How Biden’s 2024 choice could reshape the Senate and Supreme Court for years

CNN —

The stakes for Democrats in their extraordinary public schism over whether President Joe Biden should withdraw from the 2024 presidential race extend far beyond the White House. A decisive loss at the top of the ticket could cost Democrats control of the US Senate for the remainder of this decade and cement Republican dominance of the Supreme Court for a generation.

So far, Democratic anxiety about the presidential race’s impact on the Senate has been muted because public polling has almost invariably shown their candidates still leading in the key states where Biden has fallen behind former President Donald Trump. But recent history raises deep questions about whether Democratic Senate candidates can continue to levitate as far above the presidential ticket as polls now show.

President Joe Biden greets volunteers at a campaign office in Philadelphia on Sunday, July 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

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Throughout this century, but especially over roughly the past decade, it has grown increasingly difficult for Senate candidates in either party to win in states that usually vote for the other side in presidential contests. During the 2016 and 2020 election years, Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine was the only candidate, out of 69 total Senate races, who won in a state that voted the other way at the presidential level.

This year, Democrats are defending an unusually large concentration of Senate seats in states that now appear at risk for them in the presidential contest. If Democrats lose a substantial number of those seats this year, it could be very difficult for them to recapture a Senate majority before these same seats come