Tired of talking about Clinton and Trump?
Looking beyond the Presidential race, which has been captivating all of the attention of late, there are 34 Senate races pending. The GOP currently holds the Senate, and that might change.
Since there’s really nothing of interest for conservatives to root for in the Presidential race, perhaps there’s something we can get interested in on the Senate side of things.
The Democrats are defending 10 Senatorial slots, and only three are any risk at all – Colorado, Nevada, and California. The Republicans are defending 24 slots, only 10 of which are really safe. There is a LOT of room for Democrats to make gains, and a lot of room for Republicans to lose.
It’s pretty likely that a big Republican loss would be bad for conservatism, so defending these GOP Senators seems to be a fairly important step in protecting the conservative movement.
The map is coded with the darkest red states being the ones we really should focus on as first priority.
Are there any Mike Lee style candidates running? Who could win? Are there any good conservatives at risk that we should be working to protect?
I’m just beginning to look at this, I’ve put together the list of races, and noted the incumbents. I’ve glanced at a few sources and divided the races up based on whether conservatives should bother with them or not.
Any additional info that you might have would be appreciated.
Let’s try to find something GOOD to pay attention to, and stop just complaining about how bad the POTUS candidates are, we can’t do anything about that. Let’s look into things we CAN effect.
All 34 Class 3 Senators are up for election in 2016, class 3 currently consists of 10 Democrats and 24 Republicans
- Where to Go for solid reference information
- Wikipedia – United States Senate elections, 2016
- 270 to Win – 2016 Senate Election Interactive Map
- Sabato’s Crystal Ball – 2016 Senate
- Electoral-Vote.com – 2016 Senate Races
- Cook Political Report – Senate: Race Ratings
- High Risk to lose, High Chance to pickup – PRIORITY FOCUS
- Arizona – John McCain – R
- Florida – Marco Rubio – R, retiring
- Illinois – Mark Kirk – R
- Missouri – Roy Blunt – R
- Nevada – Harry Reid – D, retiring
- New Hampshire – Kelly Ayotte – R
- North Carolina – Richard Burr – R
- Ohio – Rob Portman – R
- Pennsylvania – Pat Toomey – R
- Wisconsin – Ron Johnson – R
- Some risk to lose, some chance to pickup – SECONDARY FOCUS
- Alaska – Lisa Murkowski – R
- California – Barbara Boxer – D, retiring
- Colorado – Michael Bennet – D
- Georgia – Johnny Isakson – R
- Iowa – Chuck Grassley – R
- Indiana – Dan Coats – R, retiring
- Louisiana – David Vitter – R, retiring
- Safe Hold for Republican – no need to worry
- Alabama – Richard Shelby – R
- Arkansas – John Boozman – R
- Idaho – Mike Crapo – R
- Kansas – Jerry Moran – R
- Kentucky – Rand Paul – R
- North Dakota – John Hoeven – R
- Oklahoma – James Lankford – R
- South Carolina – Tim Scott – R
- South Dakota – John Thune – R
- Utah – Mike Lee – R
- Safe Hold for Democrats – no point bothering with it
- Connecticut – Richard Blumenthal – D
- Hawaii – Brian Schatz – D
- Maryland – Barbara Mikulski – D, retiring
- New York – Chuck Schumer – D
- Oregon – Ron Wyden – D
- Vermont – Patrick Leahy – D
- Washington – Patty Murray – D