GOP Senate majority at risk after monster fundraising quarter by Democrats

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Washington Examiner

The Republican Senate majority is in jeopardy of being washed away by a torrent of resources amassed by Democratic challengers in the third quarter, with GOP incumbents bracing to be vastly outspent in the final month of the campaign.

 

Democratic candidates are raising hundreds of millions of dollars. Even previously overlooked challengers saw their coffers swell with contributions from energized grassroots liberals in July, August, and September, turning sleepy Senate races into a potential nightmare for sitting Republicans and the party’s precarious three-seat majority.

It's no longer just Arizona, Colorado, and Maine, blue-trending battlegrounds where Republicans were prepared for a dogfight from the beginning of the 2020 cycle — or purple states such as Iowa and North Carolina. They are now looking over their shoulder in typically ruby-red territory such as Alaska, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, Montana, and South Carolina.

“The numbers are astounding,” GOP operative Doug Heye said. “Republicans are right to be concerned.”

Jesse Hunt, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, dismissed the Democrats' third-quarter haul as tainted by "dark money" from super PACs and "special interests." He said it is "undermining some of their candidates' credibility."

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Alaska Senate race could be majority-maker for Democrats

Alaska is an unlikely chink in Senate Republicans' armor as they fight to hold on to their majority in the chamber.

Senate Republicans are defending 23 seats on Nov. 3, and Democrats only need to gain three to four seats to clinch control, depending on whether President Trump or Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden wins at the top of the ticket.

The Alaska Senate race between first-term Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan and independent political novice Al Gross wasn't originally considered a GOP vulnerability.

The Sullivan-Gross contest is rated as likely Republican by the Cook Political Report and RealClearPolitics after Trump dominated in Alaska four years ago by almost 15 percentage points and 51% of the vote. But recent polls suggest Gross, an orthopedic surgeon and commercial fisherman whose father was the state's attorney general, is surging, with less than 30 days to go before Election Day.

Alaska is a notoriously difficult state to poll, given its small population and lack of telecommunications infrastructure.