The 2024 Senate Elections are coming, and it’s geared up to be a competitive one. Today I will tell you everything you need to know about the elections, including who’s favored to win, important people to keep an eye on, and key swing states.
Let’s get this out of the way first. The 2024 Senate Elections favor Republicans. Why? Because of the map. See, Democrats have an incumbent in virtually every competitive seat in the elections, and with a narrow majority in the senate, they have almost no room for error. Democrats have to win at least 7 out of the 8 competitive seats, which is hard to do in any cycle, let alone 2024, where we will likely see the most political polarization in history. Too more clearly represent the makeup of the 2024 senate, I will put the competitive seats into categories.
Most likely Republican: West Virginia
West Virginia voted for Trump by almost 40 points in 2020, and with Trump likely on the ballot again, I expect the same thing to happen. While many West Virginians like the incumbent, Joe Manchin, who is a conservative Democrat, I believe Trump’s Presidential effect will be too much for Manchin to overcome, and a Republican will be sworn in.
Most likely Democrat: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona
Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin are all competitive Rustbelt states with Democrat incumbents. While they are competitive in nature due to Trump’s presidential win in 2016 and Biden’s narrow victories in 2020, I still expect all of them to go to the Democrats, due to recent Democratic victories in Michigan and Pennsylvania, and due to the Republicans not running any strong candidate in Wisconsin. While Arizona is also a state that is trending to the left, the reason for it going blue in 2024 is a bit more complicated. See, sitting Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema recently switched from Democrat to independent. She has also announced re-election. This has prompted other liberal Democrats like Ruben Gallelo to try to replace her in an election. Meanwhile, on the Republican side, extremely unpopular candidate Kari Lake is running again. While you may think this will end up benefiting Lake due to a potential split between Democrats, polling has shown that Sinema actually takes away more Republican votes than Democrat ones. My prediction is that Gallelo will be the next Democratic senator from Arizona.
Toss Ups: Montana, Ohio, Nevada
These three states will be the ones to impact the senate elections the greatest, and are the ones where I really don’t know who will win. Montana and Ohio are deep red states, however they have very popular Democratic incumbents who are facing quite weak candidates, while Nevada has proven to be quite competitive in recent years. For these states, only time will tell.