{"id":8906,"date":"2025-05-06T23:18:43","date_gmt":"2025-05-06T23:18:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/senate-republicans-face-challenges-as-they-aim-to-keep-their-majority\/"},"modified":"2025-05-06T23:18:43","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T23:18:43","slug":"senate-republicans-face-challenges-as-they-aim-to-keep-their-majority","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/senate-republicans-face-challenges-as-they-aim-to-keep-their-majority\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate Republicans face challenges as they aim to keep their majority"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Brian Kemp’s decision not to run for Senate isn\u2019t just a setback for Republicans in Georgia. It is the latest sign that the GOP’s prospects across the Senate map are far less certain than just a few months ago.<\/p>\n

It could turn worse, too, as President Donald Trump’s tariffs cause global market chaos ahead of next year’s midterms and a cloudy economic picture comes into fuller view.<\/p>\n

Republicans are still widely expected to keep the Senate. But after Kemp and former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu rejected GOP recruitment efforts \u2014 and with hardline conservative Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton primarying the establishment Sen. John Cornyn \u2014 the GOP is bracing for a more turbulent cycle than once expected.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to mention other brewing challenges in Louisiana and North Carolina, where MAGA figures are threatening primaries against longtime incumbents.<\/p>\n

\u201cMidterm elections [are] generally tough for the party in power,\u201d Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said in a brief interview. \u201cI\u2019m always worried.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is cause for Johnson\u2019s heartburn. A senior Senate GOP campaign official, granted anonymity like others in this story to discuss the situation candidly, acknowledged he would have loved for both Kemp and Sununu run \u2014 and for Paxton to have sat out a Cornyn challenge. But this person and others involved in GOP recruitment efforts argued the party hadn\u2019t been counting on either of the governors \u2014 and had considered them longshot recruits even amid heavy efforts to court them.<\/p>\n

In Texas, the senior Senate GOP campaign hand said there will be a \u201cserious effort\u201d to ensure Cornyn is the nominee. The senator recently brought on former Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio to burnish his MAGA credentials, according to two people familiar with the decision. GOP senators wanted to keep Paxton out of the race, maneuvering to undercut him before his launch<\/u><\/a> and urging Trump to endorse Cornyn, a close ally of leadership and former chair of the Senate\u2019s campaign arm.<\/p>\n

It remains unclear if Trump or the White House will ask Paxton to stand down. Advisers in the White House are aware he\u2019s a political liability \u2014 and that Texas is an expensive state to campaign in.<\/p>\n

Republicans could have another unwanted primary on their hands in Michigan, where Rep. Bill Huizenga is mulling whether to join former Rep. Mike Rogers in seeking retiring Sen. Gary Peters\u2019 seat.<\/p>\n

As for Georgia, Republicans are deemphasizing any despair over Kemp by pointing to the growing field of potential candidates emerging from both the House and state government.<\/p>\n

Democrats are salivating over the possibility that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) could mount the bid she was already flirting with before Kemp announced his plans. But GOP senators continued on Tuesday to downplay concerns that the MAGA firebrand could tank their chances.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m encouraged by the fact there\u2019s a lot of interest,\u201d Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Tuesday in response to a question about whether the GOP could flip the seat if Greene is the nominee. \u201cI expect Georgia will be a competitive race. We\u2019ll be close to the end. But I think it\u2019s a race that we can win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats see Republicans\u2019 failure to recruit Kemp and Sununu as evidence that even quality GOP candidates do not want to spend a grueling cycle answering for Trump\u2019s policies \u2014 particularly surrounding the economic fallout from his tariffs.<\/p>\n

Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesperson Maeve Coyle said in a statement that \u201cevery GOP candidate will be forced to answer for Trump\u2019s harmful agenda\u201d in 2026, and the party\u2019s \u201cdisastrous start to the year\u201d puts Democrats on the offensive, even as they face a tough map.<\/p>\n

\u201cSenate Democrats are positioned to win seats in 2026,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

But Democrats have long been facing a bleak outlook at retaking the Senate \u2014 one made even darker by a series of retirements. The party has limited pickup opportunities: Just one seat up next year is held by a Republican in a state that former Vice President Kamala Harris won in 2024. And Democrats have four open seats to defend between battleground Michigan and a trio of bluer states.<\/p>\n

National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesperson Joanna Rodriguez said in a statement that Republicans broadly \u201cmust hold every red seat and chase opportunities in toss-up states like Georgia, Michigan and New Hampshire.\u201d And in Georgia, which Trump won in 2024, \u201cwe remain confident a Republican will beat pro-impeachment Democrat Jon Ossoff in 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some senators, including former NRSC chair Rick Scott of Florida, suggested Republicans\u2019 recruitment misfires were more telling of how prospective candidates sized up the job in Washington compared to their executive roles back home.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s about chances, I think it\u2019s about: they know how difficult this job is,\u201d the former Florida governor said in an interview. Governors \u201cget to be the executive and lead the state. The legislative process is a lot harder, especially up here. I think it probably reflects more how difficult it is to get a result up here.\u201d<\/p>\n

And GOP senators defaulted to arguing that Democrats still face a more challenging map.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would much rather have the Republican side of this map than the Democrat side of this map,\u201d Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said in an interview, while acknowledging that it was \u201cunfortunate\u201d Kemp and Sununu passed and that they would have \u201cbeen very strong candidates.\u201d (Cruz, who won an upset against former Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in 2012, is so far declining to endorse in the primary in his state.)<\/p>\n

Still, multiple Republican senators and operatives acknowledge their overall efforts hinge on the economy as they wait to see how Trump\u2019s tariffs land.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s going to be a problem \u2014 it depends on the economy, obviously,\u201d Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, who has been considering a run for governor rather than seek reelection next year, said in an interview. \u201cIt depends on how President Trump does in the next 12 months.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jay Williams, an Alpharetta, Georgia-based GOP strategist, said his party could face a further darkening outlook.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think ultimately it’s going to come down to the economy and at that time, and how scared Republicans are,\u201d Williams said. \u201cIf things economically are going well, you’ll get to the social issues [playing more a deciding factor]. If things are really bad economically, I think it’s gonna be tough for Republicans. Like, I don’t know how you slice it any other way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams added, \u201cNever underestimate Republicans’ ability to pull defeat from the jaws of victory.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brakkton Booker and Andrew Howard contributed to this report.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brian Kemp’s decision not to run for Senate isn\u2019t just a setback for Republicans in Georgia. It is the latest sign that the GOP’s prospects across the Senate map are far less certain than just a few months ago. It could turn worse, too, as President Donald Trump’s tariffs cause global market chaos ahead of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8906","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8906\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}