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| Rep. Val Demings (D-FL) |
Florida is the state where the Democrats just keep coming up short. Ever since 2012, when the Democrats won both the electoral college from the state as well as the Senate election, they have lost every presidential, gubernatorial, and Senate election. In fact, only State Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried (who is likely going to run for governor next year) has won statewide in that time span. This has made some people consider Florida a red state, which it may well be, but to me it feels more like Michigan-a state that has the power to go both directions, but you need a particularly strong tide. After all, with the exception of Marco Rubio in 2016 & Donald Trump in 2020, every single one of those POTUS/Gov/Senate battles was decided by less than two-points.
Demings & Murphy are doing this, though, because they don't want to have to worry about the calculus of a brutal redistricting plan. Unless Joe Manchin decides "Democracy > Filibuster," in the upcoming weeks, gerrymandering reform is looking more-and-more like a pipe dream, and as a result Florida is certainly going to carve up some of their districts, potentially endangering them through a gerrymander. It's probable that these two are looking at a statewide election and thinking even though it's uphill, it also comes with more reward than trying to scrounge together a seat in the House. After all, if any of these three were to actually win in Florida, they would suddenly find themselves in an enviable national position for 2024 or 2028.
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| Judge Cheri Beasley (D-NC) |
Here's where things get more interesting. With Demings running, the Democrats now have Tier 1 candidates running for all five of the Senate seats that they can plausibly win: Demings in Florida, Cheri Beasley in North Carolina, John Fetterman in Pennsylvania, Tim Ryan in Ohio, & Sarah Godlewski in Wisconsin. With the potential exception of Ryan, none of these candidates are going to have a clearcut path to the nomination (all either have candidates against them in the primary or will in the coming months), but they are all quality candidates who could make these races competitive in the correct national environment. Combined with the four candidates in swingy Biden states (Maggie Hassan, Catherine Cortez Masto, Mark Kelly, & Raphael Warnock) all seeking reelection, and the DSCC is covered for 2022.
This simply isn't the case for the GOP. Republicans have several high-profile options in Ohio & North Carolina, but their slates in Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, & Pennsylvania are bordering on pathetic, and they're still looking for candidates. Ron Johnson & Chuck Grassley haven't declared their intentions to run yet, and nether has New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (perhaps the only Republican who would give the party an even shot at beating Hassan). This might not matter-the Republican slates at this point in 2014 looked poor & they ended up winning that election in a rout, but it's worth noting.
I have said several times, and I'm going to say this again, but the Democrats can't just win the majority in the Senate this cycle. Another 50/50 Senate is a failure not just from a legislating perspective (real talk-there's almost no way the Democrats get a 50/50 Senate again & they don't lose the House), but also from a practical standpoint. The 2024 Senate cycle is brutal for the Democrats, as they have to defend three Trump states (WV/OH/MT), which will be bordering on the impossible, and even if they can keep one of those states, they also have to defend seats in AZ/WI/PA/NV/MI, all states that Joe Biden won by less than 5-points. Yes, the Democrats will have chances in TX/FL & 2026 isn't as bad for them, but there's basically no plan for the Democrats to hold the Senate majority past 2024 if they can't net at least 2, more likely 3-4 seats, next year.
This makes the conversation about Demings race crucial. Since the Democrats didn't beat Susan Collins last year, the Republicans have the advantage right now-even if the Democrats were to win all of the 2020 Biden states in 2022 & 2024 (essentially picking up WI/PA next year), they still would be one seat short because of Collins (unless of course they made DC a state, but that also seems unlikely in Joe Manchin's Senate). If Demings (or Ryan or Beasley) were to pull off an upset by literally any margin & secure a win next year, it would destroy the advantage the GOP has with Collins. Demings might be an underdog, but she's an underdog worth betting upon.
But I want to stress that these are the only underdogs worth betting upon. Already, Democrats are falling for campaigns that they have no chance of winning, promising gold but knowing they'll just have rust at the end of the day. This happened in 2020, with candidates like Amy McGrath & Jaime Harrison taking tens of millions away from grassroots & getting nothing in return, while House Democrats in California, Nebraska, Texas, & Florida all lost in Biden territory, the money in these moonshot races almost certainly sitting there, ready to make the difference.
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| Rep. Young Kim (R-CA) |
Which brings us to the House. The Republicans are heavy favorites to win next year. They have control of redistricting in a number of key states (and the Democrats have so far been unable to write gerrymandering laws that could potentially take away some of this power thanks to Manchin/Sinema, as we talked about here). We also know that Democrats are generally bad at voting in midterms, and that they are especially bad when their party is in the White House. This makes next year's battle for the House all the more difficult, and the party cannot fool itself by wasting money on races it has no shot at winning.
If you want to talk about a plausible way that the Democrats win the House next year, part of that is up to Joe Biden & Joe Manchin, and how much the former can persuade the latter to enact popular reforms the party can run on (it cannot be overstated how much it mattered that the Democrats couldn't beat Rick Scott & Susan Collins in recent years, arguably their best shots at increasing their majorities based on the dynamics of those races...basically eliminating the filibuster if they had pulled those two races off...and they had the votes). But it also matters in the sense that the Democrats winning would almost certainly involve them scraping together a bare minimum coalition (they aren't going to win with a majority much bigger than their current allotment). That will require, say, Democrats getting far more excited about beating someone like Young Kim or Brian Fitzpatrick than they are about beating Rand Paul or Eric Greitens, the latter easier figures for the grassroots to loathe.
Essentially, the Democrats cannot get distracted. They have nine Senate races to focus upon: their four vulnerable seats (NH/NV/AZ/GA) and their five pickup opportunities (PA/WI/NC/FL/OH, in roughly that order). Unless Iowa opens up (and the Republican nominee is someone other than Pat Grassley, which feels unlikely), those are your seats. There are a lot of governor's races to get excited about, but any dime spent on another candidate other than those nine for the Senate (i.e. the likely millions Charles Booker is going to get to take on Rand Paul & then lose by 20-points), is basically throwing a cement brick onto the sinking ship that is the House Democrats' chances. The Democrats need to find ways to create the kind of cash advantage that they had in 2020 in 2022 to win the House again (and get the 3-4 seat pickup they need in the Senate). The coming months will see if Val Demings will play a big part in that battle.
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