State of the Race: Six key Senate seats Republicans look to flip in 2024

Republicans are gearing up for an epic showdown for Senate majority control later this year, with several contentious elections taking place across the country.

Democrats control the U.S. Senate with a 51-49 majority, but Republicans are eyeing a favorable situation in the Senate in 2024, when Democrats will defend 23 of the 34 seats at stake. Three of those seats are in red states won by former President Donald Trump in 2020: West Virginia, Montana and Ohio.

The remaining five seats (one held by an independent) are in key battleground states that President Biden narrowly won in 2020: Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Texas and Florida, where incumbents Ted Cruz and Rick Scott are up for re-election, respectively, appear to be the only seats Republicans could win next year.

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Ohio

Sen. Sherrod Brown, a longtime Democrat, is the only member of his party to win a nonjudicial election. Ohio Statewide Elections In the last 10 years. Brown is running for a fourth and sixth term as Ohio’s representative in 2024, a state that used to be a battleground in the general election but has turned red over the past six years. facing tough targets from

Trump led Ohio by 8 points after winning the 2016 presidential election and losing reelection in 2020. Last year, President Trump handpicked the Ohio Senate candidates. Senator J.D. Vance, Despite running what political experts considered a near-perfect campaign, Ryan beat longtime Democratic congressman Tim Ryan by six points.

Brown, who has served as a congressman, state representative and Ohio secretary of state during his nearly half-century political career, reportedly raised $5.7 million in the first two months of 2024, giving his campaign $13.5 million on hand. It is being

Two Republicans who lost to Vance for Ohio’s 2022 Senate nomination, state Sen. Matt Dolan and businessman Bernie Moreno, are vying to oust Brown. .

Dolan, a former county attorney and assistant attorney general in Ohio, began his campaign in January 2023. Dolan, whose family owns Major League Baseball’s Cleveland Guardians, has spent millions of his personal fortune on advertising for his 2022 Senate race.

He rose sharply in the final stages of the primary, finishing third among a crowded field of Republican candidates, receiving nearly a quarter of the vote.

Moreno, a successful Cleveland-based businessman and luxury car dealership magnate, announced his candidacy in April. Mr. Moreno, an immigrant who entered the United States legally from Colombia with his family as a 5-year-old boy, also fled at the cost of millions of his own money. TV commercial in an effort to boost his first bid for the Senate. However, he suspended his campaign in February 2022 after requesting and holding a private meeting with President Trump.

In July, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose joined the race, kickstarting his long-awaited Senate campaign. The state’s primary election is scheduled for March 19th.

Ohio Republican Senate candidates Matt Dolan, Frank LaRose and Bernie Moreno are vying for their party’s nomination in the state’s March 19 primary. (AP)

montana

As Democrats breathed a sigh of relief, Senator Jon Tester of Montana announced earlier this year that he would seek re-election in 2024 in a state that Trump led by 16 points in the 2020 presidential election. The Democratic incumbent, who is running unopposed, has raised a whopping $15 million by the end of 2023.

Former Tim Sheehy navy special forces The Purple Heart recipient, who served more than 200 tours of duty in Iraq, Afghanistan and other wars around the world, ran for Republican Senate seat in late June.

Sheehy, CEO of Bridger Aerospace, a Montana-based aerial firefighting and wildfire monitoring services company, has the backing of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) and received an endorsement from President Trump last month. It has gained.

Sheehy will face four other Republican candidates in the state’s June 4 primary, including former Montana Secretary of State Brad Johnson.

Far-right Rep. Matt Rosendale initially announced his candidacy for the Senate seat, but later withdrew from the race.

Rosendale, who narrowly lost to Tester in the 2018 Senate race, said he would seek reelection in Montana’s 2nd Congressional District after his withdrawal. But those plans were scrapped last week when Rosendale announced he was suspending his House campaign, citing “current attacks” against him.

Mr. Tester’s campaign, which is running unopposed, announced it had raised $15 million by the end of 2023. (Getty Images)

west virginia

With Sen. Joe Manchin (D-Va.) not seeking re-election, the West Virginia Senate race is brightening for Republicans looking to flip the seat from blue to red.

“We like our odds in West Virginia,” Sen. Steve Daines, chairman of the NRSC, said last year.

The main action now is the Republican Senate primary, where popular Democrat-turned-Republican Gov. Jim Justice has the support of the NRSC and Trump. Of the six Republicans running against Mr. Justice, his biggest rival for the Republican Senate nomination is Alex Mooney, a Republican who represents the state’s 2nd Congressional District and is backed by the fiscally conservative Club for Growth. It’s Mr.

Zachary Shrewsberry, a 32-year-old West Virginia native and Marine Corps veteran, was the first Democrat to enter the race after Manchin resigned. Other Democrats, Don Blankenship and Glenn Elliott, are also running.

Manchin announced in November that he would not seek re-election to the Senate, saying in a video posted to Ta. Manchin previously served as governor, but he was first elected to the U.S. Senate representing West Virginia in a 2010 special election.

The state’s primary election is scheduled to be held on May 14th.

Congressman Alex Mooney (R-Va.) (left) and Republican West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice (right). (Getty/AP Photo/Chris Jackson)

wisconsin

In Wisconsin, incumbent Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) is seeking to maintain her position in the Senate and win a third term.

Baldwin, who announced his candidacy last April, has represented the Badger State in the Senate since 2013. He previously served in the Wisconsin State Assembly, representing the 2nd Congressional District in the House of Representatives from 1999 to 2013.

Mr. Baldwin is running unopposed and has strong support from his party at the state and national level. But Republicans are eager to pick up seats this cycle.

Republican businessman and real estate mogul Eric Hovde ran for Senate in February, becoming a target for Democrats seeking to retain his seat.

Last week, Senate Majority PAC made a $2 million ad buy targeting Hovde as a “billionaire California banker.” The ad sought to portray Mr. Hovde as an “outrageous carpetbagger” who is not aligned with the interests of his Wisconsin district.

NRSC Communications Director Mike Berg acknowledged the advertising campaign, saying: I wrote to X: “How bad is it that @TammyBaldwin and @SenSchumer are panicking about @EricHovde?”

Hovde ran for office in 2012, but lost in the Republican primary to former Gov. Tommy Thompson. Baldwin won the general election that year.

Hovde officially announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate in February. (Eric Hovde Campaign)

arizona

With Democratic-turned-independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema announcing that she will not seek re-election, attention in the battleground state of Arizona’s Senate race has shifted to two prominent candidates: Democratic Representative Ruben Gallego He’s a member of the House of Representatives. and Republican Kari Lake, who represents the state’s 3rd Congressional District and previously ran for governor in 2022.

It was reported earlier this year that Gallego, the top Democrat seeking a Senate seat, had raised $3.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2023. The Gallego campaign reported earlier this year that it had raised $13 million since starting its bid for the seat in January 2023.

Lake, a former television news anchor who has been endorsed by several leading Senate Republicans and Mr. Trump, quickly became the Republican front-runner after jumping into the race last October.

Politico reported in January that Lake “raised $2 million in about 11 weeks after entering the race, but quickly spent nearly half of it,” adding, “He has just over $1 million in the bank and $308,000 in debt. It was reported that it became “$”. At the beginning of 2024.

Prior to Lake’s candidacy, Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, a Republican, filed papers to run for the office last April. Seven other Republicans are also seeking their party’s nomination for the seat in the July 30 state primary.

Left to right: Republican Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb; Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, Arizona. Former Republican Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake. (Getty Images)

pennsylvania

keystone stateis a perennial general election battleground and will once again live up to its reputation in 2024 as it hosts what will likely be one of the most competitive and expensive Senate races in the country. That’s going to happen.

Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, who served as state comptroller for 10 years and then as treasurer until he was first elected to the Senate in 2006, is seeking his fourth six-year term.

Mr. Casey is not expected to face serious challenges in the Democratic primary, but is the son of a popular former governor.

Republicans appear to be united behind dave mccormick, is running for the Senate for the second year in a row. McCormick narrowly lost the state’s 2022 Republican Senate primary to Mehmet Oz, who lost the general election to former Braddock Mayor John Fetterman.

Mr. McCormick, a former hedge fund executive, West Point graduate, Gulf War veteran and Treasury official in the administration of former President George W. Bush, was endorsed by the Pennsylvania Republican Party in late September shortly after he entered the race.

Casey is a Democrat who was first elected to the Senate in 2006 and is seeking a four-year term. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc, via Getty Images)

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Axios reported in January that McCormick raised $5.4 million as a candidate in the first quarter. Casey’s campaign announced earlier this year that it had raised more than $3.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2023.

McCormick has received offers to run from national and state Republicans, and his candidacy would give the party a high-profile candidate who could raise money for his own campaign.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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