Why Republicans think their Senate majority could last the decade: From the Politics Desk

Welcome to the online version of From the policy deskevening bulletin, bringing you the latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail from the NBC News Politics team.

In today’s edition, senior national politics reporter Sahil Kapur examines why it won’t be easy for Democrats to take back control of the Senate anytime soon. Plus, political reporters Allan Smith and Vaughn Hillyard examine how Donald Trump’s transition team is turning to the much-maligned Project 2025 to fill administration jobs.

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Senate GOP campaign chief: Our majority could last a decade

By Sahil Kapoor

Resigning National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Steve Daines, GOP won a new majority of 53 seats It could give the party control of the chamber for several terms in the 2024 elections.

“We are grateful to have more than 51 additional seats. I think it bodes well for us to hold the majority for the rest of the decade,” Daines, of Montana, told NBC News.

Republicans picked up four Democratic-held seats in the red states of West Virginia, Montana and Ohio, and the purple state of Pennsylvania. The GOP served in red-leaning Florida and Texas, where Democrats were hoping for a miracle. For their part, the Democrats maintained their positions in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin, despite the fact that Donald Trump carried all these states.

But what about Daines’ prediction? It’s bold but believable.

Democrats just had a map nightmare, so the picture only gets better from here. But Not so good in 2026 or 2028prevents dramatic political change.

The 2026 map follows the 2020 cycle, when Democrats won 50 seats and swept the Senate with a tie for Vice President Kamala Harris. The party’s best hope for a pickup in two years is in Maine, where long-serving centrist Republican Sen. Susan Collins has proven a tough target. The other is North Carolina, a battleground state where Democrats have not won a Senate seat since 2008 and failed to unseat GOP Sen. Tom Tillis four years ago.

From there it gets tougher: Alaska, Iowa, Kentucky, Texas. All states where Trump won comfortably in all three elections.

In 2026, Democrats will also have to defend seats in Michigan (Sen. Gary Peters) and Georgia (Sen. John Ossoff). Both will be prime targets for Republicans.

Looking further into the road to 2028, the Democrats’ best pick-ups are in North Carolina (Sen. Ted Budd) and Wisconsin (Sen. Ron Johnson). But they will have to defend seats in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania.

Bottom line: Unless Democrats find a way to broaden their appeal among white voters without a college degree, the prospects for proving Daines wrong look grim. These voters have disproportionate influence in the Senate, which has two seats per state, given the large number of rural states with small populations.

The silver lining for Democrats is that their new coalition — likely relying on college-educated voters and continued support from black voters — is well-suited for turnout patterns in off-year or midterm elections like 2026. And down-ballot Republicans have struggled to replicate Trump’s coalition for their race, especially without him running alongside them.

Trump’s transition team is turning to Project 2025 after rejecting it during the campaign

By Allan Smith and Von Hillyard

Donald Trump and his allies abandoned the conservative Project 2025, seeing it as a liability after Democrats used the conservative transition plan and policy plan to attack his campaign during the election. Some close to Trump even suggested that those associated with the effort would be excluded from a potential administration.

“They’ve nuked themselves,” said Howard Lutnick, co-chairman of Trump’s transition and a nominee for commerce secretary. told CNBC in September.

But after the campaign is over, Trump’s transition team is turning to Project 2025 to help the next administration. A person familiar with the situation told NBC News that transition officials are already receiving offers for potential hires from the vast pool of recruits created by Project 2025.

While Project 2025’s tome of conservative policy recommendations has gotten the most attention from Democrats, the centerpiece of the effort has been creating a database of officials designed like conservative LinkedIn to help the incoming Republican administration.

Those helping to fill staffing teams for Trump’s transition operation have consulted the Project 2025 database because of the enormous task of filling more than 4,000 political appointee jobs that will be vacant in 2025, the person said. .

The push to use the Project 2025 database for potential hires comes as the transition shows it’s open to finding contributors to the effort for management jobs, including Tom Homan as border czar, Brendan Carr as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, and John Ratcliffe. As the director of the CIA. Both Homan and Ratcliffe were listed as contributors to Project 2025, while Carr he wrote A chapter on the FCC.

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That’s all for the Policy Desk for now. If you have feedback – like it or not – send us an email politicsnewsletter@nbcuni.com

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