John Fetterman's weak loyalty to the party
Democratic leadership is already aware of the possibility that John Fetterman (D-PA) could refuse to be the 51st vote in the Senate if they gain control, especially after he recorded a video for the Republican National Convention in Texas last month.
The senator from Pennsylvania has already, on repeated occasions, said that he would "abandon the party" if the party decides to change its stance on United States-Israel relations. And, with an increasing number of Democratic voters asking the party to move precisely in the direction that Senator Fetterman does not want, his "warnings" could become a reality.
Even with all of this, Fetterman continues to state that he has no plans to leave the caucus. However, Democratic voters in his home state of Pennsylvania and the rest of the country, with good reason, fear that his promises cannot be taken at face value. After all, the reason Fetterman is incredibly unpopular among Pennsylvania Democrats is that they already feel like they cannot trust him.
There's always another senator who could break with the party
Yes, Fetterman is in the news almost every single day, especially on Fox News, which apparently now sees him as a welcome guest after calling him unfit to serve during his campaign in 2022, with nonsensical attacks on his colleagues or even potential colleagues when he decides to go to war with his party's nominees in other states before they even make it to the Senate.
But he's not the first, and certainly not the last, Democratic senator to give the rest of the caucus a headache.
During previous sessions, senators like Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona were always prepared to block key pieces of the Biden administration's agenda. In the case of Joe Manchin, that included confirming Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, even when other conservative Democrats like Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota voted against him.
And some younger people might not even remember this, but back in 2006, Joe Lieberman (D-Connecticut) lost his primary for reelection. He then created his own party to run in the general election anyway and won that election with mostly Republican support in the state.
He then continued to caucus with the Democrats in the Senate, and everyone just accepted it. That was until 2008, when he decided to endorse John McCain (R-AZ) for president over his own party's nominee, Barack Obama. He even spoke at the RNC (sounds familiar?). Mind you, this was the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2000 endorsing the Republican nominee for president eight years later, and the Democrats just went with it. Pretty much what they're doing now with John Fetterman.
A lasting majority that won't evaporate in 2 years
Senator Schumer wants to be majority leader. Everyone knows that. But in my opinion, Schumer is so blinded by the possibility of achieving that majority with 51 seats that he's not fully understanding what it would mean for him and his caucus if he had a solid 53-47 or 54-46 majority.
When Republicans started their plans to flip Michigan red, Senator Schumer said, according to The Washington Post:
A path to winning back the Senate clearly goes through Michigan, but we have a whole bunch of different paths.
Basically, he was acknowledging that a loss in Michigan would be devastating, but that he would still find a path to get to the majority.
What baffles me about this statement, even though he later expressed "confidence" that his party will retain control of that seat, is that he sounds more preoccupied with obtaining the majority at whatever cost, even if that means losing one or two of their current seats.
Regardless of how you get to a majority, once you get that majority, you need to have a plan to make it a lasting one. A majority that can withstand a difficult cycle, whether that is 2028 or 2030, lose a couple of seats, and still leave you in a position where you control the chamber.
If your goal is only 51 seats, that technically does give you a majority. But what happens if you lose one or two seats in 2028? Even if you win the presidency in 2028, if you lose two seats in the Senate, your majority is gone if you only had 51 seats to begin with.
The right strategy is to target as many states as you can. Put Republicans on the defensive and force them to spend time and money in states that they normally shouldn't have to worry about, and odds are you will probably flip at least one of them and make your majority larger.
That has been the Republican plan for decades, and that's why, when they finally get their majority in the Senate, they don't immediately lose it during the next cycle. Democrats need to go into the midterm elections with the same goal.
Stop giving up on states
Another thing that baffles me is Democrats just plainly giving up on states like Nebraska, South Dakota, Idaho, and almost Montana. Out of those four states, three of them used to send Democrats to the Senate on the regular, with Idaho being the exception.
While I do agree that the Democratic brand is damaged in those states, that doesn't mean they should be abandoned forever. Yes, you can give up this cycle and let independent candidates do their thing, but this is not going to work in the long run.
First of all, you have the very real, present evidence of a Democrat being able to be competitive in what's considered a "deep red state," like Kansas with Adam Hamilton. But also, if you start giving up on these states and you let only independent candidates run with the hope that they will caucus with your party, it might backfire spectacularly. Because if some independent senators from red states begin caucusing with the Democrats, then, in the next cycle, when an independent candidate comes along and says that he will be an independent voice in the Senate, voters in that state might already think, "All independents do is caucus with the Democrats," and that's where the strategy dies.
But also, sometimes you just have to be in the right place at the right time. In 2018, absolutely no one thought that South Dakota could have a competitive race for governor. What happened on election night? Most of the networks refused to call that race for most of the night because it became so close that there was a chance the Democrat could actually win. In the end, that Democrat didn't win, and Kristi Noem became governor. But the fact that there was a Democrat on the ballot proved that when you have the right candidate for the state, you can at least put up a fight.
And the best example I have of this is the 32nd District of Texas. Back in 2016, Democrats didn't even bother to nominate a candidate for the House of Representatives in District 32. They thought Pete Sessions was unbeatable. Then election night came, and Hillary Clinton won that district over Donald Trump by around 2%.
That's when Democrats knew that they might actually have a chance in that district. And when the 2018 midterms came, they actually nominated someone in that district, Collin Allred, and he defeated Pete Sessions by more than 6%.
So sometimes, Democrats think they have absolutely no shot of winning in a state or even a district. But what that district in Texas showed is that the only way to guarantee a loss is if you don't nominate anyone. Democrats might be impressed by how many places they could make competitive if, instead of just abandoning races and saying, "We cannot win here," they put in the work to build a coalition in that place. It might not work this cycle or the next one, but someday it might.
And that's how you build an actual majority that lasts without having to rely only on blue states and the occasional "fluke" from a red state.