'If Republicans manage to hold onto the Senate they will have dodged a bullet, much as they did with some close wins in 2018. But at the moment, their president isn’t doing them any favors.'
A sexting scandal involving Cal Cunningham has cast some doubt on his long-time lead over Republican Thom Tillis in North Carolina. Photo: Gerry Broome/AP/Shutterstock If Mitch McConnell didn’t have enough to worry about with his Republican senators fighting a COVID-19 outbreak in the middle of trying to confirm Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, he also has to contend with the reality that Democrats could to take away his leadership gavel if Joe Biden is elected in November.
Given partisan polarization and the growing prevalence of straight-ticket voting, you cannot really separate Senate trends from presidential trends. So before looking at the Senate races in detail, it’s important to note that Biden’s lead over Trump has grown in the past turbulent week: It’s at 9.7 percent in the polling averages at RealClearPolitics, the biggest lead since June 24, and 10.2 percent at FiveThirtyEight, the biggest lead of the year.
The Senate race that has raised the most eyebrows this week, casting some fresh doubt on the likelihood of an easy Democratic sweep to Senate control, is in North Carolina, where Cal Cunningham’s steady lead over incumbent Thom Tillis is potentially endangered by a sexting scandal involving the married Cunningham and a married paramour.
Aside from South Carolina, the most surprising competitive Senate races are in three states sure to be carried by Trump, but which have a combination of strong Democratic candidates and and shaky Republican opposition: Alaska, Kansas, and Montana. In Alaska, where Democrats have found success backing self-identified independents, indie Al Gross has been within the margin-of-error in the sparse public polling matching him against incumbent Dan Sullivan.
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