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For Democrats, the past two weeks have been one long celebration. The party officially clinched its 55th Senate seat on Wednesday night and remains on track to win a 56th as election officials continue to count ballots in Alaska. Senators and strategists are already salivating over the prospect of winning 60 seats or more come 2028, a majority that would be big enough to override Republican filibusters.
But could they actually have gotten one sooner? But for a little more party coordination, slightly better candidates, and a smidge more money, there’s a strong case that Democrats could be basking in a 60-seat majority right now. Let’s take a look at four Senate races where the party came tantalizingly close last week—and at how things could have turned out differently.
Video from Slate
A Failure to Coordinate in Montana
At first glance, Big Sky Country doesn’t look like much of a missed opportunity for Democrats. After all, Republican Kurt Alme ran more than 10 points ahead of Seth Bodnar, his closest challenger. But Bodnar was running as an independent, and the Democrat who won the primary, Alani Bankhead, rebuffed repeated calls to drop out to avoid splitting the vote. Alme ended up winning with just 48 percent of ballots cast, so it’s quite possible that Bodnar would have beaten him had Bankhead shelved her ego.
She isn’t the only person at fault, though. Bodnar, a former Democrat, could have chosen to run under the party standard. If he had instead beaten Bankhead in the Democratic primary, it’s possible he’d have gone on to defeat Alme with a D next to his name. There are no sure things with any of these races, but the divided vote certainly didn’t help.
A Recruiting Flop in Louisiana
Democrats put up an impressive showing across the South, padding their majority by winning seats in Texas, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Mississippi. They nearly pulled off the same thing in nearby Louisiana, where Jamie Davis, a Democratic third-generation farmer, lost to Republican Rep. Julia Letlow by less than 2 points. Neither party expected Louisiana to be competitive, and the fact that Davis made it a race despite getting zilch from Senate Democratic leadership suggests that even a relatively small cash infusion could’ve put him over the top.
But it’s also possible that the seeds of Democrats’ defeat were planted last year after Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, tried and failed to convince John Bel Edwards, a former Louisiana governor, to run. Edwards, a conservative Democrat who supports gun rights and opposes abortion, has repeatedly defied the odds in this deep-red state, winning reelection in 2019 despite Donald Trump’s efforts to boost his opponent. Had Edwards heeded Schumer, he might now be headed to Washington.
A Money Shortfall in Florida
No other state has disappointed Democrats so consistently in the Trump era—which made it all the more surprising when a Democrat nearly flipped one of its Senate seats last week. Angie Nixon, a state lawmaker who won the Democratic primary in an upset and then ran an energetic general-election campaign, ended up falling to Sen. Ashley Moody by less than 3 points. Nixon’s performance is even more impressive when you consider that she’s a democratic socialist who ran on an unapologetically progressive platform and that national Democratic leaders spent little to help her.
That fact has invited charges that Schumer and his colleagues were scared away by Nixon’s progressivism—or even by the fact that she’s Black. But there are a few caveats worth considering. For one thing, the Democratic nominee for governor this year was so white and moderate that he was actually a former Republican—yet he still lost, despite coming closer than Nixon did. Florida is also an incredibly expensive patchwork of media markets, and diverting resources to fund ads on Nixon’s behalf could well have come at the expense of other, more winnable races.
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A Strategic Fail in Nebraska
The Cornhusker State is another place where Democrats cleared the decks for an independent candidate who ended up falling flat. Dan Osborn, a former union leader and Navy veteran, first ran for Senate in 2024, losing to the GOP incumbent by nearly 7 points. Last week, despite running in a far bluer political environment, Osborn did just half a point better.
It’s certainly possible that only a candidate with an R next to their name can win a state Trump swept by 20 points. But the states that appear to have most stubbornly resisted last week’s blue wave—Montana, Nebraska, and South Dakota—also happen to be places where many Democrats threw their weight behind independent candidates who they believed had a better shot of winning in deep-red territory. It might be time for the party to rethink that particular strategy.
The Lesson
What to make of these near misses? Some Democrats might be tempted to read them as an indictment of Schumer and other Senate leaders’ decisions—especially if they’re angling to replace them. Yet that might be a bit harsh. Even the most optimistic political observers didn’t foresee the magnitude of the electorate’s shift, and investing heavily in long-shot states early would have invited criticisms that Democrats were abandoning more traditional battlegrounds. The truth is that election cycles are often littered with missed opportunities. Shoulda woulda couldas aside, money, attention, and quality candidates are finite—and even seemingly small decisions can end up having a big political impact.
I know it’s been a politics-heavy couple of weeks, so let’s pivot to my colleagues’ suggestions about what to read to take your mind off the midterms:
A wonder drug that wasn’t: In 1977 a “miracle cure” for cancer began to take hold in America. Though it had been dismissed by doctors as ineffective and potentially dangerous, laetrile was everywhere, and so was the controversy over it. The story of one little boy who was diagnosed with cancer shows the far-reaching consequences of a craze that has clear echoes today. Evan Chung recounts the family’s story and talks to the mother at the center of it all about how her decisions haunt her now.
Some juicy details from the Watergate era: Bob Woodward’s new tell-all book, Secrets: A Reporter’s Memoir, is full of revelations both professional and personal. Most tantalizingly, Woodward names many of the sources whose stories helped bring down Richard Nixon’s presidency. Fred Kaplan calls it “catnip for newshounds and gossipmongers!”
A mental health reminder: It’s become a common refrain that men would rather do almost anything than go to therapy. Unfortunately, there’s a kernel of truth to this meme. Ted Scheinman shares why men so often keep their struggles bottled up—and how cathartic it can be to tell your friends that you’re struggling with depression.
The music video that changed MTV: For years, Black musicians had a fraught relationship with MTV, with its lily-white lineup of artists and allegiance to white listeners. Michael Jackson made inroads with “Billie Jean,” but it took Whitney Houston for there to be a real breakthrough on the channel. Brandon Tensley breaks down how Houston’s music videos ushered in a new era for pop music.
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OK, that’s it from me. Enjoy your day!
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