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Democrats usually select their Senate nominees in pivotal races the old-fashioned way. Party leaders recruit the best option, in their eyes, and Democratic primary voters—innately terrified of risk and trusting of their leaders’ judgment—fall in line. It doesn’t always work out. Sometimes, like North Carolina’s Cal Cunningham in 2020, the chosen ones have zipper issues . But Democrats’ establishment-driven approach, contrasted with Republicans’ less top-driven (and more mistake-prone ) strategy for candidate selection, did give Democrats four years in the Senate majority from 2021 to 2025, despite their structural disadvantage in the chamber.

After the great

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