On the menu: Tariffs tax approval; Dems jockey for 2028 position; Elon-gated; Biden hemmed in Harris; a wild commute

As Senate Democrats agonize over whether to help Republicans avoid a government shutdown Friday, the number that’s in the back of their minds isn’t the $1.6 trillion price tag on the House-passed spending package. It’s just two digits: 6-0.

The fight over a continuing resolution is the first time in this Congress that Democrats have had to think seriously about a world in which Senate Republicans can advance legislation outside of the procedural end-around of budget reconciliation.

With 53 Senate seats, Republicans can do a lot on taxes and spending and can, as this year has already abundantly proved, get almost anybody confirmed to a high position in the government.

But they can’t really legislate. Without anything like sufficient support in the GOP conference for abolishing the filibuster, it will continue to take 60 votes to make laws. As Democrats test their own appetites for obstruction on the continuing resolution, we know that at some point sooner or later, Republicans will get the seven Democrats they need to advance the bill.

As Democrats were wrestling with that question, one of their own provided a poignant reminder that things could get worse. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.) announced that she would not seek a fourth term. Shaheen, 78, joins two other Democrats from similarly light-blue states, Sens. Gary Peters (Mich.) and Tina Smith (Minn.), who already announced their retirements.

But Shaheen hits a little differently. Not only has New Hampshire been among the crumbliest pieces of the “blue wall” in the Trump era, it has a solid Republican Party. If popular former Gov. Chris Sununu decided he wanted the gig, it would make it tough for Democrats to hold. At the very least, it is going to be an expensive headache for a party already playing defense.

Unlike the House, where all the seats are up for grabs, only a third of the Senate is in play every two years. And while this year isn’t as savagely brutal for Democrats as the 2024 map and its multiple incumbents in deep-red states, 2026 is going to be no picnic for the blue team.

Of the 35 seats — 33 regular elections and special elections in Ohio for the remainder of the term won by now-Vice President Vance and in Florida for that of now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio — most are on Republican turf. Looked at that way, Republicans have more on the line with 21 seats to defend compared to just 14 for Democrats.

But most of the Republican seats are in places where the risen Lord couldn’t win a statewide election if he was running as a Democrat. States like Arkansas and South Carolina may have interesting primary elections, but that’s about it. Then there’s a whole other batch in places where Democrats maybe, maybe, maybe could have a chance in a weird year. But how often can a party psych itself up to fund long-shot bids in Kentucky or Texas only to get Beto'd again?

There are just two states out of 21 where Republicans already know they’re going to have big trouble on their hands.

Maine Sen. Susan Collins defied all the odds to win another term in 2020 but now faces voters hostile to her party, but without the advantage of a quadrennial electorate. Maine splits its Electoral College votes by congressional district, and a presidential year cranks up turnout in the state’s Republican-leaning inland district. Collins is heading for a reckoning with coastal moderates who may have given her a pass in 2020 but will be more suspicious now.

North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis is in a better place than Collins but faces a different kind of problem. His state has voted Republican on the presidential level every year since 2008. It’s been wobbly now and then, but it is still a red state. The main problem for Tillis is that his state party is a disaster and the Democrats there are not. He is certain to draw a primary challenge from the same wing of the North Carolina GOP that served up Mark Robinson, author of an embarrassing 2024 gubernatorial defeat. Tillis will be lucky to survive his primary, and if he does will likely face a top-drawer Democrat, like former Gov. Roy Cooper.

So that’s two tough ones for Republicans, but get a load of what the Democrats are dealing with.

In addition to open seat races and potentially problematic primaries to replace Shaheen, Peters and Smith, they’ve got what looks like a sitting duck down in Georgia with Sen. Jon Ossoff.

Ossoff was extraordinarily lucky in his 2020 win. In a tough year for Republicans, Ossoff managed to force a runoff with incumbent David Perdue, who fell just a quarter of a point short of winning outright in November that year because of a Libertarian candidate’s sliver of the vote. Ossoff had no reason to expect to win the runoff until Perdue and many in his state party had a collective nervous breakdown over Donald Trump’s efforts to swipe Georgia’s electoral votes. Hardcore MAGA voters were hearing about how they couldn’t trust the state’s famously well-run elections, and suburban moderates were watching the red team descend into a very dark place. All Ossoff had to do was not be crazy, and it was good enough for a win.

Could Republicans repeat their past mistakes and put a screwball candidate up in midterms? There’s always a chance. But if Senate Majority Leader John Thune (S.D.) and the GOP can convince Gov. Brian Kemp to take the plunge, Ossoff’s luck will probably have run out.

So you get why Democrats are starting from a place not of trying to win back control of the Senate, but rather of trying to prevent Republicans from expanding their majority. If the two most vulnerable incumbents, Collins and Ossoff, were to lose, the red team would still have 53 seats.

Then, Democrats have to be thinking about what happens if Republicans only have a mild case of the midterm curse. Could the GOP maybe flip two more, say Michigan and New........

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