Category Archives: Senate

By Jim Ellis — Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024

Senate

As we get closer to early votes being cast and election day itself, several of the key Senate races are a focal point of attention.

It appears at this point the Republicans are on a path to secure at least a 51-49 majority with wins in West Virginia and Montana, while GOP challengers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin are getting closer. Democrats are countering with big spending in three Republican states, Florida, Nebraska, and Texas, hoping to score an upset in order to save their small majority.

Ohio businessman Bernie Moreno (R)

The trend, however, shows a tightening of the race. While Sen. Brown led consistently by five points earlier in the cycle, the most recent nine polls suggest an average lead of only 1.5 percentage points. Therefore, with Trump doing well at the top of the ticket, and Moreno closing the gap, we definitely see a trend moving toward the GOP challenger in this hot Ohio race.

• Overcoming the Casey family political legacy in Pennsylvania is a difficult task for Republicans considering Sen. Bob Casey Jr. (D) has won three statewide campaigns and his father, the late Bob Casey Sr. (D) scored four victories, two as attorney general and two as governor.

The senator has enjoyed consistent polling leads through the election campaign, but the later polls are tightening. Instead of holding an average high single-digit advantage, Sen. Casey’s average lead has dropped to four points according to the last 10 published polls. While the trend is favorable for Republican challenger David McCormick, it may not be strong enough to deny the senator re-election.

• In a similar pattern to that of Sen. Casey, Wisconsin two-term Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D) has also seen her once more formidable lead getting smaller. Typically reaching high single to low double digits over businessman Eric Hovde (R), the senator’s average edge over the last 13 polls has dropped to four percentage points.

Since Wisconsin typically features tight statewide election results, such polling results are not surprising. Considering that both she and Sen. Casey have never trailed in the multitude of surveys conducted in their states, we can also expect Sen. Baldwin to return for another term.

The Democrat challengers in Florida and Texas — along with the Independent that the Nebraska Democratic establishment backs — are continuing to post close polling numbers, but like with the established Democratic incumbents in their competitive campaigns, the GOP incumbents remain favored.

• While polls consistently show Florida Sen. Rick Scott (R) three to four points ahead of former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D), the margin is likely higher. In 2018, when Sen. Scott, then the state’s governor, unseated then-Sen. Bill Nelson (D), he did so with a 10,033-vote victory from a voter pool that exceeded eight million ballots.

At that time, Democrats held a 257,000-person lead in voter registration over Republicans. Today, there are 1.05 million more Republicans than Democrats, indicating that the state has moved over 1.3 million people in the Republicans’ favor since the last time Sen. Scott was on the ballot.

With pollsters missing the Republican voter strength in the Florida statewide races by seven points in 2022, and considering the huge registration changes, the trends below the radar heavily favor a Scott re-election victory.

• A surprise Senate race always seems to appear in every cycle, and we have one forming in Nebraska. Here, Sen. Deb Fischer (R), who doesn’t even have a Democratic opponent, finds herself in a legitimately tight campaign with Independent Dan Osborn. In four polls taken since the beginning of September, Osborn holds an average lead of just under two percentage points.

This contest needs to be monitored, since the trends do suggest an upset is possible. While Trump and Sen. Pete Ricketts (R) enjoy strong double digit leads in the same polls as mentioned above, the Fischer race has become a serious contest. Sen. Fischer may be able to right her political ship since the campaign has sprung into action and is hard at work trying to paint Osborn as a liberal Democrat, but only time will tell if their strategy will be successful.

• In Texas, talk continues, just as it did in 2018, that Sen. Ted Cruz (R) is in danger of losing his seat. While Rep. Colin Allred (D-Dallas) pulls within an average of four points opposite the incumbent over the most recent 12 polls from the beginning of September, the path is still a difficult one for the challenger.

With the Biden-Harris energy policies not favorable to the dominant Texas oil and gas industry, the Lone Star State being most affected by the southern border issue, and south Texas sees Hispanic support rising for Republicans, the timing doesn’t appear favorable to reverse a Republican statewide winning streak that begin in 1996.

While the trends undoubtedly suggest a close finish, as was the case when Cruz defeated then-Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D) by just three points in 2018, the most likely outcome this year is another Cruz victory. The Democrats are increasing strength in the Houston, Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio metro areas, but their gains are not large enough to neutralize the rest of America’s second-most populous state.

All six of the races covered above are well worth increased political attention as the campaign cycle draws to a close. While the Republicans appear to be on track to secure at least a minimum majority, an upset in one of the Republican incumbent campaigns could reverse such an impending trend.