As we begin 2024, I am going to begin by ignoring the polling. For now. We’ll take more seriously the presidential and other general election polling as we get closer to summer. Over the next several posts, I will outline the landscape for the upcoming November election. Today, we’ll start with the Senate.
There are 52 Senators who caucus with the Democrats in this Congress. Three are independents and the rest are Democrats. The 2024 map is not advantageous for Democrats with no obvious pick-up opportunities, but several otherwise Republican and battleground states having contests. Unless the Republicans nominate another slate of their worst candidates again, this election will be a defensive one for the Democrats. They need to keep 50 seats if President Joe Biden (D) wins or 51 if he loses to keep control of the Senate. Controlling the Senate is key to moving forward judicial and other important appointments in a second Biden term. It’s very important.
In Play: Arizona, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania
Arizona will once again be an important state in a national election. It has been for every two years since 2018. In that year Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D) won a narrow victory in the open Senate race thanks to work of the Hotel Workers Union, Worker Power, and other community and labor groups who hit the bricks and phones relentlessly on her behalf. After winning the election, she largely turned her back on the folks who elected her and finally left the party to become an independent (although she still caucuses with the Democrats). Many observers – including me – assumed she was not going to run for reelection, but she is. And she is almost certainly going to lose unless something significantly changes in the political environment. Rep. Ruben Gallego has the Democratic nomination locked up and maintains a narrow, but steady lead in the three-way race with likely Republican nominee Kari Lake. Sinema consistently finishes in third place, sometimes by a lot. Democrats in Arizona are really angry at her, and her support appears to be largely coming from Republicans and independents.
Montana and Ohio are two solidly-Republican states with Democratic incumbents. In Ohio, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) is a bit of a legacy of Ohio’s labor politics and has been proven to be a winner among independents and even some conservatives. He is an unusual politician in that he tends to talk straight and not mince his words. He’s not afraid to lose votes by standing his ground on issues, which ironically gains him support. He’s not unreasonably ideological; he is both principled and pragmatic. Republicans have several well-known names in the race, but they may have a problem if they nominate Trump-favorite Bernie Moreno. The primary is in March. We’ll have a better idea of what this race looks like at that time.
In Montana, Sen. Jon Tester (D) is actually fairly popular. For a state that supported Trump with 57% of the vote in 2020, I’d say he’s really popular. Because of Montana’s recent electoral history Cook Political Report has this race as a Toss-Up, but the polling combined with his approval rating suggests that Tester has a good shot at winning reelection. Several Republicans are running, including the guy he beat last time. The primary is in June.
Nevada and Michigan are battleground states, although Michigan is moving back to being a reliable Democratic state since the last two elections. Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) will be running in a tough environment in the Silver State, but she has a track record of winning tough races. It’s not clear who her Republican opponent will be yet.
Michigan was part of the Democrats’ Blue Wall that had been guaranteed electoral votes for its presidential candidates until 2016. Republicans dominated state government at that time. Since then, however, Democrats have made a big comeback in both state and federal races. This seat is of interest because it’s an open one. Chances are this would be a safe or at least likely Democratic seat had Sen. Debbie Stabenow chose to run for reelection. Rep. Elissa Slotkin is the presumptive Democratic nominee, but there is a large field running in both parties. The Michigan Republican Party has become captured by the extreme right wing, which has bankrupted it through mismanagement. While the presidential primary is in February, the primary for all other offices, including US Senate, is in early August.
Sen. Bob Casey, Jr. (D) is running for reelection in Pennsylvania. Like Michigan, the Keystone State was part of the Blue Wall until 2016. Also like Michigan, Democrats have made a comeback since then but Pennsylvania seems more closely divided right now. Casey’s likely Republican opponent is David McCormick, who narrowly lost the nomination for Senate to Mehmet Oz in 2020 (Oz then went on to lose the general election to Democratic Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman). Casey should win this race, but it is likely to be a single digit win. McCormick appeared to be the stronger general election candidate (of the Republicans) in 2020 and for that reason Republicans like their chances. Along with Ohio and Montana, Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) PAC has made Pennsylvania one of its top three targets.
Possibly in Play: New Jersey
New Jersey is not as reliable a Democratic state as many people think it is. However, it is also not really a battleground state. Republicans are typically competitive at the state level (except they got clocks cleaned in last year’s state legislative election), but no Republican has won a US Senate seat in the Garden State since 1972.1 However, New Jersey has the distinction of having one of the most corrupt members of the Senate in Bob Menendez (D), who has been indicted on bribery and other corruption charges. He was acquitted of corruption several years ago, but this time it looks really bad for him. And he’s not doing himself any favors either with his implausible explanations for some of the evidence against him. At the moment, he’s running for reelection. But he is unlikely to win the Democratic nomination as his approval rating has fell through the floor. Rep. Andy Kim (D) jumped into the race the day the indictment was announced – suggesting political leaders in the state had knowledge it was about to happen. Recently, New Jersey’s First Lady Tammy Murphy, who was a Republican until 2014, has announced her candidacy. While Kim currently has a polling advantage on Murphy, her institutional support suggests that Menendez has lost any chance at winning – unless he can somehow squeeze a narrow victory in a multi-candidate primary.2 The primary is in June.
If Menendez loses the primary, Democrats win this seat. If Menendez wins, it’s going to be messy. My guess is someone will run as an independent. Republicans have a real shot at this seat if he wins the primary. The one thing the Republicans do not have going for them is that no Democrats are publicly supporting or excusing Menendez – something that seems highly unlikely if the party designations were reversed.
Stretch: Texas and Florida
Without going into details on the data here (I can do that in a later post; it requires a full post to explain), there is reason to believe that Texas might be much closer to voting for a Democrat statewide than people assume. That’s not a prediction; while the changing demographics of the state suggest a competitive Texas by 2028, it could come sooner. Considering how disliked Sen. Ted Cruz is and that Democrats have a potentially strong candidate in Rep. Collard Allen, I expect this race will at least be close.
Florida provides an interesting scenario. Sen. Rick Scott has championed issues that even Republican voters have balked at in the past – things like severely cutting funding for Social Security and Medicare. While we often hear Republicans say these things to certain crowds, but equivocate in public, Scott tried to make these issues ones GOP candidates would run on across the country. It would seem from this alone that he would be vulnerable, although that remains to be seen. Another complicating factor for him is the abortion rights measure that will likely be on the November ballot. I don’t think a leading Democratic candidate has emerged in the race yet, so that will also be a factor.
While I wouldn’t get too excited about winning either Texas or Florida (I actually think Texas is the better bet), one thing seems certain: if those Senate seats come into play for the Democrats, those states will also come into play for Biden. And if Biden can win just one of them, Republicans are doomed. For this reason, I think people should not write off either state. The easiest way to lose an election is to not contest it.
Lost Seat: West Virginia
There seems to be no way to hold onto West Virginia now that Sen. Joe Manchin has announced he’s not running for reelection, but he was probably going to lose that state anyway. In any case, Cook Political Report has moved its rating for the race to Solid Republican. Someday, someone is going to write a really interesting political history of West Virginia in the past few decades. In 1988, West Virginia was one of just ten states that voted for Gov. Michael Dukakis (D-MA). In 2020, Biden did not even get 30% of the vote in the Mountain State. Its move from a solidly Democratic state to a solidly Republican one may be the most stark change in American political history. Even the Republican “Solid South” took over 50 years to come to fruition from Thurmond’s Dixiecrat presidential run in 1948 to Bush’s election in 2000. And when we look back from the perspective of history, it might have only been really solid from 2000 to 2008.
It’s possible that another state or two could come into play as the election season goes along. The only other Republican-held state that I think could come into play is Missouri. It is possible that Washington, New Mexico, Minnesota, or Wisconsin could cause trouble for Democratic incumbents there. But at the moment, those Senators are all likely to win reelection.
Two Republicans did serve briefly as interim appointments since then.
There are two other Democrats that have announced their candidacies.