{"id":529,"date":"2024-11-11T09:31:33","date_gmt":"2024-11-11T09:31:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/is-all-hope-lost-for-senate-democrats-sherrod-brown-doesnt-think-so\/"},"modified":"2024-11-11T09:31:33","modified_gmt":"2024-11-11T09:31:33","slug":"is-all-hope-lost-for-senate-democrats-sherrod-brown-doesnt-think-so","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/is-all-hope-lost-for-senate-democrats-sherrod-brown-doesnt-think-so\/","title":{"rendered":"Is all hope lost for Senate Democrats? Sherrod Brown doesn’t think so."},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Ali Vitali<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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This election was always going to be a tough game of defense for Senate Democrats<\/a>, seven of whom are campaigning against heavy political headwinds in pro-Trump or battleground states that the former president has won in past elections. <\/p>\n

The seat currently held by Sen. Joe Manchin <\/a>(a longtime Democrat who recently switched to independent) is all but assured to go red, notching Republicans at least one flipped seat. But in deep red Montana and slightly less red Ohio, Trump allegiance hasn\u2019t guaranteed an easy road to victory for Republicans.<\/p>\n

In deep red Montana and slightly less red Ohio, Trump allegiance hasn\u2019t guaranteed an easy road to victory for Republicans.<\/p>\n

Polls show the Ohio contest as a true toss-up<\/a> as Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown battles MAGA-aligned businessman Bernie Moreno. And in Montana, GOP challenger Tim Sheehy has a slight lead over Democrat Sen. Jon Tester, but only by an average of 5 points according to 538<\/a> \u2014 a far cry from the state\u2019s average 18-point lean for Trump (also according to 538).<\/p>\n

That\u2019s due in large part to the profiles Tester and Brown cut in their states. Images of Tester atop a tractor on his farm are not just every-six-year gimmicks for re-election in a rural state. And neither is Brown\u2019s pro-union commitment to the \u201cdignity of work,\u201d embodied by his ever-present canary pin gifted by a steelworker.<\/p>\n

To further assert their independence,\u00a0Tester and Brown have\u00a0sought to distance themselves from national Democratic figures, including President Joe\u00a0Biden and\u00a0Vice President Kamala\u00a0Harris,\u00a0while\u00a0staying mostly mum on\u00a0Donald\u00a0Trump.<\/p>\n

Brown, in\u00a0a recent interview with me<\/a>,\u00a0noted: \u201cI don\u2019t really care what the presidential candidates are talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n

If these seats\u00a0can<\/em>\u00a0be held, it\u2019s ticket-splitting voters who\u00a0will likely\u00a0get them there\u00a0\u2014 the question is\u00a0how many of them are out there.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be enough,\u201d Brown said after an event in the Mahoning Valley, an area that Democrats held until\u00a0Trump turned it red. Brown has managed to win some of these key counties in the past.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI say this, and it\u2019s not a cliche, that people don\u2019t see politics \u2014 I don\u2019t see politics \u2014 as left to right,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Talking with Ohio voters in Lorain County, outside Cleveland, at least one voter, Julianna,\u00a0told me\u00a0she saw it the way Brown did.\u00a0She\u2019ll be voting\u00a0Trump for president and Brown for Senate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In\u00a0Butte, Montana, our NBC News team met\u00a0<\/a>27-year old Tim Combo on the second floor of the Western States Carpenters Union hall. \u201cI came up here to vote for Jon Tester,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I am going to vote for Donald Trump, as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

In\u00a0five\u00a0other\u00a0key Senate\u00a0contests \u2014 Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin \u2014 Democrats have broadly been able to hold Republicans to toss-ups.\u00a0The\u00a0Cook Political Report currently\u00a0classifies Arizona and Nevada as leaning Democratic.<\/a><\/p>\n

And in Texas,\u00a0a rare possible\u00a0pick-up opportunity\u00a0for Democrats, Rep. Colin Allred is making a true go of it<\/a> against GOP\u00a0Sen.\u00a0Ted Cruz, though\u00a0his\u00a0Lone Star Senate\u00a0campaign remains\u00a0a long shot.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0National Republican Senatorial Committee\u00a0doesn\u2019t seem too worried, with a top official confidently telling NBC News that\u00a0\u201cOhio will be the 51st\u201d seat, giving Republicans the majority. Still, Brown, for one, exudes the kind of optimism that only comes from having outperformed political dynamics before.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m\u00a0gonna\u00a0win,\u201d Brown said.\u00a0\u201cBecause\u00a0of people like this that have stood up for the public, and stood up for workers, and stood up for consumers, and stood up for a cleaner Lake Erie, and stood up for all the things that, that people just want a shot in life.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Ali Vitali<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Ali Vitali is a Capitol Hill correspondent for NBC News, based in Washington.\u00a0She is the author of “Electable: Why America Hasn\u2019t Put a Woman in the White House … Yet.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Nov. 4, 2024, 11:51 PM UTC By Ali Vitali This election was always going to be a tough game of defense for Senate Democrats, seven of whom are campaigning against heavy political headwinds in pro-Trump or battleground states that the former president has won in past elections. The seat currently held by Sen. Joe Manchin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":530,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-trump"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}