Yes, it’s a noisy statement, but it’s probably true.
Republicans currently hold a 50-48 lead in the Senate, with two Georgia seats still unfilled.
There were two races Tuesday, with the frontrunner receiving 49.8% and 32.9%, respectively. Georgia law requires a majority vote for a statewide office. If the frontrunner falls compact, a special election between the two candidates with the best records decides.
One of the races in Georgia is a regular race, with Sen. David Perdue seeking re-election, and the other is a special election to fill the remaining two terms of former Sen. Johnny Isakson, who retired at the end of 2019 for health reasons. Perdue received 49.8% of the vote and faces a rematch with Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff.
Senator Kelly Loeffler finished 250,000 votes behind the frontrunner in the special election for Isakson’s seat, but it was a three-candidate race because GOP Congressman Doug Collins also ran for the Senate seat, with Collins receiving 20% of the vote. Loeffler will face Raphael Warnock in a runoff.
Warnock is a political newcomer, but he has a powerful constituency — he is the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Martin Luther King Jr. served as pastor. Warnock has been involved in many liberal political causes in Georgia over the past two decades, and there is no doubt that Democratic and African American interest groups will rally behind him in the Jan. 5, 2021 election.
If Democrats win both seats, the Senate would be evenly divided, and if Biden becomes president, Vice President Harris would cast the tiebreaking vote, giving Chuck Schumer a majority in the Senate.
That would change everything.
Except for the fact that Joe Manchin is in the Senate.
There is much speculation that Mitch McConnell will talk to Manchin about how to finally switch parties. The decision will hinge on several key questions for Manchin:
- Does he intend to run for re-election in 2024?
- Is he willing to cede control of the Senate, House of Representatives and the Presidency to Democrats, given their stated policy agenda and its likely impact on West Virginia?
Manchin is the former governor of West Virginia, where he won the state election with the following results:
2004 – 63.5%
2008 – 69.8%
He won election to the Senate in 2010, succeeding Robert Byrd, and has been re-elected twice since then.
2010 – 53.5%
2012 – 60.6%
2018 – 49.6
Republican Shelly Moore Capito won the election for West Virginia’s second Senate seat last week, winning more than 70% of the vote.
GOP Gov. Jim Justice was reelected with 65 percent of the vote. He was first elected in 2016 with just 49 percent of the vote — as a Democrat — and then switched parties.
Manchin has remained in the Democratic caucus and has consistently voted with Democrats on every major party vote over the past four years — except for his vote to confirm Judges Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. He voted against Judge Barrett — but he was a “safe” vote because McConnell already had the votes he needed.
But Manchin — like Byrd before him — has always opposed radical environmental policies that would destroy West Virginia’s coal and oil industries. Securing a 51st vote to make Chuck Schumer Senate majority leader would do exactly that.
A switch to the GOP would leave the Senate in Republican hands, maintain divided government that would largely maintain the status quo, and make him a decisive voice on issues vital to him and West Virginia.
If Manchin didn’t want to join the GOP outright, he could do a Bernie Sanders maneuver by declaring himself an independent but caucusing with the Republicans. That would give him the freedom not to join the party vote. But that would likely lead to a GOP challenger in 2024, and the math of voting in West Virginia isn’t on his side if he’s outside the GOP.
The online speculation is that McConnell will offer Manchin a significant committee chairmanship in exchange for a change. He is currently the ranking member on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The committee chair is Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, one of the least reliable RINOS in the Senate. Removing her from the chair to hand the committee to Manchin could cause her to switch parties. She will likely face a powerful opponent in the GOP primary, and President Trump has pledged to personally campaign against her reelection. McConnell probably can’t risk Murkowski burning the Senate in the wake of a Manchin change.
If Manchin intends to run again in 2024 — he would be 77 by then — he may have to decide that not getting the Energy Committee chairmanship is the price he must pay to keep the Senate away from Green New Deal advocates. He could simply make a deal with McConnell to take over as chairman in 2022 if Murkowski loses the election — or decides not to run. He could be offered a position as chairman of key Appropriations Committee subcommittees, where he currently serves on four.
But that’s just on the Senate side of the aisle. There are two GOP senators who have announced their intention not to seek reelection in 2022 — Richard Burr in North Carolina and Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania. Online left-wing pundits have speculated about whether one or both could be persuaded to leave the Senate in 2021 if Biden appoints them to key ambassadorial posts. North Carolina and Pennsylvania have Democratic governors who would appoint their successors by the time special elections are held in 2022.
The problem with the Burr speculation is that North Carolina law — passed in 2018 by a majority Republican legislature — requires the Governor to appoint someone to fill the seat from the same party as the senator who vacates the seat AND limits the Governor’s choice to one of three people nominated by the outgoing senator’s state party. So the North Carolina GOP would prevent the seat from being flipped by Democrats.
Pennsylvania law does not impose a similar requirement — the governor can appoint anyone to the position.
But between Toomey and Burr, Toomey is the candidate far less likely to be drawn into such a deal. He has long been a conservative and has opposed nearly every priority program the Biden administration has sought to advance in the Senate. Toomey is only 59, and in explaining his decision not to seek reelection, he has said he will pursue business opportunities. It seems unlikely that he would be lured into an ambassadorship into leaving the Senate early, given his explanation.
Finally, given the controversy surrounding the events in Philadelphia that sparked the election, it seems unlikely that Toomey would further reward the Pennsylvania Democratic Party by handing his Senate seat — and with it control of the Senate — to those same partisans.
Joe Manchin appears to be McConnell’s “ace up his sleeve” if Democrats manage to win both Georgia races.
