The aftershocks of last week’s midterm elections are still being felt by Senate Republicans, but another political reality is beginning to set in: The GOP may not regain control of the chamber for years to come.
This years Senate map was, initially, favorable to Republicans in their quest to maintain and possibly grow their 53-seat majority in the Senate. But the next election cycles map in 2028 is tough, perhaps even insurmountable, for Republicans to conquer.
The Senate GOPs newly minted campaign chief, Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, acknowledged that the map to reclaim the majority in 2028 is “very tough.”
Democrats only have three incumbents up for re-election in battleground states, while Republicans have to defend seats in a slew of once-safe, deep-red states, including both Carolinas, Kansas and Iowa, among several others.
His home state, which just turned a shade of purple with Sen.-elect Sherrod Browns victory over Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, is in play again, too.
Moreno, when asked to sketch a 30,000-foot view of what the future fight for power would look like, told Fox News Digital that Republicans had “dealt with tough situations before.”
“Look, it is an absolutely brutal map, but, politics, things change pretty quickly,” Moreno said. “So we’ll see how it is, but we’re gonna be extraordinarily disciplined, we’re gonna be extremely honest with our data. We [will] make certain that we hold our incumbents and our candidates accountable, and we’re gonna make an appeal to donors as to how we should win.”
SENATE GOP REBELS MOVE TO DELAY LEADERSHIP VOTE, DEMAND RECKONING AFTER MIDTERM DISASTER
Others were less optimistic.
Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., who chaired the National Republican Senatorial Committee during the 2024 campaign, when Republicans flipped the Senate, compared the situation to getting down early in a baseball game: Republicans would have to “chip away” at Democrats lead, but it would take time.
“Now the Democrats can’t help themselves, but they’ll overreach in the next couple of years,” Daines told Fox News Digital. “They’ll be out of step with where America is, and they’ll provide an opportunity for us to win some Senate seats. But I think this will take a few cycles before we’ll probably get back to the majority if I have to honestly interject and look at it.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., who had just secured his position as the incoming minority leader after weathering a marathon venting session from Senate Republicans who are disgruntled and frustrated after the midterms, agreed that Democrats could overreach and create a “different shooting match” for Republicans.
SENATE GOP REBELLION FIZZLES AS THUNE KEEPS POWER DESPITE HISTORIC MIDTERM MASSACRE
But history has a way of repeating itself.
Thune shared the anecdote of how when he first arrived in the Senate in 2005, Republicans had clinched a 55-seat majority â “the high watermark for Republicans in the Senate, historically,” he told Fox News Digital.
“We were very bullish about getti
