Democrats Target Florida and Texas Seats as Polls Suggests GOP Vulnerable

In a bid to hold their slim Senate majority after November, Democratic leaders are reportedly planning offenses in Florida and Texas.
Democrats have focused their spending on defending eight Democratic-held seats that are viewed as the most competitive. If they retain all eight, it would likely lead to a 50-50 Senate, with Democrats retaining the majority if Vice President Kamala Harris wins the presidency.
But according to Axios, Democratic leaders are concerned about their ability to retain Sen. Jon Tester’s seat in Montana, with polls showing him lagging behind his Republican opponent, and want to be in a position to pick up seats in Florida and Texas.
Florida and Texas “are real and we hope to get resources into those states,” Senator Gary Peters, the chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, told Axios on Tuesday. Peters has been contacted for further comment via email.
Polling in the states has shown Democratic challengers cutting into Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Florida Senator Rick Scott’s leads, suggesting they could be vulnerable.
Texas is the country’s largest reliably red state, sending Republicans to the Senate in every election since 1990. But Cruz won reelection in 2018 by less than 3 percentage points over Democrat Beto O’Rourke, giving Democrats hope that it could be possible to pick up Cruz’s seat.
Recent polls have shown the race between the Republican incumbent and his opponent, Democratic Rep. Colin Allred, narrowing—with one putting Allred ahead of Cruz for the first time.
A Morning Consult poll, conducted among 2,716 likely voters between September 9 and 18, had Allred up by one percentage point, 45 percent to 44 percent, although the lead was within the poll’s margin of error.
Other recent polls have shown Cruz leading Allred by a narrow margin: a survey of 1,200 likely voters by the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation between September 13 and 18 had Cruz up by three points, 48 percent to 45 percent. And another survey by Morning Consult, conducted among 2,940 likely voters between August 30 and September 8, had Cruz up by five points, 47 percent to Allred’s 42 percent.
“The Texas Senate race is a tossup. It should have always been considered a tossup,” Brett Loyd, president and CEO of polling company The Bullfinch Group, told Newsweek last week. “That is not to say Cruz will lose, but the race should be looked at as anyone’s game.”
Once one of the nation’s most important battlegrounds, Florida has shifted decidedly to the right in recent years. Still, Republican Sen. Rick Scott won his seat in 2018 by just about 10,000 votes.
Scott had been leading the race by a wide margin earlier this year, but recent polls have shown his opponent, former Representative Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, chipping into that lead.
A poll by The Bullfinch Group, conducted among 600 registered voters between September 20 and 21, had Scott up by two percentage points, 46 percent to 44 percent.
An ActiVote survey, conducted among 400 likely voters between August 21 and September 22, had Scott up by eight points, 54 percent to 48 percent.
Two other polls conducted in September had Scott up by four points. A survey by Redfield & Wilton Strategies among 1,602 likely voters between September 16 and 19 had Scott with 45 percent support to Mucarsel-Powell’s 41 percent, while a Morning Consult survey among 2,948 likely voters between September 9 and 18 had Scott with 46 percent and Mucarsel-Powell on 42 percent.
“It could be a very competitive race,” J. Edwin Benton, a professor of political science and public administration at the University of South Florida, told Newsweek last week.
“I think [Mucarsel-Powell] has a shot. If we were having this conversation eight or nine months ago, I’d say no way she has a chance.”