Republicans left their national convention in Milwaukee last week expressing fresh optimism that they could make significant gains in the Senate in November, but President Joe Biden’s decision to end his re-election effort has injected new uncertainty into swing-state races.
Democrats currently hold a 51-49 majority in the Senate, which includes four Independents who caucus as Democrats. But there are 34 seats up for election this year, only 10 of which are held by Republicans, leaving Democrats with the largest number to defend.
Republicans are heavily favored to flip the West Virginia seat now held by independent Joe Manchin, while four seats currently held by Democrats are rated as toss-ups by the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter and other analysts: those held by Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Jon Tester of Montana and Jacky Rosen of Nevada, and the Michigan seat being vacated by the retiring Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow.
Three other seats are rated as “lean Democratic” by Cook: those held by incumbents Bob Casey in Pennsylvania, Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin and retiring independent Kyrsten Sinema in Arizona. The only Republicans considered even remotely vulnerable are Ted Cruz of Texas and Rick Scott of Florida.
Even picking up a few seats would help the GOP agenda in the Senate, because they wouldn’t have to rely on Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine.
Jessica Taylor, a Senate race analyst for the Cook report, said it’s too early to tell how the races will be affected by Biden’s decision to step aside for Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Democratic incumbents were already running far ahead of President Biden. Presumably, they could do the same with Vice President Harris, and I think she has the potential to fix a problem that Biden had, which is [a lack of] Democratic base enthusiasm,” Taylor said.
The big question is how well Harris can shore up Democratic support and appeal to swing voters, Taylor noted.
“One thing that we've seen that's consistent is that voters didn't like either candidate, Biden or Trump. So this is someone new,” she added.
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In Wisconsin, the latest polls have had Baldwin polling 5 to 12 points ahead of her Republican challenger, investor Eric Hovde. The latest two polls have her up by 8 points. Meanwhile, the FiveThirtyEight average of presidential polls as of Sunday had Trump up 44.5% to 42.2% over Biden.
Similarly in Pennsylvania, Trump was leading in the polls by 4.4 points, while the latest Senate polls have Casey up by as much as 11 points over GOP challenger Dave McCormick.
Rep. Bryan Steil, a Republican who represents the southeast corner of Wisconsin, questioned in an interview with Agri-Pulse at the GOP convention whether having Harris as the nominee would significantly alter the outcome of races in his state.
Rep. Byran Steil of Wisconsin “At the end of the day it’s the policies that are clobbering people” that matter, he said. “They can change the name at the top of the ticket. What we need to do is change course in this country and change the policies.”
But Barry Burden, a political analyst at the University of Wisconsin, said Monday that the switch to Harris had invigorated Democrats and that Harris is likely to perform more like Baldwin than Biden.
“The race will mostly be about the same issues that are dominating the national campaign, namely inflation and the economy as well as immigration,” Burden said. “Abortion rights are also a prominent issue that will likely get more attention with Harris leading the ticket, because of the emphasis she has given it over the past two years as vice president.”
In Michigan, the Democratic base is energized now, and people are “flocking to volunteer,” Stabenow said on MSNBC Tuesday.
The GOP candidate, former Rep. Mike Rogers, has been polling 3 to 10 points behind Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee. In the presidential race, Trump was ahead of Biden 43.8% to 41.4% in the latest FiveThirtyEight average of polls.
Rogers and Slotkin are expected to win their respective primaries on Aug. 6.
GOP ticket to “absolutely” support biofuels, says Iowa governor
Fossil fuels got a lot of love at the GOP convention, where delegates chanted “Drill, baby, drill” and waved signs that read “American oil from American soil.” But Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said in an interview with Agri-Pulse that a second Trump term would be good for biofuels too.
“Energy independence is where we want to be again and we’ve gone completely away from that,” she said. Reynolds said biofuels can be part of the path to U.S. energy independence.
Biofuels were a major talking point during the Iowa Republican caucus campaigns when Reynolds ultimately endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Trump has expressed support for expanding biofuels but has not made clear where he stands on sustainable aviation fuel policy and implementing the Renewable Fuel Standard. When he was president, his administration came under fire from biofuel groups for issuing a series of small refinery exemptions from the RFS.
However, asked if the Trump-Vance ticket would support biofuel policies, Reynolds replied, “Absolutely I do.”
Tom, Miller confident Trump would protect ag from trade war
Two potential candidates to be agriculture secretary in a second Trump administration expressed confidence at the RNC about how the former president would handle trade policy.
Trump has proposed to impose an across-the-board tariff on all imports and to raise tariffs on Chinese goods even more, raising the possibility that U.S. farm exports could face retaliation.
“We know that he’s going to be fair to American farmers and the U.S. economy,” said Kip Tom, who was ambassador to the UN food and agriculture agencies during the first Trump administration. Tom, an Indiana farm operator, is now leading the ag coalition for Trump.
Pressed as to whether Trump would provide financial assistance to farmers to offset the impact of retaliatory tariffs, Tom said, “I think we have to wait and see what what President Trump does and what the department does, but I'm confident, because President Trump knows that we're very supportive of him and his efforts … that he'll be fair.”
Texas Commissioner of Agriculture Sid Miller said Trump successfully protected farmers from the impact of the trade war in 2018. “He said I'm going to take this money that I collect from China and we're going to prop you guys up. It's going to be rough for, you know, for 12-18 months, but we're going to make you whole, we're not going to let you go broke, and he didn't. … It was a very prosperous time.”
Trump used USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation spending authority to pay farmers $23 billion in compensation for the impact of retaliatory tariffs. The tariffs imposed by Trump and continued by Biden are paid by U.S. importers, not China.
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