Can Democrats Really Flip the Senate? Hollywood Holds Its Breath

Months of election drama will finally come to an end Tuesday as voters across America head to the polls. Like a Game of Thrones series finally working to the finale, hopefully with a less divisive resolution.

The will-they-or-won’t-they saga has been more intense than pretty much anything else on-screen this season (well, except for You Can See Everything of course). Hollywood — at least judging from the fundraising efforts by major entertainment-world figures for Democratic candidates in Texas, Georgia, Florida and elsewhere — has a vested interest in getting a Democratic flip in both chambers of Congress.

So does it happen?

The House seems almost surely headed for a Democratic handover — the party needs to flip only three seats, and well over a dozen Republican seats are in polling trouble. A blue wave, or at least strong ripple, on that side. (High Democratic turnout in early voting is further encouraging for the party’s prospects.) But the Senate, where Democrats need to flip four of the 22 Republican seats up for re-election while holding all 13 of their own (or flip five if they lose one), seems a far murkier prospect.

Right now Republicans are behind at the polls in at least eight races where they currently hold seats. Obvious flip, right? Not so fast. The Trump era has been defined by Republican undercounting in pre-election polling, which could make some of the Democratic leads illusory, though midterm polls tend to be more accurate. (MAGA supporters — those least likely to respond to polls — tend not to come out as much for midterm races, making their non-responses less impactful.)

That undercount makes very close races in Alaska, Maine and Iowa a lot more likely to break for Republicans. That’s especially true in Alaska, where recent backlash over Sullivan-gate — ie, the alleged orchestration by the campaign of Democrat Mary Peltola to get a second Dan Sullivan on the ballot and potentially confuse supporters over the Republican nominee of the same name — could tip the election to the GOP. The Republican candidates in Maine and Iowa, meanwhile, have high likability ratings among voters.

Democrats do seem to have more sizable edges in Texas, Ohio and North Carolina, making those likely if not certain to turn blue. North Carolina’s Democratic Roy Cooper is firmly in control, Texas’ James Talarico has widened his advantage in recent days over Ken Paxton, and ex-Senator Sherrod Brown has begun to open a clear if narrow advantage over Jon Husted, in the job only two years as JD Vance’s replacement.

That still means Democrats will have to pull off one more flip, and it’s unclear where that comes from. Kansas is perhaps the best bet, with the moderate Democratic pastor Rev. Adam Hamilton putting some daylight between himself and incumbent Roger Marshall. And Marshall is unpopular — but then Kansas hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since the Great Depression (or, in movie terms, the year Grand Hotel won best picture).

An X-factor is South Carolina, which historically has been more red than Elmo but now faces some chaos with the candidacy of political newbie Darline Graham, sister of late senator Lindsey Graham, who has been seen as a nepotistic choice by voters in some polls. That could open the door to her pediatrician challenger Annie Andrews, until a few months ago thought a lost cause.

If either Kansas or South Carolina go Dems’ way — and honestly had you raised that possibility six months ago people would have thought you were Sarah Connor-level crazy — attention then turns to the Democrats trying to defend their contested seats. While that seems likely in previously in-play races in Minnesota, Georgia and New Hampshire, such a prospect is more uncertain in Michigan, where Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, facing a stunning Democratic mutiny from former primary challenger Haley Stevens, could see some moderates bleed to his Republican opponent Mike Rogers. Should El-Sayed surprisingly not win the race — and to be clear, with a five-point poll lead the smart money is still with him — then Dems would need an additional flip beyond the targeted four.

Still, even if they don’t get it and the Senate ends up 50-50 (and decided by the vice president), it could hamper the GOP agenda, since such a count opens up the possibility of peeling any single Republican from the caucus to block a vote. (Democrats refer to this as Joe Manchin Syndrome.)

Democrats could take heart in one possible major blue-red reversal — but it’s not in the Senate. Florida hasn’t elected a Democratic governor in 32 years. But David Jolly is within a few points of the Trump-endorsed Byron Donalds, and the idea of a Democrat — even one who not that long ago was a Republican — replacing Ron DeSantis in the country’s third most-populous state would certainly add some thickener to the stew.

What’s at stake for Democrats and the many in Hollywood who support them? A bulwark against Donald Trump, for starters, but also a rare chance to control both chambers over the next term. The party has been able to do that only once in the last 16 years and only three times since 1994. Before then it happened regularly — that 1994 election and its famous “Contract With America” Gingrichian revolution ended eight straight years of Democrats controlling both bodies.

Of course, who remembers that? You’d have to have been working in Hollywood when the first Lion King came out to harbor such a memory. A Senate majority rises and falls like the sun.