Looking Ahead to 2022 (Senate Map)

We already knew how Trump's second impeachment trial would end up. Mad? Use that energy to expand Democrats' control of the Senate in 2022

Publisher’s Riff

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The outcome of the second Senate impeachment conviction trial of Trump was by no means surprising and by all means predictable. Everyone knew that Republicans were going to be, well, Republican and be more concerned about how to carry out their plans for racist insurgency than about preserving the Constitution or true “rule of law.” Even impeachment managers knew this while arguing for conviction, yet soldiered ahead with as much of a full trial as possible. That wasn’t an exercise in futility - it was an exercise of Constitutional necessity and, simply, the right thing to do.

Democrats these days can be blamed for some things, but they definitely can’t be blamed for trying to destroy the government and engineering the lack of Senate votes to convict Trump. It’s like Congresswoman and impeachment manager Stacey Plaskett (D-USVI) correctly stated on a round of post-trial talk shows recently: We didn’t need more witnesses to convict Trump (especially with the crimes as obvious and, literally, the entire country witnessing it). We needed more Senators with spine.

People need to hear that more. But, they also need to hear that we needed Senators who actually follow the Constitution. Democrats must figure out the best way to translate frustration over what was already a predictable impeachment trial outcome into the energy that removes as many insurgent Republicans from office in 2022. That should be the next immediate step: identify who voted to acquit Trump and, in doing so, violated the Constitution - and then figure out a way to destroy them at the polls in 2022. Fortunately there are some openings, including states that already have significant clusters of potential Democratic voters in them. What’s difficult - particularly for election cycles in between presidential ones - is to get most people to understand what’s going on and why the Senate’s partisan composition should be important to them.

Senate Map 2022

How do you get closer to a Senate that truly respects the Constitution and is about the business of protecting the people it represents? First we look at the map. This is what the current Senate map looks like now, with the chamber evenly split ….

Here’s a projection of what it looks like in 2022 with upcoming Congressional mid-term races. Republicans have six more seats (20) to defend than the number of seats Democrats (14) must defend …

Here’s the current list of who’s running for re-election and who’s retiring to leave an open seat in 2022 …

With all four retirements in the Senate right now coming from Republicans, there are already four opportunities for Democrats to field strong candidates and retake seats: Alabama, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Black voters are plenty and key in all of those states, state and national Democratic strategists just need to listen to them, especially the urban centers and suburban rings in places like NC, OH, and PA. Those doubting Alabama are forgetting the way Black voters flexed in 2017; the difference, of course, is that there is no immediate threat of a Trump or a Roy Moore to spur people into action. Obviously, there is a need for follow up. Wherever there are significant pockets of Black and Brown voters, there should always be potentials for pick-up: Democrat Andy Beshear was able to activate deeply hidden pockets of Black voters in Kentucky to win that Governor’s race in 2019, so why can’t another Democrat run effectively against Republican Rand Paul there in 2022? Florida, where Marco Rubio is scheduled for re-election in 2022, is abundantly diverse enough - despite its stubborn Southern conservatism it won’t admit to - to find the right Democrat to oust him, as well. And, if Black voters could deliver Wisconsin against Trump in 2020, could they do the same against Ron Johnson in 2022?

Here are the Republicans who voted to acquit. Are we looking hard enough to identify Republicans on this list who voted for acquittal and who is up for reelection? Out of those who are up re-election, who’s the most (potentially) vulnerable?

The key is in the messaging. How do you remind voters in 2022 that these are the same fascist, insurgent Republicans of 2020? How do you sharply crystallize a national message that this is not a political party; it is, actually, a domestic terror organization? How do you vividly illustrate that the current Republican Party, and all of these incumbent Republican Senators as well as any new candidates they’ve groomed, have absolutely no agenda? Democrats will need to establish the sharp contrast now: “we are the party of building and protecting things for you while Republicans are the party of taking things away from you like your Constitution, your government and your voting rights.” It’s time to hammer away at that and expand that Senate map in 2022.

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