With four days to go before election day, prospects of a Republican "trifecta" — GOP control of the House, Senate, and White House — are hanging by a thread. Control of the Senate seems fairly certain with the Democrats forced to defend numerous vulnerable seats, many in red states, and only able to lose one or two seats depending on who wins the White House. But Republican control of the House is an entirely different matter.
The GOP has a slim four-seat majority in the House with several vulnerable Republican House members at risk. Most notably, Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon, who has never won his district by more than 3%, is up against a well-financed challenger in Tony Vargas. The Cook Political Report just moved Bacon's race from "tossup" to "lean Democratic."
Bacon, a retired Air Force brigadier general, has been in close races before. This one is likely to be decided by less than 1,000 votes.
Another vulnerable Republican is New York Rep. Anthony D'Esposito, a former New York City police officer who defeated liberal lawmaker Rep. Kathleen Rice in 2022. His win was a huge surprise and was attributed to the stronger-than-expected showing of Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin and Rice's soft-on-crime stance.
He's running against Laura Gillen, a supervisor in the Long Island town of Hempstead whom he defeated in 2022. The district is getting less Democratic as crime has become a huge issue.
There are 12 other Republican House members considered vulnerable, according to the Cook Political Report. The final House ratings shifted six seats to the Democrats and two to the Republicans.
In addition to the Bacon and D'Esposito races, Cook shifted four other races toward the Democrats.
Rep. Andrea Salinas’s (D-Ore.) reelection bid in Oregon’s 6th Congressional District was shifted from “lean Democrat” to “likely Democrat” due to, in part, the incumbent’s ad-spending advantage, Harris’s double-digit lead in the district and the challenger, Republican Mike Erickson, not getting much assistance from national GOP groups.
Rep. Angie Craig’s (D-Minn.) race in the North Star State was also updated from “lean Democrat” to “likely Democrat” after posting strong fundraising hauls and being projected to perform better in the polls than Harris in Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District.
Republican Tom Barrett, a former state senator, is ahead in the polls in Michigan's 7th District despite his opponent outspending him. Cook has shifted that race from "tossup" to "lean Republican."
The Senate is a much different story. With West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin retiring, the state that Donald Trump won by 40 points in 2020 will likely elect Republican Jim Justice, the current governor. And in Montana, it appears that deep red state will finally be rid of the conservative Democrat Sen. Jon Tester. Rep. Tim Sheehey is up by eight points in the latest poll.
Tester has a knack for pulling a rabbit out of a hat at the last moment and squeaking by on election day. That doesn't seem likely this time.
For the Democrats to maintain control of the Senate, they're going to have to break through somewhere else. National Democrats have their eye on Texas and Sen. Ted Cruz who's ahead of Colin Allred by about four points or Nebraska where an independent candidate, Dan Osborn, is trailing GOP incumbent Deb Fischer by three points. Other polls give Fischer a larger advantage.
In any case, Cruz appears to be in good shape in Texas where no Democrat has won a statewide race this century. Fischer is also running in a strong red state, and she should pull out a close victory. If that's the case, a GOP trifecta is within reach.
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified Gov. Jim Justice (R-W.Va.) as Jim Judge. We apologize to our readers for this error.
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