This election was always going to be a tough defense game for Senate Democrats, seven of whom are campaigning against heavy political headwinds in pro-Trump or battleground states that the former president won in previous elections.
The seat currently held by Senator Joe Manchin (a longtime Democrat who recently switched to the independent) will almost certainly turn red, causing Republicans to flip at least one seat. But in deep-red Montana and slightly less red Ohio, Trump’s loyalty does not guarantee an easy path to victory for Republicans.
Polls show the race in Ohio is a complete flop, as Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown faces MAGA-affiliated businessman Bernie Moreno. And in Montana, GOP challenger Tim Sheehy has a slight lead over Democrat Sen. Jon Tester, but only by an average of 5 points according to 538 — a far cry from the state’s average 18-point thinness for Trump (also according to 538).
That’s thanks in large part to the profiles Tester and Brown have carved in their states. Images of Tester atop a tractor on his farm are not just a six-year gimmick for re-election in a rural state. And so is Brown’s pro-union commitment to the “dignity of work,” epitomized by his ever-present canary pin, donated by a steelworker.
To further assert their independence, Tester and Brown have tried to distance themselves from national Democratic figures, including President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, while remaining mostly silent about Donald Trump.
Brown noted in a recent interview with me, “I don’t really care what the presidential candidates are talking about.”
Like these chairs can are held, it is the voters who split the tickets they are likely to get there – the question is how many of them there are.
“There will be plenty,” Brown said after an event in the Mahoning Valley, an area Democrats controlled until Trump turned red. Brown has been successful in winning some of these key counties in the past.
“I say this, and it’s not a cliché, that people don’t see politics — I don’t see politics — as left to right,” he said.
When I spoke to Ohio voters in Lorain County, outside Cleveland, at least one voter, Julianna, told me she saw it the same way Brown did. She will vote Trump for president and Brown for Senate.
In Butte, Montana, our NBC News team met 27-year-old Tim Combo on the second floor of the Western States Carpenters Union hall. “I came here to vote for Jon Tester,” he said. “And I’m also going to vote for Donald Trump.”
In five other key Senate contests — Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — Democrats have generally succeeded in fooling Republicans. The Cook Political Report currently classifies Arizona and Nevada as Democratic.
And in Texas, a rare potential opportunity for Democrats, Rep. Colin Allred is making a real run against Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, though his Lone Star Senate campaign is still a long shot.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee doesn’t seem too concerned, with a top official confidently telling NBC News that “Ohio will be the 51st” seat, giving Republicans the majority. Yet Brown, for one, exudes the kind of optimism that only comes from having previously outperformed political dynamics.
“I’m going to win,” Brown said. “Because of people like this who stood up for the public, and stood up for workers, and stood up for consumers, and stood up for a cleaner Lake Erie, and stood up for all the things that people just want to have a chance at in life.”
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
