Former President Barack Obama is continuing his support for Democratic political causes as Election Day approaches. On Friday, Obama shared that he would be participating in a virtual fundraiser event alongside Sen. Catherine Cortz Masto (D-NV) that was meant to help attract support for efforts to turn the Senate blue. Democrats need to have a net gain of four seats on top of their current total in order to become the majority party in the U.S. Senate, and since the Cook Political Report currently rates a full nine GOP-held seats as either toss-ups or leaning Democratic, there’s a good chance of some Democratic success.
Obama shared:
‘Democrats winning control of the Senate will make all the difference on how much progress we can achieve on health care, supporting working families, and more. Join @CatherineForNV and me for today’s grassroots event.’
Democrats winning control of the Senate will make all the difference on how much progress we can achieve on health care, supporting working families, and more. Join @CatherineForNV and me for today's grassroots event: https://t.co/E8GiJouVsF
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) October 16, 2020
Cortez Masto was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2016, replacing outgoing Senator Harry Reid. In the time since her election, Nevada’s other U.S. Senate seat has changed party hands — in the 2018 midterm elections, Democrat Jacky Rosen beat Republican incumbent Dean Heller in his race for re-election. Although during the 2018 midterms, Democrats were less fortunate in the U.S. Senate than they were in the U.S. House, they nevertheless picked up another significant victory that year when Democrat Kyrsten Sinema beat Republican Martha McSally in the race to replace the retiring Republican Jeff Flake as U.S. Senator from Arizona.
In the time since, McSally was appointed to fill out some of the remainder of the final term of the late John McCain, but she’s on the ballot this November against Democrat Mark Kelly, who has a consistent polling lead. Other states where Democratic U.S. Senate candidates seem to be doing consistently well include Colorado, Maine, and North Carolina, with other seats elsewhere where Republicans may be slightly favored but Democrats maintain a definite chance nonetheless. There’s been a huge outpouring of support for Democratic Senate candidates — in the third quarter of 2020, Democrat Jaime Harrison, who is challenging Lindsey Graham, raised $57 million, which is the highest single-quarter fundraising total for any U.S. Senate candidate on record.
Check out Twitter’s response to Obama below:
