Warnock, Win Notched

Georgia Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock has faced voters five times in the last two years and change, a Democratic primary in 2020, two general elections, and two runoff wins with last night's victory over Republican Herschel Walker, and being the 51st Democrat in the US Senate means the current power-sharing agreement with Mitch McConnell goes into the trash.

 

Democrats had already clinched control of the Senate, with 50 seats secured last month, which would allow Vice President Kamala Harris to cast the tie-breaking vote as she does now. But winning a 51st seat, thanks to Warnock’s victory Tuesday, comes with important benefits for the Democrats running the Senate and for President Joe Biden’s administration.

The party will now enter 2023 with a true Senate majority – one that won’t require the power-sharing agreement that has been in place over the last two years in an evenly divided chamber. That outright majority means that Democrats will have the majority on committees, allowing them to advance Biden’s nominees more easily.

For example: The Senate Judiciary Committee, with its 22 members, will shift from a split of 11 Democrats and 11 Republicans to 12 Democrats and 10 Republicans. That removes a GOP procedural mechanism to slow down the confirmation of Biden’s judicial nominees.

Democratic leaders, meanwhile, face a reduced risk that a single senator can hold its priorities hostage, since the party can now afford to lose a vote. Harris, who has already cast the third-most tie-breaking votes of any vice president, and the most since John Calhoun nearly 200 years ago, would be less tied to Capitol Hill.

It’s also an early boost to Democrats ahead of a 2024 election in which the party will have to defend several seats in deep-red states, including West Virginia and Montana, to maintain its majority. 

 

The good news is that the Dems did astonishing well for 2022. The bad news is 2024 is going to be a far tougher road, and whether you like them or not, both Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin will be up for re-election, along with Jon Tester, Jacky Rosen, Sherrod Brown, Bob Casey, Tim Kaine and Tammy Baldwin. Dems will have to defend all these seats and depending on the presidential outcome, we might have to defend all eight seats and run the table to keep the Senate.

Now, we did that this year and even gained a seat with John Fetterman. But Florida (Rick Scott) and Indiana (Mike Braun, leaving the seat for a Governor's run in Indiana) are going to be tough to pick up. let alone beating Ted Cruz in Texas or Josh Hawley in Missouri.

We'll see how all this turns out.