Republicans Could Lose 21 Senate Seats - What If We Acted Like Democrats Could Win Them?
In A Big Wave, Democrats Could Win Enough Seats To Make Real Shift Happen
It’s Time To Imagine Greatly
You’d barely know it to listen to the media or the pundit class that Republicans hold 21 US Senate Seats that are up for re-election in 2022.
TWENTY-ONE.
That’s 21 opportunities for Democrats to win a filibuster-proof majority; assuming they also hold on to the 14 Senate seats Democrats currently hold.
Imagine what Democrats could do if they won 12 more seats?
We’re barely even talking about this!
With 12 more seats, Democrats could overturn the filibuster that requires 60 votes for most Senate action - and they’d be off and running. Twelve more seats!
Voter protection! Election security! Climate change mitigation! Energy transformation! Infrastructure! Community investment! Health care! Science!
It could be a veritable bonanza… but we don’t much allow ourselves to dream.
Shouldn’t we, though? Seriously?
We hardly allow ourselves to speculate on what we could do if Democrats won even two more seats - enough to get a truer simple majority to pass things like voter protection. Senators Manchin and Sinema are not willing to make filibuster exceptions for voter protection - but also for a whole array of other things. Because the Senate filibuster requires 10 more votes than a simple majority, the minority party has incredible power to deadlock the Senate.
But what could Democrats do if they had enough votes to overturn the filibuster entirely?
We should be imagining that. We should be talking about it.
One of the reasons why people have lost confidence in the ability of government to do its job is because we’ve seen deadlock in DC for so long. Part of that deadlock is because of the power of minority rule in the US Senate, and through the Electoral College. If Democrats could win a large enough Senate majority (12 more seats than now), they could at least get rid of the power the filibuster has in the Senate to cement the power of the minority party. It would help the democracy function better as a democracy.
Why aren’t we going for it?
Pundits and political analysts tell us all how impossible all of that is, what the outdated polls say that aren’t measuring the moment, and what history tells us about who’s likely to win. The “experts” tell us that there’s not enough momentum for such a landslide.
But maybe we could build such momentum?
Call me an idealist, but it’s worth considering. Sometimes you need more than a little idealism.
What historical precedent matches this moment that’s useful for these predictions of futility, anyway? Hint: there is no such historical precedent.
There isn’t a moment where the US Supreme Court has removed rights that have been in place for 5 decades for over half of Americans, where the court could remove marital equality rights, and where that same court is threatening to take the popular vote away and move it to state legislatures. There isn’t a moment in our history where military-style assault weapons are so stunningly prolific, where access to them has been so eased, and where background checks or permits have been so thoroughly removed.
There isn’t a comparable moment where a sitting (now-former) US president fomented a culture war against public health because he didn’t want to wear a face mask that would smear his make-up, and thus hundreds of thousands of his own followers willingly became sick or died because they chose to follow him in opposing public health measures.
There isn’t a moment where a former president stole hundreds of super highly classified documents and the US government took 18 months trying to get them back despite the enormous national security risk that whole time. There isn’t a moment where one political party’s reaction to such a flagrant national security vulnerability is to dismiss the risk, to make-up false equivalencies, and to threaten even more violence if appropriate legal action and further damage mitigation occurs.
There isn’t a comparable moment where one major established political party has actively campaigned against history, science, education, law enforcement, public schools, the entire government, diversity, equity, inclusion, the principles of democracy, the separation of church and state, investment in anything except the already-wealthy, and basically anyone who is not a pale Christian man.
Why would we not go all out to fight for this country… against such meanness, intolerance, absurdity, anti-competitive behaviour, and anti-democratic action?
We’ve got two months until the 2022 election.
Who’s to say a movement couldn’t take off that leads to a sea change?
What if we built one?
Yeah, it’s a longshot.
Lots of things are a longshot. Getting to the moon was a longshot. But some folks decided to do it, and went after it. Not that this is the same.
But the point is: you have to decide that something is worth going after.
And you have to choose to go after it.
Let’s Go After It
We’re game if you are.
Shift the Country is a brand-new nonprofit, but we’ll dive in as deep as Americans are willing to go. We can totally go all out. We’ve got 5 basic tools for a movement, if we can build it. Like a democracy - if we can keep it.
We’re putting volunteer teams together now, and putting on active workshop webinars where we can figure out together how to make shift happen. We’re setting up those online events this week for September; they’ll be announced here too. We’re doing real-world events locally, with ideas for you to do that, too. We can spread this shift when you share this Substack newsletter with at least 3 people you know - or organizations. We need to get shift going, and we need to do it fast. And please send money! Movements work way better with cash.
While you think about it, below are the US Senate races for 2022.
We can totally dream big.
More than that, though - we can do big things.
We do it together, we do it in alliances and in big groups, and we do it with big vision for what we want for ourselves, our people, and our future. We can be so much more than what we are now. If we can get a Senate supermajority - we can really go all out.
Keep the faith. We’ve got good people, and we’ve got a good (and still intact) democracy.
We can do more than keep it - we can make it work so much better for all of us.
The 21 Open US Senate Seats Currently Held By Republicans
This is the opportunity!
This list of open US Senate races in 2022 was assembled with information posted on Ballotpedia:
ALABAMA. R Incumbent retiring – Richard Shelby. R Candidate – Katie Britt. D Candidate – Will Boyd.
ALASKA. R Incumbent – Lisa Murkowski. D Candidate – PENDING.
ARKANSAS. R Incumbent – John Boozman. D Candidate – Natalie James.
FLORIDA*. R Incumbent – Marco Rubio. D Candidate – Representative Val Demings.
IDAHO. R Incumbent – Mike Crapo. D Candidate – David Roth.
INDIANA. R Incumbent – Todd C. Young. D Candidate – Thomas McDermott Jr.
IOWA. R Incumbent – Chuck Grassley. D Candidate – Admiral Michael Franken.
KANSAS. R Incumbent – Jerry Moran. D Candidate – Mark R. Holland.
KENTUCKY. R Incumbent – Rand Paul. D Candidate – Charles Booker.
LOUISIANA. R Incumbent – John Neely Kennedy (Running for Re-Election). R Candidate – PENDING. D Candidate – PENDING. (Majority-vote system; all candidates regardless of partisan affiliation are listed on the same first-round ballot.)
MISSOURI. R Incumbent (Retiring) – Roy Blunt. R Candidate – Eric Schmitt. D Candidate – Trudy Busch Valentine.
NORTH CAROLINA*. R Incumbent (Retiring) – Richard Burr. R Candidate – Ted Budd. D Candidate – Cheri Beasley.
NORTH DAKOTA. R Incumbent – John Hoeven. D Candidate – Katrina Christiansen.
OHIO. R Incumbent (Retiring) – Rob Portman. R Candidate – J.D. Vance. D Candidate – Representative Tim Ryan.
OKLAHOMA. R Incumbent – James Lankford. D Candidate – Madison Horn.
OKLAHOMA – SPECIAL. R Incumbent (Retiring) – James Inhofe. R Candidate – Markwayne Mullin. D Candidate – Kendra Horn. (Special election 11/8/2022 to fill final 4 years of Inhofe's 6-year term began 2021).
PENNSYLVANIA*. R Incumbent (Retiring) – Pat Toomey. R Candidate – Mehmet Oz. D Candidate – Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman.
SOUTH CAROLINA. R Incumbent – Tim Scott. D Candidate – Krystle Matthews.
SOUTH DAKOTA. R Incumbent – John Thune. D Candidate – Brian Bengs.
UTAH. R Incumbent – Mike Lee. No Democrat running. Independent Candidate – Evan McMullin.
WISCONSIN*. R Incumbent – Ron Johnson. D Candidate – Mandela Barnes.
* = 8 states defined as "battlegrounds" by Ballotpedia: AZ, FL, GA, NV, NH, NC, PA, WI.
The 14 Open Senate Seats Currently Held By Democrats
And Democrats need to hold these!
This list of open US Senate seats in 2022 was assembled with information posted on Ballotpedia:
ARIZONA*. D Incumbent – Mark Kelly. R Candidate – Blake Masters.
CALIFORNIA. D Incumbent – Alex Padilla (Special Election). R Candidate – Mark Meuser.
COLORADO. D Incumbent – Michael Bennet. R Candidate – Joe O'Dea.
CONNECTICUT. D Incumbent – Richard Blumenthal. R Candidate – Leora Levy.
GEORGIA*. D Incumbent – Raphael Warnock. R Candidate – Herschel Walker.
HAWAII. D Incumbent – Brian Schatz. R Candidate – Bob McDermott.
ILLINOIS. D Incumbent – Tammy Duckworth. R Candidate – Kathy Salvi.
MARYLAND. D Incumbent – Chris Van Hollen. R Candidate – Chris Chaffee.
NEVADA*. D Incumbent – Catherine Cortez Masto. R Candidate – Adam Laxalt.
NEW HAMPSHIRE*. D Incumbent – Maggie Hassan. D Candidate – PENDING. R Candidate – PENDING.
NEW YORK. D Incumbent – Chuck Schumer (Senate Majority Leader). R Candidate – Joe Pinion.
OREGON. D Incumbent – Ron Wyden. R Candidate – Jo Rae Perkins.
VERMONT. D Incumbent (Retiring) – Patrick Leahy. D Candidate – Peter Welch. R Candidate – Gerald Malloy.
WASHINGTON. D Incumbent – Patty Murray. R Candidate – Tiffany Smiley.
* = 8 states defined as "battlegrounds" by Ballotpedia: AZ, FL, GA, NV, NH, NC, PA, WI.
Let’s do this shift.
What happened to American's ability to dream big? We did it when the colonists decided they'd had enough. We did it when Americans elected Abraham Lincoln. We did it when we joined with our allies to win World War I and World War II and went on to build the largest middle class the world had ever known. We did it when we sent men to the moon. We did it when we elected Democrats who supported the rights of women, the LGBTQ community, immigrants, Black people and other people of color. We've DONE it! We can do it again--particularly now that we have our backs against the wall with a corrupt Republican party and a reactionary Supreme Court. We MUST do it again if we want to save our democracy. So let's start here. Let's start now. Let's figure out how to win back and the Senate, hold the House and make progress!