The 2024 Election Considered

The U.S., stunningly in what seems like such an obvious choice, is closely divided at the national level between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, and this trend seems sure to continue in every component of the 2024 election.

The 2024 U.S. Senate Race

The U.S. Senator Joe Manchin II (D-WV) isn't running for re-election. This race is almost sure to be won in 2024 by a Republican. As the New York Times article below notes, "only Wyoming delivered a wider Republican margin in the 2020 presidential race" than West Virginia.

Democrats need to hold every Senate seat they have and win the Presidential election, or gain on Senate seat, to maintain their U.S. Senate majority. This means winning an open race in Arizona (where Senator Sinema who left the Democratic party while still caucusing with it, is polling in third-place but could give a GOP challenger an edge), re-electing incumbent Democrats in the Red States of Montana and Ohio, and holding onto Democratic seats in the purple states of Michigan (an open seat), Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Nevada. Democrats best shots to pick up new seats against Republican incumbents long shots - Florida and Texas. 

The path to holding power was always going to be rocky for the Democrats’ current 51-seat majority, with or without Mr. Manchin.

Two incumbents are running for re-election in red states, Montana and Ohio. A third senator, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who was elected as a Democrat but has since switched her party affiliation to independent, has yet to declare her plans — leaving open the prospect of an unusually competitive three-way race. And the party must also defend four Senate seats in four of the most contested presidential battlegrounds: Wisconsin, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Michigan. . . . 

Democrats must win every race they are defending — and depend on President Biden to win the White House — in order to maintain a majority. In a 50-50 Senate, the vice president casts the tiebreaking vote. . . . 

The bad news for Senate Democrats is that they are on defense in each of the seven seats that both parties view as most competitive this year. The good news is that in five of those seven, the party has incumbents running for re-election, which has historically been a huge advantage.

At least 83 percent of Senate incumbents have won re-election in 18 of the past 21 election cycles, according to OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan group that tracks money in politics. Last year, 100 percent of Senate incumbents were re-elected. . . . 

The Democratic incumbents in Montana and Ohio . . . are seeking re-election in states former President Donald J. Trump easily won twice. Both Senator Jon Tester of Montana and Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio have exceeded expectations before, but never with such an unpopular presidential candidate at the top of the ticket. And unlike most incumbents, whose victories tend to become easier over time, Mr. Tester has always had close races. Mr. Brown’s margins have narrowed. . . . Democrats maintain that the personal brands of both Mr. Brown and Mr. Tester matter more in their states than national political winds. . . . 

The most interesting of the second-tier races may be in Arizona, where the state may have a competitive three-way race — a rarity in American politics. The wild-card is Ms. Sinema. If she runs for a second term, she will most likely face Representative Ruben Gallego, a well-liked progressive Democrat who has already spent $6.2 million on the race this year, and Kari Lake, the firebrand conservative Republican and one of her party’s best-known election deniers who is favored in her party’s primary. . . . 

There is no top-flight Republican challenging Senator Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin, but the party has been pushing for Eric Hovde, a businessman who ran for Senate in 2012. 

In Pennsylvania, Republicans have cleared a path for David McCormick with the aim of avoiding a bruising primary and strengthening their bid against Senator Bob Casey, who is seeking a fourth six-year term. . . . 

In Michigan — the only competitive Senate race without an incumbent — Democrats so far have mostly aligned behind Representative Elissa Slotkin, a former C.I.A. analyst who represents a divided district. Mr. Daines recruited former Representative Mike Rogers, who was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. But James Craig, a former Detroit police chief, and former Representative Peter Meijer, who lost his seat after voting to impeach Mr. Trump, have also entered the Republican race.

The Republican establishment pick in Nevada is Sam Brown, a retired Army captain who lost a Senate primary last year. But he’s facing a primary against Jim Marchant, a Trump loyalist and election denier who lost a race for secretary of state last year. The winner would take on Senator Jacky Rosen, a Democrat who is seeking her second term. . . . 

In Florida, Senator Rick Scott, the state’s former governor, is seeking a second term. He’s never won an election by more than 1.2 percentage points, and he’s also never run in a presidential election year — when Democrats typically fare better in Florida. But the state lurched to the right last year when Republicans won five statewide races on the ballot by an average of 18.9 percentage points. The leading Democratic challenger in the Florida Senate race this year is former Representative Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, who was unseated from her Miami-based seat after one term.

In Texas, Senator Ted Cruz has been a constant target for Democrats — and survived each time. This year, his top challenger appears to be Representative Colin Allred, a Dallas-area Democrat who defeated an incumbent Republican in 2018.

From the New York Times by Michael C. Bender and Shane Goldmacher (A version of this article appears in print on Nov. 11, 2023, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Democrats See Narrower Path To Keep Senate.).

The 2024 Presidential Race

While Biden undeniably won the 2020 Presidential election, his win was no landslide victory and carried no coattails in down ticket races. Now, he is running for re-election, more or less unopposed in his efforts to secure the Democratic Party nomination. 

In the Presidential election race, the same small handful of swing states that tipped the balance in 2016 and 2020 are likely to be decisive again in 2024.

President Biden is polling very poorly in his re-election run despite strong economic conditions, but polling also suggests that this will change decisively in former President Trump is convicted in any of the four felony prosecutions that he is currently facing (assuming that he can make it onto the ballot at all in the face of a Section 3 of the 14th Amendment challenge to his eligibility to run at all). Also, favorable opinions of the incumbent President are a lagging indicator of positive economic news, so eventually, over the next year, Biden's popularity could improve before the 2024 election.

If Trump is not the Republican nominee, however, for any reason other than his death from natural causes, many Republicans might not vote at all in 2024, potentially swinging many otherwise close races for both the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate in favor of Democrats.

And, of course, both Trump and Biden are old men. Trump isn't very healthy. Biden is starting to shown the signs of age. Either man could easily die or suffer a health setback making a Presidential bid to strenuous to continue in the next year, and creating massive uncertainty over who would be their party's nominee in that situation. There are several serious back up contenders for the GOP nomination in addition to Trump who is the clear front runner despite all of his legal woes. There are no clear alternatives to Biden as the Democratic nominee at this point.

The 2024 U.S. House Race

Democrats also don't need long coattails to retake control of the U.S. House. Flipping half of dozen seats would be sufficient. The seat of Republican George Santos in New York will almost surely flip to the Democrats. And, while the Democrats haven't won every redistricting map challenge that they have brought, they have won enough times to pick up at least one or two more House seats with redrawn Congressional district maps. Newly divorced Republican Lauren "Invade Canada" Boebert, who just barely managed to win re-election in 2022 by a few hundred votes, will struggle again in 2024 to be re-elected in Colorado's comfortably Republican leaning Third Congressional District, because of her deplorable personal conduct and outrageous statements made while in office. These aren't the only seats that could be picked up by Democrats in 2024 either. Democrats lost many close races in 2022. A seat likely to be lost by a Democratic Congressman from New Jersey who is probably taking bribes, in contrast, is unlikely to be picked up by Republicans.

Conventional wisdom about the lessons of the 2023 elections is that Republican anti-abortion positions hurt them now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned by Dobbs, and will continue to do so in 2024. 

Polling has shown that the U.S. Supreme Court, under the weight of controversial hard core conservative rulings on sensitive issues like abortion and gun control, and corruption scandals limited to their conservative members, is at a record low in unpopularity and public confidence, and voters may have that in mind as well when they go to vote in 2024.

Slowly but surely, conservative voters are dying, young liberal voters are joining the electorate, and the electorate is getting less white and less Christian. Fox News and social media, which were critical in driving far right Republican support in most other recent election cycles have become less influential. And, generally speaking, Democrats do better in Presidential election years when there is more voter turnout.

All of these general considerations are particularly important in U.S. House races, that tend not to be driven by high profile personalities to the same extent as U.S. Senate races and Presidential races.