McConnell’s allies are wasting no time planning for the 2016 Senate elections. They are forming a super PAC to ensure the Senate remains in Republican hands (via NOW):
The modern group, known as the Senate Leadership Fund, will seek to become a primary vehicle for donors seeking to support Mr. McConnell’s fledgling majority. Like the outside groups that backed Mr. McConnell’s reelection campaign in Kentucky last year, the Senate Leadership Fund will partner with American Crossroads, the most prominent Republican super PAC, which is run by Mr. McConnell’s former campaign chief, Steven J. Law. Mr. Law will serve on the modern organization’s board, and the two groups will coordinate ad buys, messaging and fundraising efforts, although they won’t necessarily apply the same vendors to buy ads.
“The U.S. Senate is under new leadership — and is taking on President Obama’s freedom-sapping big government agenda,” the group’s website says. “As a new, independent super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund has one goal: to protect and expand the Republican majority in the Senate as Harry Reid, Elizabeth Warren and their army of left-wing activists try to take it back in 2016.”
The modern group could also give Mr. McConnell a powerful tool to exert leadership over his group — albeit indirectly, given that the Senate leader may not coordinate spending decisions with the group or explicitly seek funding for it. Strategists involved in creating the Senate Leadership Fund said they would not rule out intervening in primaries or endorsing candidates for open seats in an effort to preserve Republican control of the Senate.
While some headlines have it that the 2016 Senate elections will be friendlier to Democrats, the reality is that things are still up in the air; a common axiom in politics about elections that are nearly two years away. But when that time comes, Democrats will only need to pick up five seats to regain their lost majority.
In the 2016 election cycle, Democrats will be defending 10 seats while Republicans will try to hold the line in nearly two dozen races, with several of those races taking place in states where Republicans aren’t necessarily certain seats (via WaPo):
Seven of those 24 Republican seats are in states that President Obama won not once, but twice: Florida, Illinois, Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
To win the majority, Democrats must win five of the seven seats in November 2016.
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And while the map looks great for Democrats on paper, several of those seven races look less rosy in reality. Iowa is a tough Democratic choice unless Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R) decides to retire, which he says he has no intention of doing. Ohio Sen. Rob Portman (R) is a talented politician and fundraiser, while the Democratic field in the state is decidedly slim. The Democratic fields in New Hampshire, Florida and Illinois are still pretty tight. And neither Sens. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) nor Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) are political deadbeats.
Also on the 2016 ballot are two truly vulnerable Democrats — Sens. Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and Michael F. Bennet (D-Colo.).
It’s never too early to start supplementing your campaign funds.
