose in Texas.  There's no way Bob Menendez should lose in New Jersey either.  But I wouldn't bet any money on both of them winning.

We're going to see some major surprises in the House on Wednesday.  Some long-time House Republicans are most likely going to find themselves out of a job in a couple months, hopefully Steve King and maybe even Don Young in Alaska. There's also a lot of reason to believe that Democrat Phil Bresden can pull off a major upset in Tennessee and win back Al Gore's old Senate seat.

But when it comes to Cruz and Menendez, one of the two is going to get an unwelcome surprise.  Maybe both.