Democrats have a plan for Florida and Texas. Is that a sign they’re worried about Montana?

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

While Vice President Kamala Harris’s replacement of President Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket has given the party a chance at beating Donald Trump and they increasingly look likely to flip the House of Representatives, they face one problem: they still look likely to lose the Senate.

Polling shows Democrats performing well in states that Biden won in 2020. Representative Ruben Gallego is on track to overwhelmingly beat Kari Lake in Arizona’s race. Bob Casey in Pennsylvania either leads or is tied with Republican Dave McCormick, while incumbents in Nevada and Wisconsin look likely to hold their seats. Meanwhile, in Michigan, Representative Elissa Slotkin, who is running for an open seat, has a major fundraising and spending advantage against former congressman Mike Rogers.

But Democrats risk losing three Senate seats in states Trump won twice. Senator Joe Manchin, the independent former Democratic senator from West Virginia, will not run for re-election. And while Senator Sherrod Brown leads polling against Trump-endorsed Republican former car dealer Bernie Moreno in Ohio, Senator Jon Tester of Montana has fallen behind retired Navy SEAL and Republican candidate Tim Sheehy.

This has led some Democrats to say they need to try and flip seats in Florida and Texas.

Senators Rick Scott of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas are both running for re-election. Both narrowly won in 2018. Democrats feel there is an opportunity to flip those races — despite the fact Florida has not voted for a Democratic senator since 2012 and Texas has not sent a Democrat to Washington since 1988.

Cruz is running for re-election against Representative Colin Allred, a former NFL player who flipped a Dallas-area House seat in 2018. A new poll from the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation shows that while Trump leads Harris by six points in the state, Cruz has only a three-point lead.

Polling has been more scarce in Florida’s Senate race but one survey from Morning Consult showed Scott beating Debbie Mucarsel Powell, a former congresswoman, by four points in Trump’s home state. Democrats hope that Scott’s unpopularity combined with the fact that Florida will vote on a constitutional amendment to codify abortion rights will help them beat Scott.

But Republicans seem unbothered. Instead, they say that Democrats’ new focus on Florida and Texas shows a failure on behalf of Senate Majority Leader Chusck Schumer to defend Tester in Montana.

“This is effectively an admission from Chuck Schumer and the DSCC that Jon Tester, who is polling very badly, looks like a lost cause,” Philip Letsou from the National Republican Senatorial Committee told The Independent in an email. “Colin Allred is an extremist who believes it’s racist to secure the border. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell is a socialist who was fired from her job in Congress after one term because she was so radical. Allred and Mucarsel-Powell are bad fits for Florida and Texas, and voters will reject them.”

But Representative Jasmine Crockett of Texas — a Democrat who has become a breakout star thanks to her viral moments, including memorably suggesting Marjorie Taylor Greene had a “bleach-blonde, bad-built, butch body” — says Democrats are right to invest in the Lone Star state.

“If there's anybody who should be beaten, it’s Ted Cruz. If it's anybody who's more than capable, it’s Colin Allred,” she told The Independent.

At the same time, despite tons of outside spending and his underwhelming polling numbers, Tester said he was confident when The Independent asked him about his chances in Montana.

“You wanna bet,” he said, as the elevator doors closed.