Ya Gotta Believe

By Hubie and Bertie

Those of us who are frustrated with Joe Manchin know what the solution is: We need to elect more Democrats to the Senate in 2022.

And Pundit World may be quietly waking up to the fact that this year's Senate map is looking pretty good for Democrats.

Now, let's not get ahead of ourselves — we said "quietly." Since the media love to latch onto lazy narratives and are loath to let them go, this year's Senate races will require them to put in a bit of work. But suffice to say that the Republicans have a lot of seats at risk, of which these seven races are key:

• Cheri Beasley, North Carolina 
• Catherine Cortez-Masto, Nevada
• John Fetterman, Pennsylvania
• Maggie Hassan, New Hampshire
• Mark Kelly, Arizona
• Tim Ryan, Ohio
• Raphael Warnock, Georgia

We cats would like to add another: Mike (Not Al) Franken in Iowa.

The Des Moines Register's recent poll of that Senate race is revealing. Ancient incumbent Republican Senator Chuck Grassley holds an eight-point lead over Franken, 47 to 39 percent. This is the first time that Grassley has performed under 50 percent against a challenger since 1980. Nineteen-eighty! We don't know about you, but that was a few of our nine lives ago.

But — eight percentage points is a lot, right? Yeah. But think about this for a minute.

The under-50-percent margin is far more relevant. Keep in mind that with the margin of error, the spread could easily be closer to 6 percent. And it's not even Labor Day, which is the time that people generally start focusing on November's elections.

Add to that the concerns about Grassley's age, and the fact that the January 6 Committee may have some revelations about him that will be less than flattering, and we could be looking at a competitive race here.

Iowa has trended awfully red lately. But Mike (Not Al) Franken is just the kind of candidate that could turn conservative heads this fall. We cats take this poll as a good sign, and we PURR.