MJ Hegar, left and Mark Kelly, right

U.S. Senate races worth careful attention as November nears

Lisa Keen | Keen News Service
lisakeen@mac.com

Control of the U.S. Senate is almost as important to LGBTQ people this year as is control of the White House. Under Republican control, the Senate has ignored bills to make schools safer for LGBTQ students and bills to stop discrimination against LGBTQ youth seeking child welfare services. While the Equality Act — which would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, housing and federally funded programs — has passed the House, it has languished in the Senate Judiciary Committee without even a hearing, much less a vote.

And, under Republican control, the Senate has “rubber stamped” confirmations, at every level of the federal court system, for nominees who have records of hostility to LGBTQ people.

“In nomination after nomination, [President Trump’s] picks for federal courts are hostile to civil rights in general and specifically hostile to LGBTQ rights,” said a spokesperson for Lambda Legal. Twenty-four judicial nominees have already been confirmed for appointment to the federal appeals courts, and, by month’s end, the Senate is expected to confirm Trump’s third pick for the U.S. Supreme Court.

It also warrants particular notice that the Senate, under Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, openly flouted the majority’s own rules governing SCOTUS nominations to deprive Democratic President Obama of his choice of a nominee during the 2016 election year but is insisting that Republican President Trump get to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg not just in an election year but during the actual 2020 election season.

Not every LGBTQ person or group has given up on the Republican Party. Charles T. Moran, managing director of the national Log Cabin Republicans group, signed on to a letter supporting the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to become a U.S. Supreme Court justice, even as every other national LGBTQ group opposed her confirmation.

Log Cabin Republicans has not endorsed any U.S. Senate candidates this year, but its chapter in Illinois has endorsed the Republican challenger to incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin. Log Cabin national also considers U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a strong ally, even while the Human Rights Campaign and Equality Maine have turned against her.

But on an even more practical level, having Democrats control the Senate and the House would create a line of defense against any number of schemes President Trump might employ to declare himself the winner of the presidential race. It would also provide Congress with a realistic means of holding Trump accountable for any crimes he might commit, or has committed, against the nation. And it would improve the chances that any upcoming U.S. Supreme Court vacancy could be filled by nominees who have a commitment to equal rights for LGBTQ people.
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o, what are the numbers? And which are the states that could decide who controls the U.S. Senate next session?

There are 35 U.S. Senate seats up for election Nov. 3, but only 10 of them are contestable enough to warrant attention and funding by supporters of either party. Nine of those 10 are currently held by Republicans seeking re-election; one — in Michigan — is a Democrat.

If Trump retains the White House, Democrats would need 51 seats in order to take control of the Senate. They currently have 47, but polling indicates they will lose one of those seats — the one held by Alabama Sen. Doug Jones.

Michigan’s Democratic U.S. Sen. Gary Peters is also in a tough race for re-election. The latest poll there shows Republican challenger John James with a 1.4 percent lead and only 2.5 percent of voters undecided. But an average of polls, calculated by RealClearPolitics, gives Peters a 4.9 percent edge.

Assuming Jones and Peters lose, the Democrats would be down to 45 seats and would need to flip six Republican seats to take the Senate. FiveThirtyEight.com, the website founded by gay statistics guru Nate Silver, calculated last week that Democrats have a 73 percent chance of winning the Senate.

Here are the races where U.S. Senate seats have the best chance to change from Republican to Democrat:

• Arizona: Democrat Mark Kelly, husband of former U.S. Rep. Gabby Gifford, is running to replace first-term Republican Martha McSally. The Human Rights Campaign endorsed Kelly, saying he has been a “steadfast ally.” McSally’s score from HRC on LGBTQ issues stands at 0. An average of recent polls, calculated by RealClearPolitics.com, shows Kelly with a 8.3 percent lead, as of Oct. 16.

• Colorado: Democrat John Hickenlooper, the former governor, is leading incumbent Republican Sen. Cory Gardner. The only recent poll there, conducted in early October, showed Hickenlooper up by 9 points. Gardner merits a 0 on HRC’s Congressional scorecard; Hickenlooper has won HRC’s endorsement. One-Colorado calls Hickenlooper a “pro-equality champion.”

• Georgia: Democrat Jon Ossoff, a media owner and journalist, almost won a U.S. House seat in Georgia two years ago. He had HRC’s endorsement then, and he has it now, and he and special election Senate candidate Raphael Warnock (see below) have both earned gay presidential contender Pete Buttigieg’s endorsement. Ossoff is hoping to unseat Republican incumbent David Perdue who has a 0 score from HRC. RealClearPolitics’ average of polls shows Perdue ahead by only one point as of Oct. 12.

• Georgia: Democrat Raphael Warnock is the personal pastor of openly lesbian Georgia state Rep. Park Cannon, who has endorsed him as has HRC. While having “evolved” on issues such as marriage for same-sex couples, Warnock has welcomed LGBTQ people and promised leaders to passionately argue against anyone trying to use religion to discriminate. The Republican incumbent, Kelly Loeffler, has not been in the Senate long enough to obtain a score from HRC, but she recently introduced legislation to limit Title IX protection in educational sports to sex discrimination “based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.” RealClearPolitics calculation show Warnock leads by 7.7 points as of Oct. 12.

• Montana: Democrat Steve Bullock, former governor of the state, has seen a recent surge in support, from 9 points down on Oct. 7 to a tie on Oct. 10. As governor, Bullock signed an executive order prohibiting discrimination against LGBTQ state employees and supported the U.S. Supreme Court decision to strike state bans on marriage for same-sex couples. HRC has endorsed Bullock, and scored the Republican incumbent at 0.

• North Carolina: Democrat Cal Cunningham appeared to be running away with the election in his bid to unseat incumbent Republican Thom Tillis. Then news broke that he had been engaging sexting with a woman other than his wife, and his polls slipped. But FiveThirtyEight.com reported last week that Cunningham appears to have survived. A recent New York Times polling shows him with a 1 point lead, but RealClearPolitics’ average of polls shows him with a 4.3 point lead. HRC and Buttigieg have both endorsed Cunningham.

• Iowa: Democrat Theresa Greenfield, a real estate executive, has been consistently polling 3 to 5 points ahead of incumbent Republican Joni Ernst in recent weeks, but the “undecided” votes are running about 10 percent. Greenfield’s got the support of HRC and Buttigieg, and Ernst’s HRC score is a 0. Two early October polls showed Greenfield up by 4 points but with a margin of error of 3.5.

• Maine: Democrat Sara Gideon, Speaker of the Maine House, might once have been considered a long-shot to unseat long-time Maine incumbent Republican Susan Collins. Collins was seen by many in the LGBTQ community as among the very few allies on the Republican side. But then she voted for Trump Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, whom HRC characterized as a “dangerous, unqualified nominee.” Collins’ impassioned floor speech and vote for Kavanaugh and repeated willingness to stay in lock-step with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has rendered Collins’ re-election “simply untenable,” said HRC President Alphonso David. On the other side of the aisle, Log Cabin Republicans announced its endorsement of Collins this week. RealClearPolitics’ averaging of polls shows Gideon up by 4.2 points in early October.

• Texas: While Texas has long been considered a reliably red state by the GOP, there has seemingly been a blue surge of late, with Beto O’Rourke’s challenge to Republican incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz ended up being the closest Senate race here in 40 years. O’Rourke came up just 220,000 votes short, out of 8.3 million votes total cast. But this year, another Democratic challenger has an eye on the Senate, and incumbent Republican Sen. John Cornyn finds himself in an even closer race. Both Texas senators — Cornyn and Cruz — have consistently been scored at 0 by HRC. As of Tuesday morning, Oct. 20, Cornyn was just 3 points ahead, according to poll tracker FiveThirtyEight, of Iraq War veteran and Purple Heart recipient MJ Hegar. Those numbers, Hegar pointed out to CNN’s Don Lemon, put her within the margin of error, meaning the race is essentially a toss-up.