CNN
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While events on the other side of the world – and the other end of the US Capitol – have dominated recent news, the race for control of the Senate is a crucial factor in what Washington could look like after next year’s elections.
The 2024 Senate map is advantageous for Republicans as they try to pick up the one or two seats needed to flip the chamber, depending on who wins the White House next year. Members of the Senate Democratic Caucus are defending the most competitive seats – the top eight on this list of 10 seats most likely to flip – which is not likely to change ahead of November 2024.
The order of the ranking, however, is changing. (Rankings are based on CNN’s reporting, fundraising figures and historical data about how states and candidates have performed.) Pennsylvania, for example, shoots up from No. 7 in July to No. 4 this month – in large part because it’s the one battleground where Republicans aren’t facing a messy primary.
GOP candidate fields elsewhere have only grown over the past couple of months, despite the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s new policy of taking sides in primaries. Besides Pennsylvania, the national party has made its preference known for specific candidates in West Virginia, Montana, Nevada and Michigan. The NRSC is neutral in Ohio’s crowded primary and hasn’t ruled out endorsing in Arizona.
Whether engaging in primaries early on will pay off remains to be seen. So far, however, NRSC Chairman Steve Daines’ tactic of keeping Donald Trump close appears to be working, as the former president hasn’t yet endorsed against any of the campaign committee’s picks.
The GOP presidential front-runner – with his four criminal indictments – is likely to be a liability in some places next year if he is the party’s nominee. But Republicans take comfort in the fact that he won the top three states on this list handily in 2020 and red-state Democrats will have to run with an unpopular President Joe Biden atop the ticket. In an era of increasingly nationalized politics, it’s becoming harder to run for Senate in a state that voted for the opposite party’s presidential nominee. In Democrats’ favor, however, Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Jon Tester of Montana and Sherrod Brown of Ohio have succeeded at it before.
Vulnerable Democratic senators will try to distance themselves from Biden where they can or try to signal that they represent a check on the White House. For example, six of them (plus independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who caucuses with Democrats) recently joined a bipartisan call to the secretary of state to freeze $6 billion in Iranian assets after Hamas’ attack on Israel – even though the administration has made clear that the money hasn’t been touched, has strict restrictions around it and the US hasn’t found a direct link between Iran and the Hamas attack.
It’s too early to say whether current events – especially abroad – could have any impact on elections that are still over a year away, but with the GOP-led House paralyzed without a speaker and Congress being called upon to approve aid to Israel and Ukraine, the moment has underscored how congressional contests have very real consequences.
Here’s where things stand in the race for the Senate just over a year before Election Day 2024:
Incumbent: Democrat Joe Manchin
West Virginia remains the seat most likely to change party hands next year, whatever Sen. Joe Manchin does. The most conservative Democrat in the Senate – who hasn’t ruled out running as an independent for reelection or for president – Manchin isn’t expected to announce his plans until the end of this year. He raised $715,000 in the July-to-September third quarter – enough to maintain appearances that he’ll be a candidate next year. The haul is also more than what either of his major GOP opponents raised but about half a million less than his previous quarter total. (The chances of this seat flipping only go up if Manchin declines to seek a third full term.)
Even if he runs without the “D” after his name, he’ll have an uphill battle in a state Trump won by 39 points in 2020. His vulnerability is apparent in the way GOP-affiliated ads are tying him to Biden and Democratic-aligned spots are tying him to Trump. One Nation, for example, has attacked him over his support of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, while Duty and Honor PAC has touted Manchin’s work with Trump to protect miners’ pensions.
The immediate fight, however, is the GOP primary, where Jim Justice, the popular Democrat-turned-Republican governor, has outraised Rep. Alex Mooney by about $300,000. While national Republicans and Trump are behind Justice, the Club for Growth and an allied super PAC have committed nearly $13.6 million to the House Freedom Caucus member. The club’s political arm is airing ads calling Justice a RINO, or Republican in Name Only, and trying to tie him to Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell.
Incumbent: Democrat Jon Tester
