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Only a few weeks remain before the mid-November elections, the Senate Republicans are in the final stages of legislative and campaigning. The Senate is currently composed of 53 Republicans, 45 Democrats and 2 independent senators aligned with the Democratic Party, with a weak Republican majority, but with enormous electoral pressure. The majority leader of the Senate, John Thune, South Dakota, has demanded that the entire party enter a state of war, and the President of the National Republican Senate Committee (NRSC), Tim Scott, South Carolina, stated in his last plenary session, "This is a fight for survival", but at the same time said that he still saw the path to victory.
The Senate recently voted on a resolution calling on President Trump to put an end to the United States military action against Iran, which was eventually rejected by 49 votes to 50. This is the fifteenth time that the Democratic Party has put Iran's war power resolution to a vote in the Senate. This resolution was previously adopted in the House of Representatives on 23 July and was introduced by Pramila Jayapal, Federal Representative of the State of Washington.
Four Republicans voted in favour of the resolution with the Democratic Party: Rand Paul, Kentucky; Susan Collins, Main; Lisa Murkowski, Alaska; and Thom Tillis, North Carolina. Republicans like Jon Husted, Ohio, and Dan Sullivan, Alaska, who are in violent swinging constituencies voted against. On the Democratic side, John Fetterman, Pennsylvania alone, voted against. It is worth noting that Bill Cassidi of Louisiana voted in favour of a similar vote on 23 June, but this time turned against — he was defeated at the beginning of the recent elections.
NRSC is urgently raising nearly $9 million to defend three states that won the double-digit advantage in Trump in 2024, according to various media reports. A NRSC memorandum obtained in multiple media reports identified specific fundraising targets: $1.2 million in Alaska, $4.2 million in Iowa and $3.5 million in Ohio. The memorandum states: "We need an additional $8.9 million in hard money to fill the media gap and to maintain this momentum until election day."
According to the latest polls, Mary Peltola, a California Democrat, is about 2 percentage points ahead of Senator Dan Sullivan; the difference between Ashley Hinson, Iowa, and Josh Turek is within 1 percentage point; and Sherrod Brown, a former Democratic Senator, Ohio, is four percentage points ahead of Republican Senator Jon Hesterde on average.
In order to save money, NRSC used a recent Supreme Court decision to allow the Commission to work more closely with individual electoral campaigns to purchase advertising hours at lower prices. Tim Scott showed his colleagues the data effect of the strategy at a closed lunch.
Tim Scott named several key options: New Hampshire and Michigan for Democrats, and Maine, Iowa, Ohio, Texas and Alaska for Republicans. He told the current members of Parliament in Deep Red County to run as if they were behind and said that NRSC spending would concentrate on swinging constituencies nationwide.
In Texas, the NRSC added millions of dollars in advertising to help the Republican Senate candidate John Paxton confront the Democratic rival Colin Allred.
There are also numerous media reports that a hidden Republican billionaire has withdrawn financial support from the Senate Republicans.
At the legislative level, the Senate Republicans are pushing for two priority agendas. One is the data centre-related bill, which, according to numerous media reports, the Senate Republicans are planning to vote on next week's data centre bill, and some senators are considering staying in Washington to complete the vote instead of running home.
Second, it addresses the cost of living. Several media reports indicate that the Senate Republicans are planning to introduce a final round of legislative efforts to reduce the cost of living for the population before the elections in order to compensate for the economic credibility damaged by the Trump policy. According to several media reports, this was the "last effort" of the Republicans to reduce the cost.
In addition, the Senate Republicans are promoting a bipartisan resolution condemning China ' s cross-border repression, which was rejected by some Republicans.
Various media analyses indicate that the Senate Republicans are clearly moving away from the unpopular President Trump. In addition to the defeat of the Iranian war vote, Republican parliamentarians and candidates have begun to question openly the duration and cost of the Iranian conflict. However, most Republicans chose to vote in agreement with the President.
At the policy level, there are significant differences between the Senate Republicans ' programme and the Chamber of Deputies: the Senate advocates a flat tax rate of 20 per cent for corporate taxes (15 per cent for manufacturers and 20 per cent for a wide range of manufacturers); the SALT upper-ceiling Senate of $20,000 per household (US$ 30,000 for the Chamber of Deputies); the Senate cap of $500 million to $600 million for medical benefits (over $900 billion in 10 years of cuts by the Chamber of Deputies); and the 10-year debt affects the Senate programme of approximately $2.2 trillion (approximately $3.1 trillion for the Chamber of Deputies).
In the coming weeks, the Senate will continue its final polls, and the results of the voting on the data centre bill, the completion of the NRSC fund-raising goals and the campaign dynamics of the swinging state candidates will be the focus of observation. Tim Scott quoted Peak Insights' opinion that Republican voter enthusiasm had risen by 20 per cent over the past two months and compared the current situation to the mid-2022 elections — when Biden had a low level of support — but the Democratic Party had taken an additional seat in the Senate. However, this optimistic assessment is not uncontroversial within the party: according to several media reports, NRSC consultant Iverson, former President of the Republican Party of Montana, at a fund-raising event in the autumn of Haishima, said that the Republican party might have added a new Senate seat after mid-term elections, without providing a state-by-state explanation, which was assessed by those present as "fancy".