Hello everyone, my name is Frank Driscoll and welcome to Driscoll's election dissection,
your election analysis for across the circus.
I hope you all are doing well today, wherever you are.
Alright, now onto the next part of our overdrive toward Tuesday, November 5th.
On our last show we talked about the gubernatorial races, specifically the ones that are competitive,
but today a lot more races are competitive, well partly because there's more seats involved.
Yes, today we will be discussing the fight for the upper chamber of the United States
Congress.
We're talking about elections for the Senate.
Now the Democrats have held the majority of the Senate since 2021 and they want to keep
it that way, but the Republicans are fighting to get the chamber back in their hands and
with how slim the majority is, they're really going all out.
The Republican party really only needs two seats to win the majority of the chamber,
or they can win one seat and if Donald Trump and JD Vance win the presidency, they will
have the majority of a 50-50 tie because the vice president would be the president of the
Senate breaking any tie breaking vote.
And this year's Senate election cycle is rather interesting, a lot of close races.
In fact, of the 34 elections in the US Senate this year, about 11 of them are deemed somewhat
competitive, some more competitive than others.
Only a couple of those are truly toss up races, but we'll get to those in a moment.
First we'll talk about the ones that can get competitive in the next few weeks.
Now we'll talk about the likely Democratic and likely Republican seats according to the
Cook Partisan Voting Index.
We'll talk about those first.
Now according to the Cook Partisan Voting Index, a likely rating means, quote, these
races are not considered competitive at this point, but they have the potential to become
engaged.
And we have a couple of those right away.
Now I want to start first by saying that the Democrats kind of have the tougher path to
victory as they have more seats with Democrat incumbents than Republicans.
However many of them are solid and are set not to really change hands, but that does
mean a handful of them could potentially flip, which could give the GOP the majority.
First in terms of a likely Democratic seat would be the seat in Maryland, an open seat
as Senator Ben Cardin is not running for reelection.
Secondly the Democratic candidate, Prince George's County Executive Angela Also Brooks,
currently has a good edge over former Governor Larry Hogan.
And next in likely Republican there are two Republican held seats on that block involving
the state of Florida where incumbent Senator Rick Scott is facing a challenge from former
Congresswoman Debbie Mercarsol Powell.
And also on likely Republican was a seat that wasn't on this rating a couple weeks ago,
but has changed drastically in the last couple weeks and that's in Nebraska where incumbent
Deb Fisher, Republican Senator, is facing a challenge from independent candidate, industrial
mechanic and local union president Dan Osborne.
Now this wasn't deemed to be really competitive at one time, however Dan Osborne has actually
led Fisher in a couple of polls in the last couple weeks, which has surprised a lot of
pundits and has made this race kind of closer than we think.
So I don't know if the ratings will switch on that pretty soon, but we'll have to wait
and see.
Next we go on to the Cook PVI seats that are under the lean category, as in lean Democratic
or lean Republican.
And according to the Cook PVI those, quote, are races that are considered competitive,
but one party has an advantage.
So first on the Democratic side there are actually four lean Democratic seats, those
being the states of Arizona where incumbent Senator Kirsten Sinema, former Democratic
now independent, is not running for re-election and Democratic Congressman Ruben Gallego is
facing former news anchor and MAGA activist Kari Lake.
Then Nevada, incumbent Democratic Senator Jackie Rosen is facing businessman Sam Brown.
And then Pennsylvania, where incumbent Democratic Senator Bob Casey Jr. is facing hedge fund
CEO Dave McCormick.
And Wisconsin, where incumbent Senator Tammy Baldwin is facing venture capitalist Eric
Hoft.
And notice that these are all swing states, so depending on how the presidency goes in
those states could be how the Senate race goes as well.
Then on lean Republican there are two races and one of them is bad news for the Democrats
because one of them is in a Democratic held seat.
And that's in the state of Montana, where incumbent Senator John Tester is facing off
against aerospace company CEO Tim Sheehy.
And Tim Sheehy has done rather well in polls lately, thus making this the Republicans'
best chance to flip an incumbent seat this cycle.
Also on the lean Republican side is the Senate race in the state of Texas, where incumbent
Senator Ted Cruz, Republican, is facing off against Democratic Congressman Colin Allred.
This actually was just added to the lean ratings not that long ago, about a week ago.
It seems that Democrats are really focusing on Texas, so much so that Colin Allred has
actually been doing much better in the polls as of late.
So those are the likely and the lean elections, but we get to now the toss-up elections.
And according to the PVI, quote, these races are the most competitive and either party
has a good chance of winning.
And again, it's not good news for the Democrats as both of them are Democratic seats.
And with two of them being there, that's really all the Republicans need to take the chamber
back.
So let's take a look at those two races, shall we?
First, we head to the Great Lakes State, the state of Michigan.
Now, the current senator for this election cycle in the state of Michigan is incumbent
Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow.
She is retiring this year after a long tenure in the Senate, leaving the seat open for the
first time in a while.
And it was very close primary contest for this race.
However, it has whittled down to two candidates, or two major candidates, I should say.
Those being for the Democrats, Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin, and for the Republicans, former
Congressman Mike Rogers.
Now, there have been some recent polls, a couple with Rogers winning, but a few of them
do have Slotkin winning for the most part.
In fact, the two most recent polls we have here, one from Mitchell Research and Communications,
sponsored by the Michigan Information and Research Service, has Slotkin leading by five
points.
And another poll from RMG Research, sponsored by the Napolitano Institute, has Slotkin leading
by six points.
Although there has been a poll from the Trafalgar Group, which is a pollster for the Republican
Party, that shows the Senate race even, with both candidates tied at 47%.
However, some say that being a Republican pollster may have had something to do with
that.
But besides that, the average seems to be, according to RealClearPolling, Slotkin has
about a three-point itch.
But again, Michigan is a swing state this year, so depending on how the state votes
for president, it could vote for Senate that way as well.
Meanwhile, the next state is set to really go for Trump, as it has a bit of a red hue.
However, the Senate race is more competitive.
With that, we head to the Buckeyes state, the state of Ohio.
This seat was on the Republicans' hit list for a while.
In fact, we talked about it when the primary occurred.
And the current senator for Ohio is Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown.
Now, Brown faced no opposition in the primary, as the Democrats were all really behind him,
the Democrats of Ohio, to keep this seat in Democratic hands.
Meanwhile, the Republican primary was won by businessman Bernie Moreno.
And it seems as though from all real nonpartisan pollsters that this race really could go either
way at this point.
Recent polls show both candidates winning, depending on the circumstance.
For example, a poll from the New York Times and Siena College showed Brown winning by
four points.
Meanwhile, a poll around the same time from Activote showed Moreno leading by two points.
And on real clear polling, if you bring the averages together, Brown seems to be winning
by about three and a half percent.
In fact, it's a little better than Alyssa Slotkin's current average against Mike Rogers
in Michigan.
So Brown has a little bit of an edge in a sense.
However, based on how the state is and how it votes for president and other major races,
this does show to be a real toss up.
And it all depends on the final poll, the one that matters, on election day.
So there's a lot of Senate races to watch that night.
Of course, some will be closer than others.
It really will be an all out battle to see which party holds the upper chamber.
Only the strong will survive.
And as always, if you're willing to learn more about elections in your area, especially
the important ones coming up, be sure to check out politicsone.com as well as ballotpedia.com.
And if you're willing to look at recent polls, be sure to check out 538.com as well as realclearpolling.com.
So be sure to join us on our next show where we'll be the first part of a two part series
where we'll be discussing the toss up US House races and how the battle for that will be
just as exciting as the battle for the Senate.
And as always, I say, if you are a registered voter, especially in Michigan or Ohio or any
other state that will be electing a senator this year, I don't care who you vote for,
but I do care that you vote.
So please do.
Thank you for listening to Driscoll's election dissection.
If you would like to learn more about the show, go online to algidproductions.com
slash across the circus and be sure to listen to us on any podcasting form you like.
Thank you all for listening and I will see you all very soon.
This episode was brought to you by Algid Productions LLC. Thank you for listening!