How Ted Cruz’s 2016 Ambitions Could Doom The New GOP Senate Majority

In the aftermath of the resounding Republican takeover of the Senate this week, most everybody agrees two things are true. The GOP is going to face a much tougher Senate map and electorate in 2016. and the upper chamber is going to be populated for the next two years by a number of prominent Republicans (Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio) with presidential ambitions.

Of the three, Cruz is undoubtedly the biggest troublemaker — and he relishes that role. But by positioning himself to appeal to conservatives in a Republican presidential primary, he could force his more moderate GOP colleagues in blue states to take uncomfortable votes and thereby put their brand-new Senate majority at risk.

“What you’re going to have is a lot of tension between the presidential electorate and the candidates who are going to be appealing to that radical right wing of the party,” Norm Ornstein, congressional scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, told TPM, “and a number of the Senate candidates who are going to be trying furiously to create some armor of protection to look like they’re moderate or not crazy.”

States with senators up for re-election in 2016. (Image via Wikipedia).

It starts with the map. Republicans won the Senate on Tuesday thanks to a favorable map comprised of Democrats who won in the 2008 Obama wave and a midterm electorate that favors the GOP. In 2016, the roles will be reversed: Republicans up for re-election who won with the 2010 GOP wave in bluer states facing a presidential electorate that favors Democrats.

Per Roll Call, Republicans are defending 24 states in 2016, versus Democrats’ 10. Those include states like Illinois, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Florida that went twice for Obama. The GOP will have made the climb a little steeper for Democrats with what could be a 54-seat majority by the time 2014 is finished. But that doesn’t change the underlying fundamentals.

“There’s no question that 2016 will be challenging for the GOP,” Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, told TPM, “though a 54-vote GOP Senate is a much tougher nut for Democrats to crack in 2016.”

So the challenge is still with the GOP — and their presidential aspirants, personified in Cruz, could make it a lot more difficult for those moderates who the GOP needs to win in 2016 to keep their majority.

“The pressure is going to come from within their own caucus. You’ve got three guys running for president, none of whom care about the Senate or their colleagues or their colleagues’ views,” Jim Manley, a former aide to outgoing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), told TPM. “When Ted Cruz starts demanding a personhood amendment, I don’t think there’s a lot of Republicans within that caucus who are going to be happy.”

One Republican strategist told TPM that he was worried that the party would overreact to President Barack Obama’s coming executive action on immigration reform and in turn damage its chances to retain the Senate and win the White House in 2016. Cruz and allies have railed against potential “lawless amnesty” that would result in “a constitutional crisis.”

“You have a lot of people who are going to be preparing for a difficult election, that’ll be their mindset. You have three or four members of the Senate running for president,” the strategist said. “You’ll have this push-and-pull on this stuff. I think it’s going to be very difficult for people to deal with. I don’t think people’s goals are aligned.”

“I’m really worried about the administrative action stuff. I do understand Republicans wanting to speak on that issue,” the strategist continued, who brought up a scenario in which Republicans want to use government funding to undo Obama’s executive actions. “That could leave some very long-lasting and devastating effects for 2016. People are going to be legalized and we’re going to try to not legalize them. That is a wholly different thing politically.”

All of those pressures will make life difficult for newly minted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — and that’s not even accounting for any shenanigans coming from Democrats looking to take back their majority in two years.

“The idea that Mitch McConnell is going to restore the old Senate, with open amendments, is a real stretch,” Ornstein said. “They bring up the first bill and Democrats offer 20 ‘gotcha’ amendments, all aimed at putting pressure on and embarrassing and creating ads against all those vulnerable Republicans from blue states. How long until McConnell decides that he’s going to fill the amendment tree? Not very long.”

Manley pointed to McConnell’s mention of a phone call from Cruz in his post-election press conference as evidence that all of these competing forces were at work just two days after the best Election Day for Republicans in a decade.

“That’s what a leader is going to have to juggle,” he said. “All leading indicators are that those tensions are already there.”