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.
