By
Ed Kilgore,
political columnist for Intelligencer since 2015
Democrats need a net gain of four U.S. Senate seats in November to flip control of the chamber. This would deny Donald Trump an easy path to confirmation of his executive branch and judicial nominees during the last two years of his presidency. It would also eliminate the governing trifecta that has allowed Republicans to repeatedly deploy the budget-reconciliation process, skirting the Senate filibuster that otherwise would protect minority-party influence over legislation. So it’s a really big deal.
But a Democratic Senate flip might come with an asterisk: It’s a big, bald-headed, hoodie-wearing asterisk named John Fetterman. To call the freshman senator from Pennsylvania “erratic” is a major understatement. But he’s becoming increasingly predictable as an ally of the Trump administration, especially on hot-button questions of war and peace.
