When we get the Senate back it's time to up the ante:

[kairos12]

No judicial nominations for any court for 2 years. Let the voters sort it out in 2020.

FU Turtle of Kentucky.

[DemoHack]

1. Can't lose a seat...

And have to win NV and AZ. TN is very winnable.

Difficult. But doable.

[bearsfootball516]

2. I'd go as far as to say picking up NV and AZ are probable.

But holding everywhere else, including Indiana, West Virginia, Missouri and North Dakota will be the real challenge.

[PearliePoo2]

4. The latest Gravis poll taken 5/22 has Manchin WV up 13! nt.

[DemoHack]

10. AZ will be tougher than we think.

The last Democratic Senator was DeConcini last century. McSally is formidable and nutcase Kelli Ward will be no slouch. Sinema would crush Arpaio.

I really like Bredesen's chances too. Watch him win, and within a month everybody starts complaining how "conservative" he is...

[PearliePoo2]

3. Realclearpolitics currently shows 44 Likely (D), 48 likely (R) 8 tossups

Sanders (I) and King (I) caucus with Democrats.

It's going to be a nail-biter!

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2018/senate/2018_elections_senate_map.html

[Jim Lane]

5. That's probably not feasible with a narrow Democratic majority.

The Democratic caucus couldn't even stay together on rejecting Haspel for CIA. With two Republicans voting Nay, a unanimous caucus would have defeated the nomination, but six Democrats defected.

With a total freeze on confirmations, the Republicans would scream about the huge problems for the judicial system caused by the accumulating vacancies. In contrast to some of their arguments, that one would actually have merit. I wouldn't trust all 51 or 52 members of the Democratic caucus to resist that pressure. We'd need a bigger majority, one that's just not in the cards this year.

The Democrats would probably have to settle for a compromise: reject the most extreme right-wingers, and include some decent appointees in the mix, such as perhaps some of the Obama nominations that McConnell blocked. If Schumer could engineer even that much (getting most or all of the conservaDems to go along), it would be a big improvement.

[tritsofme]

7. The choice would be Chuck Schumer's alone.

Even with a one seat majority, Schumer could declare that he will not schedule floor time for any judicial confirmation votes, period, call it the “McConnell rule”.

Even if a majority would exist on the floor for any particular nominee, if Schumer refuses to schedule votes, there’s nothing Republican or even supportive Democratic senators could do.

[Jim Lane]

8. I'm not sure how that would work.

I know that, in the House, there's a procedure for a discharge petition, whereby a majority of the members can force a vote regardless of what the leadership wants.

Even if the Senate has no analog, Schumer could be under pressure from his caucus. If the split is 51-49, some conservative Democrat like Manchin would have a credible threat to switch parties.

In general, given Schumer's demonstrated tendencies, he's not the type to take the highly confrontational route of squelching all confirmation votes, even if he could. He's more likely to use his leverage to get some kind of compromise.

[DemoHack]

9. Manchin would never switch parties.

He's not an opportunist like WV's Governor Jim Justice. He's staunchly a Democrat and he's not even conservative. He's in the center.

http://www.ontheissues.org/Joe_Manchin_III.htm

[Jim Lane]

11. Manchin is a conservative Democrat.

He voted to confirm Haspel, he voted to confirm Gorsuch, and he voted with the Republicans to overturn several Obama-era environmental protections. In each of these stances he was in a small minority among the members of the Democratic caucus.

With 51 Republicans in the Senate, Manchin has some claim to be close to the center of the entire body, but he's way over on the right wing of the Democratic caucus.

And, of course, it's not just Manchin. There are other conservative Democrats. If the Democrats have a net gain of two seats, then Schumer will have no room for maneuver. At Dem 51- Rep 49 (assuming McCain returns or is replaced), and Pence ready to break a tie, Schumer wouldn't be able to afford even one defection. Every single member of the Donnelly-Heitkamp-McCaskill-Manchin-Nelson crowd would have a lot of leverage.

You wrote that people will complain about Bredesen's conservatism if he's elected. Well, yeah, by the standard of the current Democratic caucus he is conservative. You can probably add him and Sinema to that list of Schumer headaches if they're in the new Senate.

IIRC, a similar situation led to the abandonment of the public option in the ACA. Obama had campaigned for it. The problem was that, with 60 members of the caucus, he needed every one of them to break a filibuster. Lieberman said no to a public option and, lo, there was no public option.

[politicaljunkie41910]

6. Hugh Hewitt was talking to Sen Cornyn this morning on the Hugh Hewitt Show making him promise

that the Repugs will fill the 20 vacancies on the Appellate Courts before they allow the Congress to adjourn for the August recess. See my post below. There is much work to be done before the August recess. We need to all contact our Senators and let them know that we don't want these 20 judicial vacancies rushed through before the August recess. If we win the House and/or the Senate those would be our vacancies to fill. If McConnell can delay our Supreme Court confirmations for a year, surely we can hold up theirs for 3 months. But we need an organized strategy for doing so. Every Democrat needs to write their Senator and let them know that they need to slow walk this process.

https://upload.democraticunderground.com/100210659872