The Senate Democrats are already running scared in the 2018 Senate races. The reason is that even as the House Democrats are talking about a blue wave, almost everybody agrees that Republicans will maintain the majority in the Senate and will in all likelihood lose seats to the Republicans.
Heidi Heitkamp, Joe Manchin, John Tester, Joe Donnelly and Claire McCaskill are all in serious danger of losing their seats. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, says that one of the things his committee is working on is bringing in Bill and Hillary Clinton as well as Barack Obama to boost the chances for their candidates.
That idea is bizarre at best. Many Democrats voted for Trump over Hillary and they have seen no reason to regret their vote. Moreover, many of them were voting against Hillary rather than for Trump. She might give them an edge in fundraising but in the last two election cycles, Republicans have won despite being on the short end of cash. But that hasn’t translated into success. Hillary Clinton spent 1.2 billion dollars and Trump spent $600 million dollars and he won. The same can be said for the NC senate race in 2014. Burr won even though he was vastly outspent.
There is even a chance that Republicans will see a net gain in the House. California could be the key with Republicans picking up seats thanks to the jungle primaries that could see several races being between two Republicans.
Every seat in the House is up for grabs each election cycle, and if Democrats want to re-take control of the House, they have some work to do. Republicans currently have a 42-seat majority.
But according to the New York Times, Democrats in California running for the House are very discombobulated. The Times reports:
National Democrats, confronting mushrooming political chaos across Southern California, are pouring millions of dollars into congressional races to avert a self-inflicted disaster that could undermine their chances at taking control of the House.
Essentially, at least in California, there are so many Democrats running in important primaries that the national party fears losing seats, or just not being competitive as Republicans are much more organized.