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Teresa Tomlinson is a former mayor of an average city with no national profile. Still, she hopes to be the best rookie of the National Democrats to run for the Senate of Georgia next year – if one of the party's rising stars, Stacey Abrams, misses out.
"I feel comfortable to be their plan B," said Tomlinson, 54, first female Mayor of Columbus, a minority-majority community and one of Georgia's largest cities .
Nineteen months after polling day, a political eternity in which much can change, the Democrats look at Plan B at Senate races across the country. Even in a campaign cycle that looks much brighter than last year, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., and Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., Who heads the campaign party arm in the Senate, had trouble recruiting candidates. which are tested throughout the state.
Yet the loss of known contenders only complicates the main problem of Democrats as they begin a fierce struggle to win a majority in the Senate next year: there are very few Senate seats held by Republicans that Democrats have an obvious chance of winning.
In favor of the Democrats, the Republicans will defend 22 of the 34 contested Senate seats, with only one Democrat in power clearly under threat: Senator Doug Jones of Alabama is deep red. Democrats say their constituents will be supercharged by polarizing President Donald Trump, who will seek his second term, and focus on issues such as health care, wages and jobs.
"The trend is in our favor and I think we have the opportunity to recover the majority in the Senate," Cortez Masto said.
The battlefield of the Senate is much better than last year, when Democrats had to defend 26 seats out of 35 nightmare. That included 10 states in the states that Trump had worn in 2016, five in landslides and the Democrats were lucky to lose just two net seats.
Nevertheless, the 2020 map seems difficult for the Democrats.
Trump has won 20 of the 22 states where the GOP seats are at stake next year and narrowly lost the other two. Cory Gardner, a Democratic-minded senator, appears to be the most threatened Republican Party president, and Maine, where Democrats will try to undermine Senator Susan Collins' independence reputation as she seeks to get a fifth term.
Since Republicans control the Senate 53-47, Democrats must get three seats if they defeat Trump in November and four if Trump wins, thanks to the deciding vote of the vice president in the House. If Jones loses in Alabama, which party strategists believe is likely, these numbers will rise to four Democratic relays if Trump loses and five others go out, which means Democrats will have practically need to organize winning senatorial contests to win the majority.
"I think we're getting closer," said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. "Everything must break our way to overcome it."
Republicans beg to differ.
They say the GOP should hold the Senate because the Democratic presidential candidate group will spend months arguing loudly for the liberal base of their party. That means a lot of talk about the Green New Deal plan to aggressively fight climate change and the "Medicare for All" proposals to expand the federal government's role in health care – ideas that go too far far for some moderate voters.
"The Green New Deal is a solution we can not wait," said Jesse Hunt, spokesperson for the Senate GOP Campaign Committee.
Arizona seems to be heading for a competitive contest. Republican Senator Martha McSally, appointed to a vacant seat shortly after losing an election in 2018 of Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, could face former astronaut Mark Kelly. The gun control advocate and husband of the former Democratic Republic Gabrielle Giffords, who was injured during a shootout in 2011 in Tucson, is expected to lead a centrist campaign.
A tight race could also be seen in North Carolina. In one of the most important votes in this year's Senate, Senator GOP, Thom Tillis, first stated that he would oppose the emergency declaration of Trump at the southwestern border, before voting for. This turnaround was likely to alienate right-wing trump and moderate supporters, leaving Tillis exposed to both a potential GOP key challenge and the general election.
Democrats may have more of a chance against Tillis if Attorney General Josh Stein, who wants to be re-elected, succumbs to Schumer's call to run for the Senate. Montana governor Steve Bullock and former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper, who are running for president, have also rejected applications for Senate candidacy.
Former Texas representative, Beto O 'Rourke, who is seeking the White House, has also rejected Democratic leaders. This opened the door to potential contenders like MJ Hegar to challenge Texas GOP Senator John Cornyn.
"That's about all I think about lately," said 43-year-old Hegar, a veteran of the Air Force who narrowly missed the ousting of a retiring incumbent. GOP last year in a safe district of Republican House, near Austin. She could end up in a Democratic primary against Rep. Joaquin Castro, whose twin brother, former Federal Housing Secretary Julian Castro, is running for president.
A handful of other GOP Senators could face competitive races, including Georgian Senator David Perdue, especially when he is challenged by Abrams, who has narrowly lost a race to the post of governor last year, but was followed by a national. Steve Montana Daines and Joni Ernst of Iowa are other possibilities. The Democrats would like to oust Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, but it's a failure.
Powerful GOP challengers could also force practicing Democrats into tough races.
Senator Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., Would face a real fight if Governor Chris Sununu challenged her. Trump lost New Hampshire by a knife in 2016. Democratic Senator Gary Peters runs again in Michigan, which Trump narrowly wore.
Democrats say Trump will help them in hotly contested states, as his almost exclusive calls to key supporters prevent GOP candidates from winning Conservatives and party moderates.
"Trump creates a difficult scenario for Republicans running in blue-and-purple states," said Democratic pollster Geoff Garin.
Republicans say the battlefield states could change direction depending on whether the Democratic presidential candidate is a moderate like former Vice President Joe Biden or a radical liberal like Vermont Independent Senator Bernie Sanders.
"There could be states entering or leaving the board, depending on the Democrats' candidacy for the presidency," said Robert Blizzard, a GOP pollster.
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