Only one long week left in the election struggle for control — of the Senate

[Geee]

Mcclatchy

 

While national attention is riveted by the presidential horse race, a more important contest — or series of contests — is unfolding for control of the Senate.

No matter who occupies the Oval Office, the political majority that runs the Senate will play the decisive political role for at least the next two years, perhaps longer. In what is shaping up as a difficult year for Republicans, the House of Representatives seems virtually certain to remain under the gavel of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Republicans would need to gain 18 seats there to hand the gavel to another Californian, Kevin McCarthy.

But an array of intriguing scenarios all depend on a handful of crucial Senate seats.

 

Former and sitting vice presidents have pathetic political records of becoming modern presidents. Ask Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale or Al Gore. An exception was George H.W. Bush, who was essentially a third Reagan term.

If Joe Biden defies the pattern of history and the illogic of his intentionally invisible campaign somehow allows antipathy toward President Donald Trump to prevail, a Senate run by Democrats would create a one-party federal government and grease the way for a tsunami of promised liberal dreams, policies and judges, including new taxes, slashes to the military, green energy mandates and quite possibly two new Democratic-leaning states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.