The 2024 U.S. Senate races are now in the homestretch and still have some distance to go until they reach the finish line on November 5. This is important to note because, despite nearly all the public polling, most of the 10 or so competitive races are likely not yet decided. In fact, the present polls might be very misleading, whether intentionally so or not.
The problem with the public polling is that, with a few exceptions, they have under-measured the Republican vote. Part of this can be explained by the frequent Democrat bias of the pollsters, and part of it by the reluctance of many conservative voters to respond to poll takers or to be candid with them if they do.
Combine that with the particular character of the 2024 cycle — with its sudden shocks and surprises — and you have an unusually difficult environment for public polling to function usefully.
The Republican advantage in this Senate election cycle is obvious. 23 Democrat incumbent seats are on the ballot, compared to only 11 GOP incumbent seats. Of these, 15 Democrat seats are considered safe for re-election, while nine GOP seats are considered safe. Only one seat, in West Virginia, is rated as a safe pick-up, with Republican Jim Justice, the current governor of the state, expected to easily replace the retiring Democrat Joe Manchin.
Eight Democrat seats, in Arizona, Nevada, Montana, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, are competitive. The two Republican incumbents facing serious challenges are in Texas and Florida.
Republicans lead now in only one of the Democrat seats they are seeking — Montana — but are believed to be tied in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
While the two apparently vulnerable GOP incumbents running this year could become close races, Florida Senator Rick Scott and Texas Senator Ted Cruz have in their past elections performed notably better than the pre-election polls and currently lead in the 2024 polls. Each of them has a less formidable opponent than they faced in their last Senate races. Trump is also heavily favored to win these two states.
Tim Sheehy now appears likely to unseat Democrat John Tester in Montana. Although Republican Bernie Moreno has trailed Ohio incumbent Sherrod Brown in the polls until now, two recent polls have Moreno tied. Trump will likely easily carry both of these states handily in 2024, and these two liberal incumbents, who have won despite these states otherwise voting for GOP candidates, face a much stiffer challenge this cycle to overcome the local conservative tide.
A strong finish for Donald Trump this year could also mean the difference for several other Republican Senate challengers now locked in competitive races. The quality of these GOP candidates is significantly better than in 2022 when the party failed to pick up a single Senate seat and narrowly lost one in Pennsylvania.
In fact, Pennsylvania, despite having a Democrat incumbent on the ballot this year, offers the GOP one of its best opportunities to pick up an additional seat. The Keystone State went very narrowly to Biden in 2020, and the GOP ticket was hampered in 2022 by an especially weak candidate in the gubernatorial race.
Arguably the strongest GOP Senate candidate also lost the nomination by a few hundred votes out of millions cast. That candidate, David McCormick, is the Republican nominee this cycle, and he had no serious opposition in his primary election.
McCormick’s opponent, incumbent Bob Casey, has won three times before and is part of a well-known Pennsylvania political family. But he is not a strong retail politician and is also hampered by his support of the unpopular Biden-Harris administration which has promoted a number of economic and energy policies which have negatively affected so many of the state’s workers and their families. McCormick has also run one of the best campaigns of the GOP challengers this cycle and has the means to match Casey’s initial campaign spending advantage.
Likewise, businessman Eric Hovde can self-finance to be competitive with Democrat incumbent Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin. Polls in this state have routinely underestimated GOP Senate candidates in the past, and Hovde is almost tied with Baldwin in the latest polls.
GOP nominees in Michigan, Arizona, Nevada, and Maryland face more uphill obstacles in their challenges for Democrat incumbent seats.
But three of those races are for open seats. Former Michigan Congressman Mike Rogers is running a strong race against Democrat Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin for the seat being vacated by Democrat Debbie Stabenow. This is one of the most hotly contested battleground states, and Rogers has gained some important endorsements in the final days of the campaign, including the support of the state Farmers Union (which backed Slotkin in her previous races) and the surprise endorsement of the Democrat mayor of Hamtramck, an enclave of Detroit, which has a large Arab-American community.
Arizona is a traditionally Republican state which has trended Democrat in recent years. Although Trump lost this state in 2020, he appears to have a clear lead over Harris this year. GOP Senate nominee Kari Lake almost won a controversial gubernatorial election here in 2022, was for many years a popular TV figure in the state, and in most recent polls has drawn almost even with her Democrat opponent Congressman Ruben Gallego. His record as a radical left-wing legislator makes him vulnerable in this moderate state, and if Lake can communicate to voters how radical he is, she could win this open seat.
Two GOP challengers, in Nevada and Maryland, have even more challenges than their colleagues in the above states. Veteran Sam Brown faces Democrat incumbent Jackie Rosen. He trails in the polls by double digits, but Trump might win here this year, even though he did not carry the state in 2016 or 2020. Nevada has been trending Republican in recent elections.
Maryland, on the other hand, is a solid state for Democrats, and Harris will win big here. But moderate Republican and former Governor Larry Hogan was an especially effective and popular state chief executive and makes this race for an open Senate seat (being vacated by Democrat Ben Cardin) unexpectedly competitive.
As anticipated, the early polling, which almost everywhere favored Democrats, is now tightening, usually within the margin of error, toward competitive Republican challengers.
Two Democratic seats, in West Virginia and Montana, already appear as very likely Republican pick-ups (giving the GOP a narrow majority). But if the 2024 campaign continues to break for the Republicans and Donald Trump, the Senate GOP majority will be notably larger.
Barry Casselman is a writer for AMAC Newsline.
The only poll that matters is the one on November 5th. The only questions? Will Conservative and Undecideds show up? Will TDS determine the fate of the country and it’s citizens? How much fraud will there be?
I always thought that Texas was a great standup State, and thought it might be a great state to live in one day, but reports are that the people of Texas are considering voting for a Left-Wing Radical Democrat on the advice of Liz Cheney, if that happens it would show how weak people in Texas really are that they need Big Government handouts and be nursemaids from Government to look after them, it’s sad to see a great state go left like Colorado and New Mexico, who’s next.
God Bless America
Go Ted Curz!
May God bless all Republicans to win so as to protect our nation from the Globalists and most of all our people who are suffering in this regime.
The voters are fickle. They vote for a personality. The MSM and the dems are even saying policies don’t matter it is the person. Because the dems have no policy never had in the past 4 years. Biden screamed “this is the United States of America for God’s sake”. Like that was the policy we should accept, good, bad or indifferent. They don’t want you to think for yourself. After all for 16 years we have been told the dems are perfect vote for the dems. O started with the destruction, Mrs O said “she never was proud of America”, but they made 70 million dollars as president in 8 years. The Clintons made 240 million. And Trump lost half a billion in 4 years as president. What does that tell you. K was not from a middle class neighborhood. And slept her way to the top with the help of her paramour Willy Brown. And in the Senate races are many candidates with questionable backgrounds. Where policy is forgotten and glamour is promoted. It either be race. Or gender or sexual orientation that is put as the qualification for the job as senator. Be very careful who you vote for in your state. Policy or personality. Read up on the candidates and then vote who does the most for the country and its citizens.
“Nevada has been trending Republican”? Gee, I wish! We’ve got both gas prices and inflation to match California’s… maybe because all these Californians sick of what’s happening there move here but vote the same! That’s why Jackie Rosen has a “double-digit lead”! Party loyalty… they can’t articulate reasons why they keep voting Democrat anymore than explain why they would think Walz won the VP debate!
People you must get out and vote in November! Let’s make it a red wave like they’ve never seen and show our support
Trump supporting Republicans must win congressional seats in order for Trump to be effective as president again. It is a shame, but no Democrat can be trusted because all Democrats are kowtowing to the Progressive/Communists who are in control of today’s Democrat Party.
We need to get Progressive/Communist supporters out of the Democrat Party as well as D.C. Swamp dwelling career politicians out of the Republican Party if we want to keep the U.S. as the Constitutional Republic it was designed to be.
I find it hard to believe that Cruz is in any peril! Robert Francis “BETO” O’Rourke last time appeared close but actually finished way behind. I think it’s similar now. Texans cannot be so STUPID as to vote for the Marxist DIMM! As for others, GOP finishes better toward the end. We’ll see what happens!
Lets not forget noncitizens and those who fight for their rights to vote Also those living in the fantasy land will be casting their votes. That spells fraud.
People, I encourage all registered voters to vote early if you have reached a decision on the candidates. You could become ill or have a family emergency on Election Day, and that could prevent you from casting your vote. Don’t take that chance, VOTE EARLY.
I had to drive from CO to south Texas in 2022 for a funeral, and I felt like I was fighting the battle of The Alamo wherever I went. English was rarely heard in stores and restaurants. With the invasion of ILLEGAL ALIENS, it’s only a matter of time before Texas turns blue and all the electoral votes go to the democrat candidate for POTUS. While we face the demise of our country if Comrade Commy-la steals this election, our constitutional republic will cease to exist when Texas flips.
I had to stop reading when you said Trump lost Fracksylvania.
Trump won the legal vote by 750,000 votes when the count concluded on election night. The DEImocrat election fraud operation added just a little more than enough fake ballots after all the observers were gone.
Stop lying.
Why Trump failed in 2020 is the same reason that Kari Lake failed becoming Gov in Arizona in 2022 …. obvious cheating …. the secretary of state, who confirmed ballots, confirmed her own win making Katie Hobbs governor? The only way Trump will lose, and Kari Lake won’t be in the Senate … is more cheating … or … a black swan event that will bring about Martial Law, and delay / cancel the election. Joe’s weak condition will get worse … and he will step down, putting the Vice President as President, without an election.
We really need a Trump win and Republican majorities in both houses this time or Trump will be against the same opposition at every step as last time. It’s a miracle he got so much done.
The illegal immigration fiasco is the tipping point. Only if the GOP regains the WH and prevents the illegal cohort from citizenship & voting (if not deporting them), then the roots of a one-party socialist state are established —- Just what the Dems had in mind.