Article by Lorenzo Levy | Illustration by Mallika Sunder

National Level Analysis

     The US Senate elections in 2024 are set to be closely watched.  After the 2022 US Senate elections, Democrats control 51 seats (including 3 Independents who caucus with the Democrats) and Republicans control 49 seats.  If Democrats win the 2024 presidential election (and thus the Vice Presidency), Democrats can only lose a net one seat to retain a majority, although a 50-50 majority would limit Senate Democrats’ power on committees and subpoenas.  If Democrats lose the presidential election in 2024, then Democrats cannot afford to lose a single seat.

     The Senate map for 2024, to put it lightly, does not look good for Democrats.  The last time this batch of Senate seats was up for re-election, in 2018, the national environment was absolutely optimal for the Democrats since there was a blue-wave backlash against the recently elected Republican president.  Midterms almost always favor the party not in the White House, but this phenomenon was especially potent when that president is Donald Trump.  Even in this perfect environment, Democrats still lost a net two seats, which would have easily been three if not for an exceptional pedophilia scandal with the Republican nominee for Senate in Alabama.        

     Democrats’ loss in seats was instead fueled by Democratic incumbents losing in deep-red states like North Dakota and Missouri.  Luckily for Democrats, several Democratic incumbents in deep-red states still managed to triumph over their Republican opponents.  Whether or not these Democrats will be able to keep their seats remains to be seen.

     From the Republican perspective, there are several opportunities for pickups and only a couple incumbents that could be in tight races.  There are ten Democratic incumbents up for re-election from states that Biden won by less than ten points or that Trump won.  There are no Republican incumbents in states where Biden won and only two Republican incumbents in states where Trump won by less than ten points.  Democrats could optimistically consider Josh Hawley in Missouri a potential target for a flip for reasons to be explored below.  In an ideal world for Democrats, where all Democratic incumbents win and all Republicans in competitive races lose, they only get a 53 seat majority.  For Republicans, their ideal scenario would work out to a 57 seat majority.

State Level Analysis

(All incumbents Democratic unless noted)

*not running for re-election

Arizona

     Democrats have been on a hot streak in Arizona, winning all but one major statewide race (Senate, Governor, and President) since 2018.   Incumbent Kyrsten Sinema won in 2018 as a Democrat by a relatively significant margin for a swing state like Arizona.  That being said, she has alienated a great deal of her Democratic base due to her stubbornness to preserve the filibuster at the expense of any legislative progress that the possibly last Democratic trifecta for the near future could have made.  She is also more broadly seen, as evidenced by her personality and style, as pretentious, disloyal (after leaving the Democratic party to become an “Independent”), and attention-hungry.  

     There was talk of well-liked and loyal Democrat Ruben Gallego of challenging Sinema in a Democratic primary, a primary that Sinema would have almost certainly lost.  Now that Sinema is an independent, she does not have to face a primary.  Democrats are now faced with a tough dilemma.  Almost every Democrat would prefer Gallego over Sinema but would prefer Sinema over the far-right extremist that Republicans would likely nominate.  

     As of the writing of this article, it remains to be seen who will actually run, although Sinema has filed paperwork. If only Gallego but not Sinema were to run, there would be a relatively high chance that he would win against a Republican, although the election would almost certainly be fairly close in a state like Arizona.  If only Sinema but not Gallego or any other prominent Democratic challenger were to run, there is still a decent chance she could defeat a Republican, but much less of a chance than Gallego, since her support among Democrats is so weak and right-leaning independent voters whose support she thinks her antics gets her would probably vote for a Republican over her anyway.  By far the lowest chance for the Republican to be defeated would be if both Sinema and Gallego were to run.  Since Arizona is such a closely divided state, if Sinema or Gallego got even 10% of the vote, it would almost certainly hand the election to the Republican.

Florida

     Florida used to be the archetype of a swing state; a margin of a few hundred votes determined the presidential election in 2000.  It was a state that both Republicans and Democrats could presumably win statewide elections.  However, since the emergence of Trump as a figure in American politics, Florida has been taking a sharp turn to the right.  Florida has not gone to a Democrat on the presidential level since 2012, where President Obama won by less than a percentage point.  Florida was one of the handful of states which voted for Trump more during his second run compared to his first run.

     As for the Senate level, Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson lost by less than a percentage point to Republican Rick Scott in 2018, a year that heavily favored Democrats.  This, combined with the fact that Florida’s other Republican Senator (Marco Rubio) won re-election by over 16 points, means that there will be an intensely uphill battle for a Democrat to win Florida’s senate seat.  That being said, Rick Scott is a much weaker candidate than Marco Rubio since he, because of his ethnicity, will have a harder time garnering the crucial Cuban-American vote (especially if the Democrats run a Cuban-American candidate).  Additionally, Scott, during his tenure as chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, became the face of several unpopular policies pushed by Senate Republicans, such as raising taxes on working people and sunsetting all federal legislation after five years, including crucial programs like Social Security and Medicare. However, it is quite possible that the Floridian electorate will not remember this incident, at least not enough to sway the election.

Michigan

     Michigan used to be a solid Democratic state, part of the so-called “blue wall” that stretched from Minnesota to Pennsylvania.  Over time, as a consequence of migration of Democratic voters from the industrial Midwest and Northeast to the South and Southwest and the changing politics of white blue-collar workers, Michigan and the other states in the “Rust Belt” have become less Democratic, so much so that Trump was able to break the blue wall and narrowly win Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania in 2016.  Like Arizona, however, Democrats have been doing very well in Michigan since 2018.  Democrats have won every major statewide election (Senate, Governor, and President) since 2018 and even flipped both chambers of the state legislature in 2022.  One potential concern for Democrats for Michigan’s US Senate seat though is the fact that they will not have the incumbency advantage since incumbent Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow will be retiring.

Minnesota

      Even though Minnesota only voted for Hillary Clinton by 1.5 points in 2016 and for Biden by 7.1 points, popular incumbent Democrat Senator Amy Klobuchar won her last election by over 24 points.  The last time Minnesota elected a Republican Senator was in 2002.  In the absence of any truly extraordinary surprises, Klobuchar is almost certainly going to win re-election by a good-sized margin.