Looking to the 2024 Senate Map
A tough map for the Democrats.
Last week the UVA Center for Politic’s Sabato’s Crystal Ball issued the following: Initial Senate Ratings: Democrats Have a Lot of Defending to Do.
As has been known, the map is favorable to the GOP.
First of all, there’s just the basic math. There are 34 Senate races slated for next year so far — 33 regular contests, plus a special election in Nebraska,
[…]
Democrats are defending 23 of these seats, while Republicans are defending just 11.
Emphasis in the original–and “Democrats” include two independents who caucus with the Democrats.
Moreover, “it isn’t necessarily a stretch to say that Democrats are defending the top 8 Senate seats likeliest to flip.” (emphasis also in the original).
The map:
For anyone who was hoping that West Virginia Democrats might be in a position to nominate a “real Democrat” may well get their wish, as there is a non-zero chance Manchin retires as he barely won re-election last time and this time it will be a presidential year. Of course, the almost certain outcome of a more Democraty Democrat in that race will be a flipped seat to the Republicans.
Of the toss-up state, Democrats are likely in a tough spot in Montana and Ohio. Arizona will be interesting insofar as the state has recently lean Democratic at the state level, but the actions of new independent Senator Sinema could come into play.
The Arizona situation is fascinating, given the possibility of a true 3-way race. Gallego may have the Democratic primary field to himself, but that remains an open question — one possible contender, Rep. Greg Stanton (D, AZ-4), passed on a bid in advance of Gallego’s announcement. Gallego is definitely positioned to Sinema’s left, which may help him consolidate the Democratic base but could leave him vulnerable with the swing voters who ultimately will decide the race. But that also depends on whether Sinema runs, how national Democrats decide to handle the race if she does, and who Republicans nominate.
Granted, the specifics of the national climate in November 2024 is an unknown variable, but it is hard to look at that map and not assume that the most likely outcome is a Republican Senate in January of 2025.
This being a presidential year, may provide some solace for Dems as a strong Biden win may keep the incoming R majority under 60, therefore keeping the filibuster in place. R’s leaving the filibuster in place, is only likely to happen if Biden were to win and the house flip back.
@Sleeping Dog: FWIW, I think 60 for the GOP is unlikely even if 2024 is a strong R year for whatever reason.
60 is hard, if not impossible, historically speaking.
@Steven L. Taylor:
You’re likely right, but setting a low expectation for Dems will assuage some of the pain.
I can’t recall if Bernie has declared his reelection plans, if he were to decide to retire, Phil Scott would provide R’s with a surprisingly reasonable chance to flip that seat.
One oddly hopeful sign: there is no indication that the Republican base is going to lessen their demand for whackos and degenerates as candidates. In a statewide race in a flippable seat, this could be crucial.
That gives the Democrats one year to set SCOTUS term limits at 18 years (effective retroactively), then another year to replace Thomas, Alito, and Roberts. /fantasy
Basically, the only hope Dems have is a significant return of ticket-splitting. The last election cycle where we saw any major discrepancies between Senate and presidential races within states was 2012. Manchin won in a landslide while Romney simultaneously won WV by about an equally large margin. Tester’s reelection was somewhat narrow, but in a state Romney won comfortably. Heidi Heitkamp won in North Dakota. There was even one state where the Senate seat flipped from R to D despite a double-digit win for Romney: Indiana, due to the Republican nominee stepping in it when discussing abortions in the case of rape.
Ever since Trump’s rise, ticket-splitting has almost completely disappeared. Elections have become heavily nationalized. The one example of a Senate race going differently than a state’s presidential results in the past two cycles is Susan Collins in Maine.
Manchin, Tester, and Brown need to win in states that will very likely back the Republican presidential nominee. It’s unclear whether it will matter whether that nominee is Trump or not. Was the extreme nationalization we saw in 2016 and 2020 a result of Trump being the nominee, or other reasons? It’s hard to say.
@Scott F.:
It’s fantasy because it’s clearly unconstitutional, even if there were 60 votes for it, which there aren’t.
My worry is that Gallego and Sinema will split the majority vote in AZ, and thus allow the GQP candidate to win by plurality.
I’ve no love for Sinema, and even her quirky fashion show has grown old, but better the evil you know and all that.
@Scott F.:
The DOJ, Jack Smith, and Fanni Willis have only about 5 months to indict Benito. /fantasy
If either of them does, there’s no way any court will agree to keep El Cheeto locked up without bail pending trial. There is a large possibility then, IMO, he’d flee the country. That might be even better than a conviction /double fantasy.
@James Joyner:
My proposal was simply less fantastical than hoping Thomas, Roberts, and Alito would retire with the Democrats in control of the Senate and White House.
@Kathy:
Maybe I’m being naively optimistic, but I don’t think she’ll ultimately run as an indie in 2024. I think her leaving the party was a ploy—and an ingenious one, I have to admit—to scare the Dems away from nominating their own candidate, out of fear of a three-way race. But now that Gallego has made clear he isn’t backing down from seeking the nomination and is getting a lot of institutional support from the party, I don’t see her as running a purely spite-fueled candidacy she has no chance of actually winning. It would only damage any attempts at a viable post-Senate career.
I could be misreading her, but that’s my prediction.
@Kathy: DOJ’s gonna run out the clock. Not a prediction/fantasy, a spoiler. 🙁
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
I’m afraid you’re right.
@Kylopod: If she’s smart, she will retire from the Senate to avoid rolling around in loser stink.
It’s hard to pull the Third Way Faux Centrist grift when you’ve shown that it’s not what people want, and that grift seems more like her than the Fox News pet “liberal” grift that Tulsi Gabbard is playing.
Her next step is clearly going to be a grift. A light grift of telling lies rather than selling non-functional products. Maybe set up a lobbying career that doesn’t bother to lobby?
@Just nutha ignint cracker: The special prosecutor hit the ground running, and was formerly a war crimes prosecutor, so I’m a little more hopeful than you.
That said, I think the Trump legal strategy is just to keep the plates in the air until Trump eventually drops dead, and the legal system can be very slow, so it might not be up to Jack Smith. If Trump had decent lawyers, I would be betting on them, but he doesn’t like paying his bills, so he gets worse and worse lawyers.
@Kylopod:
In Arizona, any registered Democrat who can collect signatures from about 8,500 registered voters — who do not have to be registered as Democrats — makes the primary ballot. Winner of the primary makes the ballot for the general election. There was zero chance that there wouldn’t be a Democrat on the ballot in the general. Zero.
Given that, nothing makes sense for the AZ Dems except to run the strongest candidate possible, and make it clear the Sinema has no chance. The earlier they do that, in hopes of chasing her out of the race, the better.
@Michael Cain:
Fair enough, but there was a chance the institutional party wouldn’t run any strong candidates and would get behind Sinema–or at least that’s what she was calculating. Lieberman managed to win a three-way race as an indie. I think that was the model she was hoping to emulate.
Of course there are major differences. Connecticut was already a very blue state by 2006, Arizona most definitely is not. Not only did many elected Dems back Lieberman, so did many Republicans. Lieberman had built up decades of support from the GOP, starting with his initial Senate race in 1988 where he ran to the right of the Republican candidate and earned an endorsement from Bill Buckley.
Sinema is clutching onto an outdated politics. Her centrism hasn’t given her a broad bipartisan base of support, it’s just made her hated by her own former party without getting her any GOP support in return. And even Lieberman ultimately destroyed himself with his playing-to-both-sides game–that’s why he didn’t run again in 2012.