Matthew Continetti explores the potential long-term impact of Republican losses in this year’s US Senate races.
Impeachment may be the least of Mr. Trump’s worries. After all, he’s been through it twice. What he hasn’t experienced is full Democratic control of Congress. It would make all his problems worse.
The president might believe he would be able to dismiss a Speaker Hakeem Jeffries as a nuisance, as he did Speaker Nancy Pelosi in his first term. He won’t have that luxury if Chuck Schumer is also Senate majority leader. A Democratic Senate would be impossible to ignore.
Nor would the pain end for Republicans when Mr. Trump leaves office. Senate elections have a long tail. Six-year Senate terms are spread across presidential administrations, giving senators many chances to serve in the majority, influence policy and cast defining votes.
The senators who win this year won’t be up for re-election until 2032, the end of the next presidential term. They will become the base of support for, or a bulwark against, the legislation and appointments of Mr. Trump’s successor. Some may try to become that successor.
This has happened before. Democrats netted six seats in 2006 and gained Senate control. Sherrod Brown, Bob Casey Jr., Claire McCaskill, Jon Tester, Jim Webb and Sheldon Whitehouse opposed George W. Bush during his last years in office, for sure. But their true impact wasn’t felt until 2009, when they voted for President Obama’s stimulus bill and ObamaCare.
Conversely, Republicans gained nine seats and a Senate majority in 2014. The class of ’14 included conservative stars Ben Sasse, Tom Cotton and Joni Ernst, who helped sustain Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s 2016 hold on Merrick Garland’s nomination to replace Justice Antonin Scalia. And when Donald Trump became president, they all voted for Mr. Trump’s Supreme Court nominees and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
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