Only Three Senate Races Matter This Year

It’s no secret to anyone who’s been paying attention that the 2024 Senate map is extremely difficult for Democrats. In order to come away with “only” fifty seats, which is what they will need to control the Senate if Vice President Kamala Harris wins the election, Democrats need almost everything to break their way. 

They are defending five seats in swing states that all appear close at the presidential level, which appear to be tightening at the last moment. Perhaps this was always going to happen as partisanship kicked in, but partisanship is the Democrats’ biggest hurdle to retaining the Senate. As close as these five races in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin are, they are necessary, yet not sufficient. When it comes to who will control the Senate in 2025, there are realistically only three states that truly matter.

Sherrod Brown (D-inc) and Bernie Moreno (R), the candidates in OH-SEN 2024

OHIO

This Senate race, whose polls will close at 7:30 PM Eastern Time, features Sherrod Brown (the three-term Democratic incumbent) against Republican challenger Bernie Moreno. In his most recent Senate race, Brown won by a 6.8% margin, which will be impossible for him to reach this time. Consider Mahoning County, which contains the Rust Belt city of Youngstown. In 2018 Brown won this county with 60.5% of the vote. However, this time he will be lucky to win the county at all, which illustrates that he lacks much of the crossover support he once possessed in rural Ohio.

Crossover support is something Brown sorely needs, particularly if Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump improves on his 8-point margins from 2016 and 2020 in the state. In terms of benchmarks, 2022 Senate nominee Tim Ryan lost suburban Delaware County by 5 points en route to a 6-point loss statewide. In other words, this county has trended leftward relative to the statewide average, and is likely to continue doing so. Therefore, I would say that if Brown fails to reach 50% of the vote in Delaware County, he will most likely lose reelection. But even if he’s up big in the initial ballot drops, do not celebrate yet, for Ohio has a well-documented counting bias toward Democrats.

Ted Cruz (R-inc) and Colin Allred (D), the candidates in TX-SEN 2024.

TEXAS

This is basically the Democrats’ only shot at picking up a Senate seat this year. Florida has become a dumping ground for QAnon conspiracy theorists, and Nebraska just isn’t happening. Deal with it. In any case, Cancun Cruz is up against Colin Allred, having won by a 2.6% margin in his most recent Senate election. Ever since that unexpectedly close race, however, the Rio Grande Valley has shifted hard right. Polls suggest that Cruz is likely to underperform Trump, but he is still generally up by anywhere from 2 to 5 points in the polling average.

 Making Allred’s task more difficult is the conservative migration into Texas, as the 2018 exit poll suggested that if only lifelong Texans had been allowed to vote in that Senate race, Beto would have won by 3 points. Additionally, Democratic voters with the means are fleeing Texas in droves due to the state’s abortion ban. Now, I don’t blame any progressive Texan for leaving the state if that’s what’s best for them individually. However, this mass exodus will make it more likely that Republicans control the Senate and are able to pass a national abortion ban.

If Colin Allred has any chance at an upset, look at Harris County, which contains Houston. Given that Beto O’Rourke won the county with 58% of the vote in 2018 and fell an aforementioned 2.6 points shy, Allred will likely need at least 60% of the vote in Harris to have any prayer of victory. Ideally, he would reach 62% of the vote in Harris, given trends in other parts of the state. If Allred can flip Denton County (which gave Cruz an 8-point margin in 2018) as well, he will be in a good position, but this will be difficult. It is a long-shot race for Democrats, but it will also be an “only-shot” race for them if the third race I’m talking about falls through.

Jon Tester (D-inc) and Tim Sheehy (R), the candidates in MT-SEN 2024.

MONTANA

Jon Tester has won three terms as US Senator from Montana. Objectively speaking, he had strong opponents in his first three races - a then-incumbent Senator (the late Conrad Burns), a then-sitting at-large Congressman (Denny Rehberg), and a then-state auditor (Matt Rosendale). In all three of his previous elections, Tester faced someone holding elected statewide office. This time he’s against a random businessman named Tim Sheehy, and yet he’s trailing in the polls! How can that be possible?

Well, consider that in 2020, Steve Bullock, then the incumbent Governor of Montana, fell ten points short in his effort to defeat Montana’s other Senator Steve Daines. In Tester’s most recent reelection bid, when he won by 3.5 percentage points, he was aided by extremely favorable turnout dynamics in which the electorate had only voted for Trump in 2016 by a mere 3 points. Based on party ID, if Tester had faced the 2020 electorate in 2018, he would have lost by nine points. In other words, he’s not that much stronger of a candidate than Bullock, who got his head handed to him on a silver platter.

At this point, it would be a sizable upset if Tester were to win reelection. If he has any chance at all, however, Gallatin County (Bozeman) is key. In both 2018 and 2020 it cast between 11 and 12 percent of the statewide vote, and in 2018 Tester won 59.5% in the county. Given that Bullock won 55.4% in that county two years later as he lost by 10 points, I would say that at minimum, Tester needs 60 percent of Gallatin County’s vote to stay in the hunt. If he has less than that, you might as well stick a fork in him, as he will be done for. Here’s another fun fact about this race: Given how much outside money has been spent on both sides, it is expected to be the most expensive Senate race in US history relative to the number of votes cast.

Famous quote from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, likely to become Senate Minority Leader once again come January 3.

Of the three very difficult races I mentioned above, Democrats need to win two in order to control the Senate, and that’s if Kamala Harris is able to win the presidential race. I hope Sonia Sotomayor feels happy about her decision not to retire earlier this year, because we could be looking at a 7-2 Supreme Court pretty soon if things go badly on Tuesday.