The 2024 Senate elections will test how well some of the Democratic Party’s most durable incumbents perform on a Republican-friendly map.
Democrats are the defending party in 23 of the 34 Senate elections, including in eight states that President Joe Biden lost or only narrowly won in 2020.
“I’d rather be us than them,” Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said in an interview. “But you can’t fall in love with a map. You have to keep working hard.”
At stake: control of one of the levers of government; a final say on lifetime jobs as judges; and power over much of the next president’s agenda, including whether tax rate cuts for individuals are allowed to expire at the end of 2025.
In the swing states plus Republican-leaning Montana and Ohio, Democrats’ hope of keeping their majority may hinge on convincing tens of thousands of Republican presidential voters to vote for the person rather than the party and continue bucking the trend of single-party delegations.
“It might be a relatively small number of voters in the United States who determine whether the Senate continues to be held by Democrats or swings over to the Republicans,” said Barry Burden, co-author of the book Why Americans Split Their Tickets.
2024 Senate Landscape: BGOV OnPoint
The most vulnerable Senate incumbents seeking re-election so far are Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.), according to nonpartisan analysts at the publications Inside Elections and the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter. Brown and Tester also are the only statewide elected Democrats left in their states.
Both were first elected in 2006, when Democrats surged amid anger at George W. Bush’s Republican Party over the Iraq War. They most recently faced voters in 2018, when Donald Trump was unpopular at the midpoint of his term.
With Republicans likely to criticize votes for President Joe Biden’s major initiatives, Tester and Brown have recently tried to put some distance between themselves and the White House.
“When I heard the Biden administration was trying to block funding for gun safety and hunter education classes, I knew Jon Tester would do what he always does: give ‘em hell,” says narrator John Salazar, identified in a Tester campaign commercial as a hunter education teacher.
Brown’s step away from Biden came in the personnel department. He said last week that he’s “deeply skeptical” of Biden’s nominee for deputy US trade representative, Nelson Cunningham.
GOP Opportunities
Democrats are also trying to fend off serious Republican takeover bids in five states that Biden won by fewer than three percentage points in 2020 — Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Arizona: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, whose seat also is rated a tossup, hasn’t said if she’ll seek re-election under the independent label she adopted after the 2022 election.
The ex-Democrat is polling behind likely major-party nominees Kari Lake (R), a close Trump ally who hasn’t conceded she lost a close 2022 election for governor, and Rep. Ruben Gallego, who’s among the most progressive House Democrats.
Michigan: Daines has praised former Rep. Mike Rogers’s campaign to succeed retiring Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D). But Rogers didn’t scare off James Craig, a pro-Trump former Detroit police chief; former one-term Rep. Peter Meijer, who was ousted in a 2022 primary after voting to impeach Trump; or Sandy Pensler, a wealthy businessman who ran for Senate in 2018. On Thursday, former Rep. Justin Amash said he, too, is exploring a run.
The Republican winner is likely to face Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D), a well-funded three-time winner of a competitive district, though she faces several primary opponents.
Republicans haven’t won a Senate election in Michigan since 1994, though Biden and Democrats could struggle in the southeastern part of the state if he doesn’t consolidate support from Muslim and Arab-American voters angry over the Israel-Hamas war.
Nevada: One-term Sen. Jacky Rosen (D) is running again. The NRSC’s preferred candidate is Sam Brown, a wounded Army veteran who was the 2022 Republican primary runner-up for the state’s other Senate seat. Jim Marchant, a former state assemblyman, and Jeff Gunter, who was Trump’s ambassador to Iceland, also are seeking the Republican nomination.
Nevada held 2022’s closest Senate election: Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D) edged Adam Laxalt (R) by eight-tenths of one percentage point.
Pennsylvania: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has prioritized the election of ex-Bridgewater Associates CEO Dave McCormick, the consensus GOP nominee against Sen. Bob Casey (D).
Two years ago, McCormick lost the primary for the state’s other seat to Mehmet Oz, the celebrity doctor who had Trump’s endorsement but weak ties to Pennsylvania. Oz’s subsequent loss to John Fetterman (D) underlined how much Republican strategists want to avoid a rerun of a calamitous 2022 election punctuated by unruly primaries and weak nominees.
“We need people who can not only win a primary, but people who can win a general,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who battled the anti-establishment Tea Party movement as NRSC chair in the 2010 and 2012 campaign cycles.
Wisconsin: Republican opposition to Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D) has been unusually slow to materialize. After Rep. Mike Gallagher (R) resisted GOP entreaties to run, the top Republican probably will be investor Eric Hovde, the 2012 Republican Senate primary runner-up who could self-finance a statewide bid.
“I come from a swing state that could decide both the majority of the Senate and the White House. And so we’re all gearing up,” Baldwin said.
New Jersey
Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) hasn’t announced his political plans even as he vehemently denies federal corruption charges that have sapped his political standing. New Jersey First Lady Tammy Murphy and Rep. Andy Kim are seeking the Democratic nomination.
Republicans last won a New Jersey Senate election in 1972. Democrats will be strongly favored to win Vermont if Sen. Bernie Sanders (I), who caucuses with them, doesn’t seek re-election.
NJ Race to Replace Menendez Pits Insiders vs Grassroots Backlash
Democrats would have to win all of those states to keep their majority, provided Biden is re-elected and they fail to win any seats Republicans are defending. Nonpartisan political analysts see the potential for competitive races only in Florida and Texas, where Democrats would need tens of millions of dollars against Sens. Rick Scott and Ted Cruz.
“The Democrats basically need to sweep the competitive races, which they’re capable of doing,” said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “But we are also in a time when the Senate and presidential results have become more highly correlated.”
Ohio and Montana “are must wins for Democrats,” he said. “For Republicans, really only one of them is a must win.”
Democrats working on their November strategy say swing-state incumbents Brown and Tester have authentic crossover appeal. Tester, the Veterans’ Affairs Committee chair, is the self-described “seven-fingered farmer from Big Sandy” with deep Montana ties. Brown, the Banking Committee chair who wears a canary lapel pin on his US-made suits, emphasizes the “dignity of work.”
“They have a track record of running well above the Democratic turnout and base in their states,” said Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), the chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “It’s because of who they are as individuals and their record of representing the people in their states.”
Tester said he intends to appeal to Trump supporters by “talking to them about what I’ve accomplished,” including infrastructure funding, veterans benefits, and “making sure the country’s safe. “
“We’ve got a long list,” he said Thursday.
GOP Uncertainty
Peters’ job would be easier if it was clear who those two incumbents will be running against.
Ohio’s March 19 Republican primary includes Bernie Moreno, a businessman endorsed by Trump; state Sen. Matt Dolan, whose family owns the Cleveland Guardians baseball team; and Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose.
In Montana, Daines is backing Tim Sheehy, a businessman and former Navy SEAL, over Rep. Matt Rosendale, a hard-right Freedom Caucus member who lost to Tester in 2018 and has not yet announced whether he’ll seek a rematch.
The fall campaign will be a little different in each of those states. Brown’s “going to wage his campaign in big media markets like Cleveland and Columbus,” said Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Tester will be on the ground as a person actually meeting with people.”
“The downside for Tester is he has further to go,” he said. “It’s a redder state, so he is going to have to really take advantage of that small-state advantage to get himself over the hump” with ticket-splitters.
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