Following the Cook Political Report rating the U.S. Senate races in Texas and Iowa as toss-ups Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer took time from his August recess to crow about Democrats\u2019 odds for taking back the chamber in November.<\/p>\n
\u201cDemocrats, we are on the path to victory. We\u2019ve blown the map wide open,\u201d Schumer said during a brief news conference in New York. \u201cWe\u2019re competing in states no one ever thought we had a chance in. Not just blue states but purple states and even red states.\u201d<\/p>\n
A nonpartisan election analysis site, Cook reported Thursday that Republicans still hold a structural advantage in the upcoming midterms, with Democrats needing to win nearly every key race to take back the Senate. But it said Texas and Iowa, which had been in Cook\u2019s \u201clean Republican\u201d column are now so close they have shifted them to toss-ups.<\/p>\n
In Iowa, the Senate contest will pit President Donald Trump-endorsed Republican U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson against Democratic state Rep. Josh Turek, following Republican incumbent Sen. Joni Ernst\u2019s decision to not seek reelection.<\/p>\n
In Texas, Trump-backed Republican candidate Ken Paxton, the state’s attorney general, faces Democratic state Rep. James Talarico.<\/p>\n
Texas has not had a Democratic U.S. senator since 1993, when Bob Krueger briefly served in the role after being appointed by then-Texas Gov. Ann Richards to replace Lloyd Bentsen, who resigned to become President Bill Clinton\u2019s treasury secretary. Krueger left office after losing a special election to Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison.<\/p>\n
The last time Iowa had a Democratic senator was in January 2015, when Tom Harkin, who had served for over 30 years, retired instead of seeking a sixth term.<\/p>\n
Cook also moved both states\u2019 gubernatorial races to the left, with the Iowa race for governor shifting to \u201clean Democrat\u201d from \u201ctoss-up\u201d and the Texas governor race moving from \u201csolid Republican\u201d to \u201clikely Republican.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy are we doing so well in even these red states?\u201d Schumer asked Thursday. \u201cBecause we are focusing on what people care about: the high cost of living, the chaos, whether it\u2019s in the streets of our cities or in Iran, and the corruption, the rampant and blatant corruption of Donald Trump and the fact that Senate Republicans go right along with it and don\u2019t make any effort to stop it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Cook Political Report shift comes as Trump\u2019s public approval ratings continue to fall. A Reuters\/Ipsos poll from earlier this week found 33% of voters approve of the job Trump is doing and 64% disapprove.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following the Cook Political Report rating the U.S. Senate races in Texas and Iowa as toss-ups Thursday, Senate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[145],"tags":[4282,4283,2149,504,50,4285,51,4284,3241],"class_list":["post-195996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chuck-schumer","tag-all-markets-rank-everywhere","tag-app-for-your-consideration","tag-app-top-stories","tag-chuck-schumer","tag-news","tag-nnt","tag-politics","tag-susan-carpenter","tag-top-stories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/117129916683524758","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}