“Democrats’ hopes of clinging to the Senate next fall now rest almost entirely on their party’s most endangered species: red-state incumbents seeking reelection,” Politico reports.
“After Joe Manchin’s retirement announcement, the party is down to just two of them on the ballot next year — Montana’s Jon Tester and Ohio’s Sherrod Brown. Tester and Brown will need to defy their states’ ideological leanings by persuading a sizable number of ticket-splitters to vote for them.”
Playbook: “The arithmetic is simple — and brutal — for Democrats. Assuming West Virginia goes red, Democrats need to reelect all of their other incumbents and hope Biden keeps the White House to maintain control of the chamber. And none of those incumbents have a taller task than these two.”
“The good news for both men? They’re battle-tested.”
