What A Democratic Trifecta In November Would Mean For Democracy Reforms

On January 5, 2021, two Democrats won Senate runoff elections in Georgia. This flipped the Senate and resulted in an unexpected “trifecta” — Democratic control of the White House, the House, and the Senate.

Could a trifecta happen again in 2025?

The odds currently are against it, primarily because of the Senate races.

But if Democrats win the presidency, a trifecta is possible and, if that happens, historic democracy reforms that nearly passed in the last Congress would be on the doorstep for quick passage in 2025.

The presidential race is currently close, with Vice President Kamala Harris inching ahead of former President Donald Trump in recent polls.

A Harris victory could provide down-ballot support, especially in key House races, including races in California and New York. Democrats need to pick up just four seats to flip the House.

Holding the Democrats’ two-vote majority in the Senate, which includes four Independents who caucus with them, is much more difficult — but not impossible.

Of the 34 Senate seats up for election in November, 23 are currently held by 19 Democrats and the four Independents, and just 11 by Republicans.

Senate Democrats and Independents currently hold a 51–49 edge over Republicans.

It’s widely expected that Democrats will lose the seat currently held by retiring Senator Joe Manchin (I-WV). To maintain control of the Senate, Democrats would need to hold all of their remaining seats that are up this year, along with a Harris win to preserve the Vice President’s tie-breaking vote.

Democrats and Independents running for reelection generally are polling ahead of their challengers, except for Senator John Tester in Montana, who currently trails Republican businessman Tim Sheehy.

There are two crosscurrents at work in the Senate races, which include a handful of Democratic incumbents running in red and purple states.

On the one hand, ticket-splitting for President and Congress has become increasingly rare, and there are Democratic Senators seeking reelection in Ohio and Montana, states where Trump is expected to win easily.

On the other hand, incumbents typically enjoy an edge. In 2022, all 29 Senate incumbents won reelection. In 2020, 84 percent of Senate incumbents won.

The Democratic trifecta in 2021 resulted in Congress coming close to passing historic democracy reforms dealing with voting rights, money in politics, partisan gerrymandering, and other core reform issues.

If Democrats beat the odds and obtain a trifecta in November, Congress is expected to move quickly to pass the democracy reform measures.

In 2021, after the House passed early versions of the Freedom to Vote Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, Senate Democrats failed by just two votes to pass an exception to the filibuster rule that would have allowed the democracy reform legislation to pass the Senate with a simple majority and go to President Biden for his signature.

Ironically, the two Democrats who voted against the filibuster rule exception, Senators Manchin and Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema, voted just weeks earlier for an exception to the filibuster rule in order to pass an increase in the debt ceiling. And both Senators were supporters of the democracy reform legislation.

But for these two Senators opposing the filibuster exception, historic democracy reforms would be protecting our democracy and our elections today.

Both Manchin and Sinema are retiring this year.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) recently said, “One of the first things I want to do, should we have the presidency and keep the majority, is change the [filibuster] rules and enact both the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Act.” Schumer said the Democrats will have the votes needed to “change the rules,” should Democrats keep control of the Senate.

“This is vital to democracy,” Schumer said, “This is not just another extraneous issue. This is the wellspring of it all.”

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) also has indicated that the two democracy reform bills would be an early House priority if Democrats flip the House. Indicating its top priority status, Jeffries assigned H.R. 11 to the Freedom to Vote Act in this Congress, the lowest number he, as House Minority Leader, could give to a bill.

Vice President Harris is a longtime supporter of these core democracy measures. At last month’s Democratic convention, Harris said in her acceptance speech: “[T]he freedom that unlocks all the others [is] the freedom to vote. With this election, we finally have the opportunity to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the Freedom to Vote Act.”

For decades, there has been bipartisan leadership and support for numerous democracy reforms. They include the Watergate reforms of the 1970s; the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and its regular reauthorizations and amendments in 1970, 1975, 1982, 1992, and 2006; and the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002.

Since the Supreme Court’s Citizen United decision in 2010, however, congressional Republicans have almost unanimously opposed democracy reforms, leaving Democrats to support them alone.

Polls have shown these democracy reforms have strong public support among both Democrats and Republicans.

The Freedom to Vote Act would be the most comprehensive pro-democracy law enacted in decades. It would:

>> Reverse voter suppression laws that have flooded red states since the 2020 presidential election, using as justification Trump’s continuing false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

>> Increase access to the ballot, including early voting requirements in all states for federal elections.

>> Require each state to provide for no-excuse vote by mail.

>> Provide for accessible voting by individuals with disabilities.

>> Provide for automatic voter registration.

>> Establish nonpartisan standards to prevent extreme partisan gerrymandering.

>> End secret “dark money” contributions from being spent in federal elections.

>> Establish a voluntary system of matching small donations with public funds, but not taxpayer funds, for House races.

>> Strengthen enforcement of federal campaign finance laws.

The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would strengthen the legal protections against discriminatory voting policies and practices by restoring the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and repairing the damage done by recent Supreme Court decisions. It would:

>> Revitalize the Voting Right Act’s preclearance provisions, after the Supreme Court gutted these rules, to require preclearance for new voting laws in certain states and localities to ensure they are not discriminatory.

>> Provide a new way for determining which states and localities are covered by the preclearance provisions.

>> Repair Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, also gutted by the Supreme Court, to allow voters to sue to block voting rules that are discriminatory or will create discriminatory results.

>> Provide an expedited means for covered states to “bail out” of coverage to be released from the preclearance requirement if they have not engaged in discriminatory behavior for a specified period of time.

Whether the Democrats obtain a trifecta in November is in the hands of the voters, and possibly the courts if Trump refuses to accept the election results as he did in 2020.

But one thing is clear — we must repair and revitalize the rules of our democracy in order to reflect our democratic values, to ensure the opportunity for every eligible citizen to vote, and to protect against political money corruption of our democracy.

This begins with the enactment of the two historic democracy reform bills, the Freedom to Vote Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.