WASHINGTON (AP) — The race for the majority in Congress is more stimulating than ever. Nearly two dozen seats in the House of Representatives and a handful in the Senate will likely decide the balance of power in November and whether a single party moves into the White House.
Lawmakers are returning to Washington for a three-week sprint away from the campaign trail, where contests have become “pitch-jumping” and an uphill battle for a seat. Many of the key races are taking place in Montana, New York, California and elsewhere, far from the swing states where Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris are vying for the presidency.
“Buckle up,” said Jack Pandol, communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee.
After the summer shakeup that replaced President Joe Biden with Harris at the top of the Democratic ticket, this fall’s lower-ballot phase of the race is virtually neck-and-neck, a tightrope walk in which every single seat won or lost could make the difference in party control.
What has changed is not so much the fundamental aspects of each election but rather which side has the energy and enthusiasm to ensure that its voters actually turn out and cast their ballots, strategists say.
Since Harris replaced Biden, money, volunteers and voter enthusiasm have been pouring into the Democratic campaigns. This is a challenge for the Republicans, who went into the election campaign with good chances of winning and bolstered by Trump’s comeback attempt, even though criminal charges are still looming over his possible return to the White House.
Trump and Republicans are working feverishly to restore the momentum they gained from the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee and the Supreme Court decision granting former presidents broad immunity from prosecution, including for some actions related to Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Trump’s campaign held a private conference call with House Republicans on Friday and assured them that the movement was shifting to Trump as they devised further strategies, according to another Republican who spoke on condition of anonymity about the closed call.
“There is great desperation and great fear about where this election is going,” said Montana Senator Steve Daines, a Trump ally who heads the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the president’s campaign arm.
Speaking to the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas, Daines portrayed Republican Senate candidates as warriors and predicted that the enthusiasm of rural voters who would “crawl over broken glass” to vote for Trump would facilitate Republicans like Sam Brown, who is challenging Democratic Senator Jacky Rosen of Nevada.
Still, the fundraising gap Republicans currently have with Democrats is a problem, say GOP strategists on both sides of the Capitol, because they lack the money to keep up with advertising and organizing on the ground.
“We have a lot of work to do,” Daines said.
The days of two-thirds majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate are long gone. They have been replaced by a modern era of razor-thin majorities that leave little room for error in political campaigns or in the actual work of government.
Senate moves toward 50:50 split
The Democrats’ slim majority will almost certainly shrink to at least 50-50 with Republicans if independent Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia resigns. His departure clears the way for Republican Gov. Jim Justice to win the seat handily.
Trump is extremely popular in Montana, and that’s where Senate Republicans see their best chance to go on the offensive by challenging Democratic Sen. Jon Tester. But Tester is also a popular figure in the Big Sky State, where a whopping $238 million and more is being spent on ads.
Senate Republicans have had the advantage this cycle of having few incumbents to protect, allowing them to challenge Democrats with hand-picked, often wealthy recruits in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin. Only recently have Democrats gone on the offensive in hopeless races against Republican Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Rick Scott of Florida.
But incumbents often bring years of experience and notoriety to the campaign, making them arduous to unseat. This is the case, for example, in Pennsylvania, where Democratic Senator Bob Casey is being challenged by Republican Dave McCormick, or in Ohio, where Senator Sherrod Brown is running a playful television ad about eating cookies in his battle against Republican Bernie Moreno.
For the vacant seat in heavily Democratic Maryland, the state’s popular former Republican governor, Larry Hogan, who has been courted by Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell, faces county supervisor Angela Alsobrooks, who would make history as one of the few black women elected to the Senate.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has predicted that Democrats will retain their majority. If the Senate splits, majority control will go to the party in the White House because the vice president can cast tie-breaking votes.
“Democrats have never been in a stronger position to defend our Senate majority,” said Michigan Senator Gary Peters, who heads the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Majority in the House of Representatives uncertain
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has traveled to about 20 states across the country this summer, serving as what he calls an “ambassador of hope” in his party’s efforts to save its razor-thin majority.
Republicans are seeking to protect 18 Republicans in heavily Democratic congressional districts where Biden won, particularly in coastal New York State and California, and are going on the offensive to challenge Democrats elsewhere.
But House Democrats are benefiting from Harris’ momentum. Her campaign manager, Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington state, was among those who spoke privately with Biden about the potential impact on the election results as he considered his decision to drop out of the race.
Democrats are trying to protect their most embattled House members, a handful of pragmatic politicians including Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, Matt Cartwright of Pennsylvania and a trio of younger lawmakers who lead the centrist Blue Dog coalition – Mary Peltola of Alaska, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington state and Jared Golden of Maine.
Each of them faces a well-known Republican: Nick Begich, who comes from a political family in Alaska, Joe Kent, who is supported by Trump, from Washington, and former NASCAR driver Austin Theriault from Maine.
Republicans have made great efforts to diversify their own ranks. Just a few years ago, the party was made up mostly of white men and only a few women. After the 2018 election, for example, there were only about a dozen Republican women in the House of Representatives, but no black Republicans.
Republican Rep. Richard Hudson, chairman of the NRCC, said Republicans in the House were “exactly where we expected them to be,” but acknowledged that it was a “war of position.”
Election campaign beyond the swing states
Because many races for House seats take place far from the presidential polls, candidates are forced to take their own actions in conjunction with congressional committees to mobilize voters.
House Democrats are currently experiencing a steady influx of volunteers, knocking on more than 377,000 doors and making more than 845,000 phone calls in August, more than in the previous three months combined, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said.
House Republicans have set up dozens of “battle stations” to target voters and drive them to the polls, especially in areas where Trump’s campaign infrastructure is lacking, and they report crowds of enthusiastic voters on Johnson’s trips to battleground regions of the country.
Financial worries for the Republicans
Fundraising remains unbalanced, with Democrats outperforming Republicans with Harris at the top of the ticket and Republicans issuing warnings to their own donors to pull out all the stops.
“We are well on our way to flipping the Senate,” said Jason Thielman, executive director of the NRSC. However, he said the Democrats’ “massive cash advantage is a real problem. The biggest obstacle preventing Senate Republicans from having a great night in November is the lack of money.”
Both the DSCC and the DSCC saw record online donations in the days following Harris’ campaign announcement, and her team sent $25 million to minor candidates on the ballot, including $10 million each to House and Senate committees last week.
DCCC spokesman Viet Shelton said voter enthusiasm for a Democratic majority in the House is “at an all-time high.” He said voters want to elect “doable incumbents” rather than a “ragtag group” of Republican candidates allied with Trump.
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Associated Press writer Tom Beaumont in Las Vegas contributed to this report.
