Summary
The 2024 race for Montana’s Senate seat, once seen as a near-certain Republican gain, has tightened unexpectedly, with Democratic incumbent Jon Tester showing a late polling advantage over GOP challenger Tim Sheehy.
Sheehy’s lead has diminished amid scrutiny of his story about a bullet wound he claims to have suffered during a deployment in Afghanistan. Discrepancies in his account, including conflicting explanations about a 2015 incident in Glacier National Park, have cast doubt on his credibility.
This polling shift has unsettled Republicans, with former Trump advisor Anthony Scaramucci describing their reaction as a “meltdown.”
Until there is a total of 60 votes one way or another, both sides can effectively veto bills forever with a filibuster in the senate. Still, in the absence of said filibuster it’s nice to be able to pass legislation through the senate.
Good to see the needle moving from the insanity that has been the last ~9 years of politics but there is so much foundational damage that simply won’t build any bridges to bring the country back to it’s center. Maybe if we’re lucky it will lessen the extremist rhetoric especially after trump is out of the running… but i’m not holding my breath.
50 is also big for confirming judges.
50 + having the majority means you get to avoid stupid shit like McConnell appointment blocking
Note that Harris has called for eliminating the Filibuster should dems get a trifecta
https://www.npr.org/2024/09/23/nx-s1-5123955/kamala-harris-abortion-roe-v-wade-filibuster
honest question, are we not wary of how republicans would operate with no filibuster?
Realistically, given a condition where it stood in their way, they’d probably just eliminate it themselves
They can also just remove it if they have the majority
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They already killed it for Supreme Court nominees when it suited them. If they really wanted something they’d kill it for that
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/10/01/fact-check-gop-ended-senate-filibuster-supreme-court-nominees/3573369001/
We know exactly how they’d act, since they eliminated the filibuster for judicial nominees so they could pack the court. Holding ourselves to some standard they will immediately violate when they can get any advantage is stupid.
Never expect them to act in good faith. They have already repeatedly trampled norms
Practically speaking, this election cycle is the hardest for Democrats in the Senate. There are 23 seats currently held by Democrats (and Independants organizing with them) up for reelection, vs. only 10 Republicans.
In the 2026 election, barring any additional vacancies due to retirements or deaths, there will be 13 Democrats defending seats vs. 20 Republicans. In 2028, the split is 15 - 19.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classes_of_United_States_senators
If the Democrats do keep the Senate and reform the Filibuster, then unless there is some radical change in political alignments Democrats will be favored to hold on to the Senate until at least 2030. There is a lot of work Democrats can do during those 6 years that might be impossible with the Filibuster in place, as it currently is implemented.
I would argue that keeping the Senate is just as important as winning the Presidency. Perhaps more so. If Trump wins but Democrats keep the Senate, they can use their power to ratify Cabinet officers to keep the worst of the worst appointments out. Likewise, if Harris wins but Republicans take the Senate, I doubt any of Harris’s judicial appointments will be approved at all.
It’s not really restraining them at the moment.
Then make them own their choices. As long as they can stick with this limbo there’s plausible deniability that no one sees. Or require it to be a speaking filibuster. In Minnesota, the conservatives had control of all the levers until they “caught the car” on banning marriage equality. At a state level, that woke a bunch of complacent people up and now we have a democratic trifecta after a lot of work since then. That can happen at the federal level too and that’s what we are learning from Dobbs.