The 10 Senate seats most likely to flip in 2022
In this first edition, the top 10 slots happen to be evenly divided between GOP-held and Democratic-held seats. Three open seats are on the list, all currently held by Republicans who are retiring, making their seats more competitive than they otherwise would have been.
Regardless of historical precedent, the map of seats at play is important to consider. In 2018, for example, Democrats won the House by capitalizing on anti-President Donald Trump energy in the suburbs two years after he had been elected. But the Senate was a different story: Republicans gained seats because Democratic senators were up for reelection in rural red states where Trump had won.
This cycle, only one senator is running for reelection in a state carried by the opposite party’s 2020 presidential candidate: GOP Sen. Ron Johnson. His Wisconsin seat is the third most likely to flip, but the two-term senator is the most vulnerable Republican incumbent.
Some states on this list will feel familiar. It wasn’t too long ago that Georgia was the epicenter of the political universe, helping to deliver the White House and the Senate to Democrats. Expect the Peach State to be a big player again in 2022, with Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock running for a full six-year term and control of the Senate on the line once more. Among the other states that were hotly contested in the 2020 cycle and again are on this list are Arizona, North Carolina and Colorado.
But long before the “Magic Wall” is coded in shades of red and blue, intra-party battles will dominate much of the news in 2021, with next year’s nominating contests going a long way toward determining how competitive some of these general elections will ultimately be. Senate primaries — the fields nascent as they may be — are emerging as early indicators of where each party’s base is headed. That’s especially true for Republicans, who are very publicly grappling with what the GOP looks like with Trump out of the White House.
The former President may have left Washington — and in unorthodox fashion, as the first President to ever be impeached twice — but the control he has over the Republican Party was on display at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando this past weekend. It was all about him — gold statue and all. And even if his winning percentage in the unscientific straw poll wasn’t commanding (55%), the rhetoric his acolytes and other 2024 prospects used was a nod to “Trumpism” — a noun that the former President delighted in defining onstage in his first public remarks since leaving the White House.
Listing every Republican who voted to impeach him in the House or convict him in the Senate, Trump is targeting them for removal by challengers more loyal to him. He recently endorsed a former aide who’s running against one of those House Republicans, and as he considers launching a super PAC, he’s signaling he may be investing in additional races with more than just endorsements.
The extent to which Trump will get involved and will back candidates at odds with Senate GOP leadership remains to be seen. But he could be a potent factor in open-seat Senate races, like those in Pennsylvania, Ohio and North Carolina, where GOP incumbents — two of whom voted to convict him — are not seeking reelection.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska is the only Republican senator who voted to convict Trump who’s running for reelection next year, but he’d threatened her even before that vote. And the moderate Republican proved in 2010 that she can lose a primary (and GOP leadership’s support) and still win the general election as a write-in candidate. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell pledged on Monday that national Republicans will stand by her. Also working in Murkowski’s favor this cycle may be a new “top four” system in the state, where all candidates run together in a nonpartisan primary and the four top finishers advance to the general election, where voters rank their preferences. For all those reasons, Alaska doesn’t come close to cracking this list of seats most likely to flip, despite Trump’s threats to Murkowski.
A few other GOP-held states could eventually earn honorable mentions. For now, the only chance that Iowa becomes competitive is if the 87-year-old Sen. Chuck Grassley retires. He hasn’t said what he’s doing yet. But even Joni Ernst, the state’s junior GOP senator, who was in a top-targeted seat last year, won reelection by more than 6 points.
Similarly, Missouri looks to have become more solidly red since GOP Sen. Roy Blunt defeated Democrat Jason Kander by less than 3 points in 2016, which was a presidential year. One of his first Democratic challengers launched his campaign this year by mostly criticizing the other Missouri senator (Josh Hawley, who objected to the certification of Biden’s electoral win) and trying to tie Blunt to him.
The 10 seats below are ranked in order of most to least likely to flip. But it’s still early in the cycle, with candidate fields in flux, so be sure to check CNN’s next ranking to see how things have changed.
1. Pennsylvania
Incumbent: Republican Pat Toomey (retiring)
Toomey’s announcement that he won’t seek reelection makes this state even more competitive than it otherwise would have been. Biden’s win here was a shift from four years ago, when Trump narrowly carried the Keystone State in 2016. That same year, Toomey won reelection by less than 2 points, defeating a Democratic nominee who attracted big-time endorsements but wasn’t the strongest campaigner. As with all open seats, the contours of this race will depend on who runs — and who wins each party’s nomination. On the Democratic side, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who finished third in the 2016 Senate primary, is the biggest name. The tattooed former mayor of Braddock, a working-class town east of Pittsburgh, sells himself as a progressive who can appeal to voters who saw something in Trump. Although his campaign is already touting big fundraising, he won’t have the field to himself. State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, a Biden surrogate during the 2020 campaign, has announced his bid and others — including members of the congressional delegation — could soon follow. Kenyatta was the first member of color who identifies as gay in the state Legislature. Without Toomey in the race, the Republican side is wide open and may attract a range of candidates on the spectrum of Trump loyalty, including prominent Trump critics like moderate former Reps. Charlie Dent and Ryan Costello.
2. Georgia
Incumbent: Democrat Raphael Warnock
It’s time to talk about Georgia — again! Warnock won this seat earlier this year, defeating appointed Sen. Kelly Loeffler in a special election runoff to fill out the term of former Sen. Johnny Isakson. Warnock made history in January, becoming the first Black senator from the Peach State, and — along with Sen. Jon Ossoff, who won the state’s other Senate runoff — he flipped the chamber after Biden became the first Democrat in 28 years to carry the state. In 2022, Warnock is running for a full six-year term. There may not be as many resources poured into Georgia as there were when it was a presidential battleground or when it held simultaneous Senate runoffs, but the underlying factors that made the state competitive in 2020 aren’t going away. The Atlanta suburbs are still changing, attracting diverse and well-educated voters who lean Democratic. And all eyes are on Stacey Abrams to run for governor again, which would energize the Black voters Democrats need to turn out as part of their winning coalition. On the Republican side, former Sen. David Perdue now says he’s not running, but Loeffler — who recently launched a PAC aimed at conservative voter registration — is considering it, as is former Rep. Doug Collins, whose candidacy pushed Loeffler to the right last year when he failed to make it to the runoff. They all are coming off of losses, but Republicans feel better about their bench here than in some other offensive opportunities. As 2020 showed, Georgia is an evolving state, but it may not be as friendly to Democrats when it’s not a presidential year, and Republicans think they still have some sway with suburban voters if Trump isn’t on the ticket. It’s yet to be seen what role the former President could play in this race, but Republicans are hoping he’ll lay off attacking the state’s election system, which may have depressed GOP turnout in the runoffs.
3. Wisconsin
Incumbent: Republican Ron Johnson
Johnson hasn’t said whether he’s running for reelection, and it’s not clear which decision would give Republicans better odds of retaining this seat. If he retires, this race could get more competitive for Democrats as an open-seat contest, although Republicans feel confident they have a strong bench here. And if Johnson stays, he’s vulnerable, having ended 2020 with just over half a million dollars in the bank and barreling through 2021 with a penchant for saying conspiratorial things…