WASHINGTON, DC, United States (AP) — As the prospect of a red wave grows, a series of Republican missteps — including recruiting stumbles, weak fund-raising, and intense infighting — is threatening the GOP’s path to the Senate majority.

Arizona’s Republican Governor Doug Ducey dealt his party its latest setback late last week by announcing he would not challenge Democratic Senator Mark Kelly this fall. His decision, which leaves no obvious front-runner in a crowded Republican primary, disappointed Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and his allies who had spent months privately encouraging Ducey to run.

But the GOP’s shortcomings extend well beyond Arizona.

Republican candidates in Arizona, Georgia and Nevada are struggling to keep pace with Democratic fund-raising. Recruiting failures have dashed GOP hopes in reach states like Maryland, and threaten a prime pickup opportunity in New Hampshire. And a recent plan that would raise taxes on low-income Americans and seniors, released by the Republican Senate midterm chief, Florida Senator Rick Scott, is putting GOP candidates in a difficult position across states like Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida.

The challenges amount to an early warning sign for Republicans less than two months before the opening Senate primaries of the 2022 election season. With Democrats confronting historic headwinds and the weight of an unpopular president, a Republican Senate majority is easily within reach. But, sensing discord within the GOP, Democrats are suddenly optimistic they may have a path to hold — or even expand — their majority.

Representative Val Demings, the leading Democrat in the race to unseat Florida Senator Marco Rubio, acknowledged that her party has struggled to highlight its accomplishments — including sweeping novel coronavirus pandemic relief and a massive infrastructure package — in the face of President Joe Biden’s political woes. But she seized on Scott’s plan as a clear example of the contrast between how Democrats and Republicans would govern.

“This plan is toxic. It would hurt working families, it would hurt seniors — and Rubio’s going to own it,” Demings said in an interview.

Rubio’s campaign declined to say specifically whether he supported Scott’s plan when asked, issuing a statement instead that called Demings “a do-nothing member of Congress who has never even passed a real law, much less a tax cut”.

With eight months until election day, the political landscape remains in flux. The health of the economy, a Supreme Court decision on abortion, and the war in Eastern Europe remain major variables. But history suggests Democrats would be lucky to preserve their fragile Senate majority in November.

In a 50-50 Senate, Democrats would lose control of Congress’s upper chamber if they lose a seat. And without the majority, they lose any hope of enacting Biden’s plans to bolster childcare, education, family leave and environmental protection — while protecting voting rights.

The GOP’s best pickup opportunities rest in Arizona, Georgia and Nevada, according to Steven Law, a McConnell ally who leads the most powerful, Republican-aligned, Senate super PAC. He said he’s increasingly optimistic about the state viewed as the Democrats’s best pickup opportunity, Pennsylvania, and sees competitive races in Republican-held states like North Carolina, Florida and Missouri trending in the right direction.

Given historic trends against the party that occupies the White House, Law predicted that a state like Colorado or Washington state could become more competitive than expected this fall as well.

“The fundamentals of this election cycle are still very, very good,” Law said. “I don’t think recent challenges or setbacks or issues are going to define it at all. There are going to be bumps in the road but at the end of the day, this election is going to be about the historic unpopularity of Joe Biden and his agenda, which virtually all Democrats have blindly supported.”

A February Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research (AP-NORC) poll found that more people disapproved than approved of how Biden is handling his job, 55 per cent to 44 per cent, while just 29 per cent of Americans thought the nation was on the right track.

Democratic strategists acknowledge their party’s uphill odds in the months ahead but on paper, at least, the current Senate landscape gives them an inherent advantage.