With the midterm elections now just a day away, there’s a new sign of potential Republican momentum: Analysts have begun talking about the GOP controlling 60 seats in the Senate after the 2024 election.
It is “now possible that Republicans could end up within reach of a filibuster-proof 60-seat Senate majority in 2024,” wrote Benjamin Salisbury of Height Capital Markets in a note last week. That’s a reference to the Senate’s filibuster rule, in which 60 votes are required to end debate on most legislation, allowing the minority party to stymie the majority’s efforts.
Height gives “a roughly 30% probability that Republicans will win 52 or more Senate seats in 2022. That would mean that they need to win eight out of the 12 potentially competitive seats to reach 60 in 2024,” Salisbury said. He previously has said voters are increasingly paying attention to issues Republicans have chosen to place their focus on, such as inflation, at the expense of Democrats’ agenda items.
Meanwhile, Eurasia Group analysts said last week that national trends continue to move in the GOP’s favor ahead of Election Day on Tuesday and have raised their projection for the likelihood of a Republican-led Senate to 60% — and they’re thinking also about that 60-seat threshold.
Jon Lieber and Kylie Milliken advised in a Eurasia Group note that subscribers “watch the margins of victory in Colorado and Ohio Senate races and the results of House races in New York, Florida, Virginia and Illinois” to gauge whether a so-called red wave has formed “and as a signpost for races that remain uncalled.”
See: Senate control may not be determined until December. Here’s why.
“A larger GOP majority would mean a heightened risk of political struggle over the debt ceiling, a potential for increased tensions with China, and a higher likelihood of investigations of officials of President Joe Biden’s administration,” they wrote.
Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has gone so far as to state in recent days that opinion polling supported the impeachments of Biden; Merrick Garland, the attorney general; and Alejandro Mayorkas, homeland-security secretary.
See: Kevin McCarthy says Marjorie Taylor Greene’s committee assignments would be restored if he becomes House speaker
“It would also,” according to the Eurasia Group analysts, “set the Republicans up for a potential but unlikely 60-vote supermajority in the Senate in 2024.”
Betting market Predictit currently gives Republicans about a 90% chance of winning the House and more than a 70% chance of taking control of the Senate.
U.S. stocks DJIA, +0.76% gained on Friday as traders reacted to a better-than-expected jobs report, but the S&P 500 SPX, +0.48% was still down 21% so far this year. Further stock-market advances were registered early Monday.
See: Republicans have over 70% chance of winning Senate in midterm elections, betting markets say
Also read: Here’s what the midterm elections could mean for the financial sector, energy, healthcare and more