'Perpetual GOP dominance': Analyst argues beating Trump is not Dems' toughest challenge

Defeating Donald Trump in his second term will be a grueling challenge for Democrats, wrote Daniel Block for The Atlantic — but clawing their way back to a majority in the Senate is going to be even harder.

"On the surface," he wrote, the 2024 result of Democrats losing four Senate seats "may not seem dramatic, and in fact represents a fine performance for Democrats. The party had no realistic pickup opportunities this election cycle," despite their 11th hour efforts to target a pair of seats in hostile territory.

"The real problem for Democrats is that the 2024 map was only slightly harsher than usual. Going forward, every Senate election is going to be brutal."

Going by the math, he wrote, 24 states solidly favor Republicans and 17 solidly favor Democrats. What this means is that, with respect to the six battleground states plus New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Minnesota, "To hold the chamber, Republicans need to win just two of those seats if they control the presidency, and three if they don’t. Democrats need to sweep almost all of them. They must pitch perfect game after perfect game to have a shot at even the narrowest majorities."

Assuming no member deaths or major upsets in the chamber, wrote Block, Democrats' only significant opportunities in 2026 are Maine and North Carolina, while holding all their own battleground seats, and then flip North Carolina and Wisconsin in 2028 while again defending almost a half dozen of their own.

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Anything less than this, he wrote, and even if Democrats win back the presidency in 2028, they will face a Republican Senate that shuts down their agenda at every turn and hamstrings their executive and judicial appointments.

Ultimately, he wrote, "Democrats will have to find some way to broaden their appeal in the states where voters seem to have irrevocably abandoned them. That is not a new idea, and it is not an idea that anyone has yet figured out how to implement. But it is the only option.

"If Democrats don’t figure out how to compete in more states, Trump and his allies won’t need to dismantle the free press, imprison their enemies, or overturn election results to ensure perpetual GOP dominance. The basic math of the Senate will do that for them."