ONLY DONALD COULD HAVE LOST THIS ELECTION:

This state of affairs makes it exceedingly difficult for the Democratic Party to win control of the Senate, while remaining faithful to the aspirations of its predominantly urban base. In the view of Democratic data scientist David Shor, 2020 was the party's last, best chance to win a Senate majority for the foreseeable future: Red-state incumbents Joe Manchin, Jon Tester, and Sherrod Brown held onto their seats in 2018 - with the help of a historically Democratic national environment - but are unlikely to be so lucky when they are on the ballot again in 2024. Thus, the party's best hope was to eke out a majority in 2020, while it still had votes in unlikely places - and then, to use that majority to award statehood to Democratic leaning territories like D.C., Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands, thereby mitigating the coalition's structural disadvantage.

On Tuesday, Democrats likely missed their shot. To win a Senate majority (after Doug Jones's inevitable loss to a non-child molester Republican in Alabama), Democrats needed to flip four Republican seats without losing any more of their own. Their most plausible path for hitting that mark was to win races in Maine, Colorado, Arizona, and North Carolina. But Susan Collins won handily in Maine, and Thom Tillis appears to have bested Cal Cunningham in the Tar Heel State. That leaves Democrats two seats short of a bare majority.

The party still retains an outside shot at capturing those two seats: It looks like both of Georgia's Senate races are headed for January run-off elections between the top two finishers, with Republican Kelly Loefller facing off against Democratic pastor Raphael Warnock, and Republican David Perdue taking on former Barack Obama impersonator Jon Ossoff. The odds of Democrats sweeping these races aren't great. Generally speaking, in special elections held right after presidential ones, the party that's just lost the White House tends to enjoy a turnout advantage, as winners get complacent while losers thirst for vengeance. Further, if Ossoff forces Perdue into a run-off, he will do so only barely: Perdue needed 50 percent plus a single vote to win reelection Tuesday; he appears likely to finish with something in the neighborhood of 49.9 percent of the vote. Nevertheless, anyone with remotely progressive political commitments should contribute anything they can to winning these two races.

If Democrats fail to pull off an improbable triumph in the Peach State, then the Biden presidency will be doomed to failure before it starts. With Mitch McConnell in control of the Senate, Biden will not be allowed to appoint a Supreme Court justice, or appoint liberals to major cabinet positions, or sign his name to a major piece of progressive legislation; and that may very well mean that the U.S. government will not pass any significant climate legislation, or expansion of public health insurance, or immigration reform, or gun safety law this decade.

With Biden in the White House, there is a good chance that Republicans will grow their majority in 2022, as the GOP will enjoy the turnout advantage that almost always accrues to the president's opposition in midterms. Two years later, Democrats are more likely than not to lose their aforementioned red-state incumbents. Extrapolate from current demographic trends, and Democrats don't take the Senate again until 2028 or later. [...]

The bad news for Democrats extends to the one site of federal power where they had appeared to be building strength, if not a structural advantage: The House of Representatives. As the borders of blue America extended farther into the suburbs, it was possible to imagine that Republicans would eventually see their base of support become more geographically concentrated in rural areas than the Democratic Party's base was in cities, leading the GOP to "waste" more votes by running up the score in exurban districts. But, contrary to expectations, Democrats did not fortify and expand their caucus Tuesday night; rather they surrendered recently won suburban districts on their way to a significant loss of seats.

Making matters worse, as of this writing, Democrats have failed to flip control of any state legislative chambers ahead of next year's House redistricting. To the contrary, Democrats lost control of the New Hampshire state Senate and Alaska state House. Now, the GOP boasts full control of state government (and thus, of redistricting) in 22 states, while Democrats control only nine. This will enable Republicans to produce a new and improved gerrymandered House and state legislative maps for the next decade of elections (gerrymanders that may be further enhanced by a shoddy Census that undercounts Democratic constituencies).

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