GOP Targets Three Vulnerable Senate Seats In Bid To Win Control Of Senate In 2024
The three targeted seats are in Arizona, West Virginia, and Ohio.
As the 2024 presidential primary season revs up, it’s easy to lose sight of House and Senate seats that the GOP needs in order to regain control of both houses of Congress. This is important no matter who wins the 2024 presidential election.
The current Senate is split 51-49 because the GOP lost ground in the disappointing 2022 midterm election cycle, but 2024 is a promising year for Republicans who are defending only 10 Senate seats while the Democrats are defending 23.
With that in mind, the GOP is reportedly targeting three particular Senate seats in its bid to win back control in the U.S. Senate. The three targeted seats are in Arizona, West Virginia, and Ohio.
The Arizona seat is held by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who left the Democratic Party to become an independent but has yet to officially say whether she’ll seek reelection.
Sinema doesn’t have a clear GOP challenger yet, but Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego is seeking the Democrat nomination.
Personally, I don’t really mind Sinema in the Senate. She’s a Democrat at heart, sure, but she’s also more liberal than leftist/progressive on things that matter in the Senate (the filibuster, for instance), but it would be far better to have a solid (i.e. not Trump-picked) Republican run for and win that seat.
Just the News continues:
West Virginia’s incumbent Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin is also up for reelection but has yet to officially announce his intentions.
Manchin, a moderate, arguably faces the toughest reelection bid. He’ll likely face popular GOP Gov. Jim Justice in a state with one of the most conservative-leaning electorates in the country.
A poll in May showed Justice leading Manchin 54-32% in a hypothetical matchup.
Manchin threw his political career away when he was bamboozled by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Whatever respect Manchin had rightfully earned was tossed away in that one dumb move.
Just the News continues:
In Ohio, incumbent Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown announced early, saying in November 2022, “I’m running in 2024 and I run to win.”
Republicans have recently turned the traditional swing state red, with Donald Trump winning there in 2016 and 2020, and J.D. Vance winning in 2022 to keep Ohio’s other Senate seat for the GOP.
Brown is one of those ho-hum interchangeable Democrats: Couldn’t pick him out of a line-up, can count on him to vote (D) no matter what is at stake, and just goes along to get along. Removing him from office should be a no-brainer, but the GOP is a mess, and Ohio is all over the map in terms of elections, thus its “swing state” status.
Meanwhile, the hard-core Democrats at Huff-Po are alarmed that the GOP has a chance to win . . . dare we think it? . . . a supermajority in the Senate.
For Senate Democrats, 2024 has long loomed as Year Zero.
That’s when the party faces the daunting task of defending seats across nearly half of the country — in reliably red states, light blue states and states with suddenly wide-open races.
For Republicans, it’s a chance to capitalize on a once-in-a-generation map that massively empowers their base of rural white voters to build a sustainable GOP majority that could take a decade or more for Democrats to reverse.
The Stupid Party, however, is—as noted above—going to target just three Democrat-held seats for a flip. So the Huff-Po folks breathe a sigh of relief.
The GOP, however, is already suggesting its focus may be much, much narrower.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told CNN in May that the party is concentrating on a relatively small number of races where its chances of victory are greatest: Montana, Ohio and West Virginia — states where former President Donald Trump won by eight percentage points or more in 2020 — and Pennsylvania, where party operatives believe former hedge fund CEO Dave McCormick, who lost last year’s primary to Mehmet Oz, could make a formidable challenger to Democratic Sen. Bob Casey.
The rest of the map is at risk of becoming irrelevant.
“I don’t think anyone sees a real possibility for us in Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada of winning those races,” said a Republican who has worked on Senate races and requested anonymity to speak candidly, referring to three presidential swing states where Republicans should, theoretically, be in contention.
McConnell, always known for choosing his words carefully, left the impression the party was all but giving up in some perennial battlegrounds, either because their benches are too MAGA or because McConnell can’t find the recruits that fit his preferred profile — a boardroom Republican with a business or military background who also has millions available to self-fund a campaign.
With just two seats standing between McConnell and a GOP Senate majority, the Kentucky Republican may not have to think that big to get what he wants.
Good old Mitch McConnell doesn’t want a (potential) GOP supermajority that can make an actual difference; he just wants to eek out three flips and call it a day. Pathetic.
But then, maybe the GOP is playing it smart given that many of the 2024 Democrat seats “lean blue” per Cook’s.
Huff-Po continues:
Jessica Taylor, the Senate and governors editor at the Cook Political Report, cautioned that more candidates will make the jump in the coming months, potentially changing the outlook for Republicans in some second-tier states. Cook has so far rated Arizona, Ohio and West Virginia rated as toss-ups, and the remainder of the frontline Democratic seats as “leans blue” less than a year out from the first 2024 primaries.
“You kind of have to work with what you’re given,” she said, “and if you can’t get candidates in who would make the race more competitive, you’re sort of hamstrung.”
No matter who wins the White House in 2024, control of the Senate is going to be key to either blocking or supporting the president’s agenda.
A Republican president with a Republican Senate can get a lot more lasting agenda items accomplished than a Republican president with a Democrat or split Senate. Likewise, a Democrat president with a Republican Senate, particularly with a GOP supermajority, can be shackled, even over-ruled on America-destroying Democrat policy and agenda items.
Stay tuned.
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Comments
Though he is not up for election, maybe they can get Cornyn’s seat 🙁
Can’t wait until Mc Connell’s seat is up for re-election.
Don’t hold your breath that anything will change. He may not be popular with conservatives, but he won his last election by around 20 points against an opponent who outspent him by a ton.
This is McConnell and the GOPe. One has to wonder which party they really want to hold the Senate majority, assuming legal elections in 2024? Limiting your targeting to 3 seats out of 23 that the Democrats are defending would seem to answer that. Further, say that they win all three and miribile dictu technically have a majority. How common is it for just enough Republicans to vote with the Left to give the Democrats a victory on an issue? If they fought for and won more than a bare majority, the treachery would be too obvious.
Subotai Bahadur
Concentrating on three very winnable seats in Montana Ohio and WV where the political climate and composition of the electorate favors the GoP seems smart as those three get you a Senate majority which is ultimately what is important. However, there are other opportunities to pick up some Senate seats and if whomever ends up running in Nevada as one example is within sticking distance in polling then the GoP is making an error not to push some funding to help out. There are other GoP PACs besides just McConnell’s and IMO, AZ, NV are worth investing in and maybe WI, though Sen Johnson had a tough re-election fight as the incumbent only winning by a single digit.
Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell have something to say about Tump leading a republican trifecta but they only talk to the public through Paul Ryan, their official-unofficial spokesman.
Ohio’s gone, going to state constitutional amendments to enforce a heartbeat abortion law, proving itself to women voters there to be a menace to women.
Proving to be heroic to babies
The world needs more heros
Signed
God
How hard will Trump rail against candidates who don’t kiss his ring?
Trump’s ability to sway his voters is limited, it seems. They hate McCarthy and Ronna, both of whom Trump endorsed. They hate Grahamnesty, but Trump loves him. Trump is most decidedly pro-Israel (far too many of his supporters are antiSemites). They didn’t answer his appeal to end the Bud Light boycott.
What’s weird is that the Only Trumpers pretty much ignore or excuse his many failings, completely ignore his urgings to boycott this or stop boycotting that other thing, and ignore his calls to protest his many indictments.
Trump is a weirdo, inverted Obama. Like Obama’s worshipers, Trump’s idolizers ignore his many failings when they can, excuse them when they can’t, and dismiss them in every instance. I haven’t seen such pretzel logic and crazy since Obama, to be honest. He was some kind of Second Coming who was going to . . . oh, blah, blah, blah. We all know. And these same people who saw straight through Obama can’t see Trump as cut of the same cloth. It’s bizarre. But it is what it is.
Trump has a Don Rickles sense of humor, which is immune to the deep state. It’s a feature.
He made friends with NK’s Kim by calling him Rocketman. He knows how to do a deal – it has to benefit both sides or no deal.
His chief failings are:
1. Not realizing that if you lose an election by not-currently-detected fraud, you won. The finality is more important to the system than accuracy.
2. Beating up the Fed for raising interest rates because it hurt his economy, not realizing that a blowout to inflation is not good for the economy.
… you lost, it should read.
Negatives:
Signing the omnibus uniparty budget deal.
Signing the budget left him unable to control Paul Ryan in any meaningful way. Probably the worst mistake he ever made.
Plus side:
Just after taking office he dropped a MOAB on a taliban training camp. Then opened negotiations with the taliban leadership.
He held more free form press conferences than any other American president. He’s a bullshitter but not a liar.
Note of interest – all of his lawyers hate him and later betray him.
No, he won, and everyone k owns it
Even senile Biden
gonzotx, put a few character points into your the reading skill.
His chief failings are:
1. Not realizing that if you lose an election by not-currently-detected fraud, you won. The finality is more important to the system than accuracy.
You’ve lost perspective.
I’ll prove the point.
Is it okay when your
husband humps
filthy whores.
So sorry President Trump can’t be bought like Ronnie
Chaffs some people
https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/politics/elections/2022/05/25/ron-desantis-campaign-billionaire-supporters-florida-governor-election/9707459002/
Will you then be calling on Trump to return the funds donated to his 2020 campaign by billionaire donors and other high net worth individuals? If not why not and why isn’t that failure to have and apply a consistent standard an example of rank hypocrisy?
Another sore point is that these billionaires also financially supported GOP candidates in 2022 – while Trump was sitting on his wallet.
Trumps average donator is small donations, millions of them
Ronnie on the other hand has very few small donors, his money is from billionaires and somehow that doesn’t bother you
gonzotz,
Either money from billionaire donors and other wealthy donors, mere millionaire and multi millionaire donors, is categorically bad or it isn’t. You gotta pick which.
Next decision point; Either the individual donor themselves are the problem or they are not. Again you gotta pick which.
Your difficulty in declaring this money and these donors as an unqualified evil is that Trump took and takes money from this same wealthy class of donors and in many cases has taken money from the exact same donors that you want to criticize DeSantis about.
Pick whether its a disqualification and stick with your choice. Anything else is hypocrisy.
What seems to chaff some people is that some of these billionaires were Trump supporters in 2016/2020 but they’ve dumped him as a loser, proving only that Trumpbots are also hypocrites .
Fuzzy, when I became a co-pilot many years ago I was told there were three things that you NEVER bring up in the cockpit. 1. Sex. 2. Religion 3. Politics. It is obvious why and that is because no matter what your view is, you will NEVER change the other person’s view and more likely create anger and resentment. That rule applies to this site. Normal intelligent people will call you insulting names and make other disparaging comments about you if you even hint at Trump’s flaws. When he was POTUS I loved him but could not watch him at a press conference because he made a fool of himself with two-bit reporters and their stupid “Gottcha” questions. He has no ability to work with the people he MUST work with to get things done for our country. He will go on TV and tell us what he wants done and we will like it, but then he will insult the people that must vote for his projects. He is a one-man show and cannot change. If DeSantis is such a loser, why do he and his campaign constantly insult him and call him childish names? Why not focus on Biden? He will fail if he wins the race and we will be the biggest losers. That’s my opinion formed from his first term in office. Instead of disagreeing with me and pointing out where I am wrong, people will just insult me and not offer a reason why he will succeed.
People are forgetting that no one is indispensable. Trump would be a great example of that. If the Rs nominate him, the next president will be a D. Time to move on. By the way, Grover Cleveland is the only president who was elected, then defeated, then elected. His second term was a major failure. Move on!
“Trump is a weirdo, inverted Obama.”
Well put. Imma borrow that.
No REAL control of the Senate until we get rid of the guy in the photo, and his cronies.
Exactly. If we win the Senate and we allow that rat McConnell to lead it, we deserve all the betrayal coming our way.
Mitch McConnell “truly the most corrupt politician in the U.S.”:
https://www.republicreport.org/2020/video-mitch-mcconnell-truly-the-most-corrupt-politician-in-the-u-s/
The rat McConnell is the main reason why the Republicans have, for the most part, taken control over the federal judiciary and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Oh stop with that, already.
ANYONE who was the head of a GOP Senate could have – and would have – done the same thing that rat did. McConnell is like the ACLU: once in a while they defend Nazis while the rest of the time they work to inflict communism upon the nation.
McConnell has been a disaster for us.
So, move to Kentucky (if you don’t live there already) and run against him. Otherwise, kwitherbitchen and work to elect GOP reps and senators in your own state, because nobody else has any control over Kentucky voters.
It’s insane that the GOP now wants to target Sinema, who is a much more sympathetic personality to both sides of the aisle than do-nothing Mark Kelly, who they could have knocked off last year but actively chose to starve out his Republican challenger instead.
Arizona republicans running for higher office must kiss Cindy McCain’s ring. She’s the mobbed-up Unity Party boss. And if she approves the candidate then we get another Jeff Flake of Mitt Romney.
And she voted for Biden.
Yeah! And stated that the McCain-Biden’ clique share deep family roots. So deep that she suddenly became deeply involved in Ukrainian election law, traveled to Kyiv, and snipped off the remaining loose threads of a money laundering business left in the lurch after her husband died. Oh, and made sure the election fix was properly fixed.
It doesn’t matter whose ring they kiss. Hobbs has total control of that state now and they’re not even pretending not to steal elections.
Frank Zappa (sorely missed)
The illusion
of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to
continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the
back of the theater.
A quote from Zappodus 23!
13. And in all things that Zappa hath said unto you be circumspect: and make no mention of the name of other rock gods.
Frank Zappa (PBUH) the Oracle of Laurel Canyon. What could possibly go wrong?
Keep in mind that the mentality of the HuffPo is always to do what’s best for Dems. Suggesting a supermajority chance is a ploy to try and dilute GOP resources.
All depends on who’s (or what is) counting the votes
I have yet to see evidence that the GOP leadership wants to win.
A great deal will depend on who they put up in those states. Will it be a Progressive Republican who desires comity and compromise more than winning back our country? Or will it be someone who has learned from DeSantis and Trump about fighting to recover our Republic?
I know which way I’m betting based on past results.
Weirdly enough, the only way either party can win is to appeal to ticket-splitters and independents. Wow, who knew?
The repubs have set the bar far too low, Montana should be in play, Nevada should be in play, Only focusing on the minimum number needed leaves no margin for error with a focus on just three elections.
I would agree on Montana. Not sure about NV.
The RINO has no intention of winning. The money is the same and you can scream for the next 2 years about how we can’t do anything. Doubt me, look who he backed last cycle, a cycle wee should have walked away with.
Insane that they are targeting only 3 when there’s at least a dozen that they can put in play if they tried. And, they ought to be trying for solid recruits in EVERY open Senate seat.
You go for a dozen, and hope to get at LEAST three.
D’s run circles around R’s every election cycle. Its so pathetic.
/
Well, in case it was ever in doubt that The Feckless R’s don’t want to actually govern.
“a solid (i.e., not Trump-picked) Republican”
Umm, won’t a solid Republican Senate candidate also be:
not McConnell-picked?
not Cindy McCain-picked (in Arizona)?
It’s the height of stupidity not to run hard for every Senate seat presently held by a Democrat (OK, maybe not in California).
With hostile governors in Wisconsin, Arizona, Pennsylvania,
Michigan, etc., serious candidates need to get going now.
Not to mention primary opponents for Mittens.
If enough solid Republicans get elected, they can help remove Mitch as leader. If all he is is the senior Senator from Kentucky, he’ll be able to inflict far less damage.