Republicans Have Prime Opportunity to Take Multiple Seat Senate Majority by Following Multi-Tiered Plan

Republicans have a prime chance to take back a multiple-seat majority in the U.S. Senate as nine Democrat seats are in play for Republicans heading into 2024. Meanwhile, just two GOP seats offer realistic pick-up opportunities for Democrats.

With 49 Democrats and two independents who caucus with them, the left currently holds a 51-seat Senate majority over Republicans, who have 49 seats. But the map in 2024 for Republicans is highly favorable, with just 11 Republican seats up for election this year to 23 Democrat seats, and no GOP incumbents are particularly vulnerable. A four-tiered plan to secure a GOP majority begins with defending the two Republican seats Democrats have the best chances at flipping — Texas and Florida — and going on the attack against the weakest Democrat incumbents and zoning in on favorable open races.

Tier One: Defend Florida and Texas

Strong incumbents occupy these two seats with excellent name recognition: Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rick Scott (R-FL).

“Of our ten seats we have to defend our two seats, that are the most difficult out of ten and these are not hard seats … So that shows you how good the map is for us,” National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) told Breitbart News in March.

What is more, both states are conservative strongholds. Florida has become increasingly red in recent years, and it has been a long time since Texans elected a Democrat in a statewide election.

“If you think about Florida, Rick Scott has confirmed he’s running for reelection,” Daines said. “You always want to make sure your incumbents are running again and Rick Scott — former governor of Florida, now Senator of Florida — he’s announced his reelect. Rick Scott is a great candidate. He will run a great campaign. Any Democrat who thinks they can beat Rick Scott, I think is dreaming a bit, but Rick is going to have a race and we have to make sure we’re going to support Rick Scott in that race. Then you go to Texas, with Ted Cruz, the Democrats — they hate Ted Cruz. The liberals hate Ted Cruz. They’ll raise a lot of money against Ted Cruz. Ted is going to have a race in Texas. That’s going to be — it’s always tougher than you think in Texas. But listen, nobody is going to bet against Ted Cruz right now. We’ve got to support him and ensure he gets the resources he needs, but Ted Cruz will win that race.”

Keeping these seats would be the base for Republicans to go on offense for the nine most vulnerable democrat seats under the tier system.

Tier Two: West Virginia, Ohio, and Montana

The best pick-up opportunities for Republicans are in West Virginia, Ohio, and Montana — as Daines previously noted to Breitbart News. Former President Donald Trump won all of these states in 2016 and 2020, and they have trended red in non-presidential races in recent election cycles.

West Virginia, where Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has announced he will not seek reelection, is the lynchpin to Republicans’ map in 2024. Manchin, one of the most moderate Democrats in the Senate, trailed significantly in polling to Trump-endorsed candidate Gov. Jim Justice (R-WV) for months before announcing he would not launch another bid for office in October. Moreover, a Democrat has not won a statewide election in West Virginia since Manchin narrowly did in 2018, and the state has voted red in every presidential election this century.

Justice, who announced his defection from the Democrat Party and that he was a Republican midterm at a Trump rally in 2017, leads Rep. Alex Mooney (R-WV) in the Republican primary. In 2020, Justice enjoyed a 33-point victory over Democrat Ben Salango to secure a second term, while Sen. Shelly Moore Capito (R-WV) beat her Democrat opponent by an astounding 43 points, and Trump carried the state by 39 points over Biden — showing conservatives’ might in the Mountain State. This will be the best pick-up opportunity for Republicans in 2024 and has already been marked as “Solid R” on the Cook Political Report.

If Republicans take Manchin’s seat in West Virginia, incumbent Democrats seeking reelection in Ohio and Montana will give Republicans the best opportunities to take a majority in the Senate. Vulnerable Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) is seeking reelection in the Buckeye State, where voters elected Republicans in all statewide elections in the 2022 midterms after they broke for Trump in 2016 and 2020.

A three-way race is currently unfolding for the Republican nomination. However, Trump gave his coveted and highly influential endorsement to entrepreneur Bernie Moreno on December 19. He led the race before the announcement, according to two internal polls from his campaign and a super PAC supporting him. In his statement, Trump called for the party to unite behind Moreno — who has the backing of Sens. J.D. Vance (R-OH), Maro Rubio (R-FL), and Mike Lee (R-UT) — but Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s campaign made clear he intends to remain in the primary.

In 2022, Vance saw a substantial boost in support in the Republican primary after landing Trump’s support and cruised to the nomination. From there, he beat out former Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) in the general election race by more than six percent — preventing Democrats from picking up the Republican seat held by former Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH). Republicans throttled Democrats in other statewide races in the midterms, including the gubernatorial election, where Gov. Mike DeWine (R-OH) had a 25-point victory. LaRose had a 21-point victory, and Republicans won by double digits in the races for treasurer, auditor, and attorney general. This followed Trump’s roughly eight-point wins in Ohio, once considered a swing state, over twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016 and President Joe Biden in 2020.

Like Brown, Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) is vulnerable heading into 2024, as Montana has not voted for a Democrat in a statewide race since Tester’s reelection bid in 2018. Tester’s win that year was narrow as he beat out Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-MT) by 3.5 percent, and Republicans have dominated races since then. In 2020, Gov. Greg Gianforte (R-MT) had nearly a thirteen-point victory over Democrat Michael Cooley, Daines won his senate race by ten percent, and Rosendale carried the state’s lone congressional district at the time by double digits as well. Republicans also swept the races for attorney general, auditor, and secretary of state. Trump carried the state by 16.4 points over Biden that year.

Navy SEAL veteran Tim Sheehy has announced his candidacy for the GOP nomination for Senate in Montana. He has racked up several endorsements from sitting U.S. senators, including Daines, who have also announced their support for Trump. He also has the backing of other key local officials, like Gianforte and Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT). Rosendale has also been eyeing a second challenge to Tester, stating in December he was strongly considering a bid. However, Rosendale dragged his feet on announcing his support for Trump for months, until December 11, while Sheehy endorsed Trump months ago. In July, Breitbart News confirmed a CNN report that Trump had informed Rosendale he would not support him if he entered the senate race.

In theory, Republicans could take a clean two-seat majority before states in tier three — where Democrats are more competitive — are even accounted for.

Tier Three: Arizona and Pennsylvania

After the second tier, Arizona and Pennsylvania mark the next best pick-up opportunities for the GOP in 2024.

The contours of the Arizona U.S. Senate race remain unclear as Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), who defected from the Democrat Party in 2022, has not officially announced a reelection bid although her team has been setting up the infrastructure for a potential run, the Wall Street Journal has reported. While she continues to mull over a bid, leading candidates have emerged in two major parties, with Trump-endorsed Kari Lake as the Republican front-runner in her primary with Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb and Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) as the top Democrat.

Unlike Ohio, Montana, and West Virginia, Arizona has trended blue in recent years, with Democrats winning highly competitive statewide races for governor, U.S. Senate, and attorney general in 2022 after the state narrowly broke for President Joe Biden in the 2020 election. These victories for the left followed Sinema’s win in the 2018 U.S. Senate race when she was the first Democrat to win an open senate seat in the Grand Canyon State since 1976, as the New York Times noted.

Most of these victories for Democrats were in extremely contentious races — signaling Arizona’s status as a purple state. Sinema won her race against former Rep. Martha McSally (R-AZ) by 2.4 percent in 2018, and last year’s gubernatorial and attorney general races in Arizona were even tighter. Lake was the Republican nominee for governor and came up two-thirds of a percentage point shy of Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ) in the general election. Republican Abe Hamadeh was even closer to winning the attorney general’s race, losing to Democrat Kris Mayes 50.01 percent to 49.99 percent. However, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) bested Republican Blake Masters by 4.9 percent last year, which doubled Sinema’s margin of victory in 2018.

Early polling out of Arizona shows mixed results in a three-way race. In a VCreek/AMG poll sponsored by Americas PAC — a Republican organization — Lake led a hypothetical three-way race with 41 percent of support. Gallego followed with 35 percent, and Sinema took 16 percent. Another seven percent were undecided, while one percent supported someone else. The poll sampled 694 respondents from December 1-8, and the credibility interval was plus or minus 3.71 percent.

Conversely, a Noble Predictive Insights poll from last October showed Gallego leading the way at 39 percent, Lake in second place at 33 percent, and Sinema at 29 percent. This poll included 1,010 respondents sampled between October 25 and 31; the margin of error was plus or minus 3.1 percent.

A promising sign for Republicans is Trump’s recent polling success in Arizona where he has consistently bested Biden since October, as FiveThirtyEight shows.

Republicans also have a solid opportunity to pick up a seat in Pennsylvania, where Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) is up for reelection. Pennsylvania was the only state where Democrats or Republicans flipped a seat in the 2022 midterms, with far-left Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) beating celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz, the Republican nominee, by 4.9 percent. This secured Demcorats an official 51-49 seat majority in the Senate, though they still technically had a majority before this, with Vice President Kamala Harris serving as the tie-breaking vote. Republicans look to reverse the 2022 trend and get even in Pennsylvania in the 2024 election.

Like Arizona, Pennsylvania is a state that voted for Trump in 2016 before flipping blue in 2020. Over the past two months, Trump performed better than Biden in Pennsylvania head-to-head polls released by the New York Times/Siena College, Bloomberg News/Morning Consult, and Emerson College, signaling his and Republicans’ strength in the Keystone heading into 2024. The Times-Siena College poll also showed some of his primary opponents beating Biden in hypothetical two-way races.

Republican businessman David McCormick, who was almost the 2022 GOP nominee before losing to Oz in a recount, seeks the nomination in Pennsylvania to compete with Brown in the general election. A pair of polls released in October by Emerson College and Franklin Marshall College Center for Opinion research showed McCormick trailing Casey by eight percent and seven percent, respectively, as FiveThirtyEight documents.

Hypothetically, if Republicans held onto tier one while taking all seats in tiers two and three, they would nab a majority with at least 54 seats, with states in tier four still in play.

Tier Four: Wisconsin, Michigan, Virginia, Nevada

Four states — Michigan, Nevada, Virginia, and Wisconsin — comprise the last tier of robust Republican pick-up opportunities. As is the case in Pennsylvania and Arizona, Trump has led Biden in hypothetical 2024 match-up polling in Michigan and Nevada in November and December, and they have been highly competitive in Wisconsin.

With longtime Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) retiring at the end of her fourth term, Michigan — another state that went red in the 2016 presidential election before flipping blue in 2020 — will see an open election for her seat. In a positive sign for Republicans from 2020, that year’s GOP Senate candidate in Michigan, John James, came close to unseating Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) as they registered at 48.2 percent and 49.9 percent, respectively. Now a U.S. representative, James won the 2022 race for Michigan’s Tenth Congressional District.

However, Michigan went Democrat in the 2022 midterms in critical statewide elections, including in the gubernatorial contest in which Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) safely won reelection over Republican Tudor Dixon by more than ten percent. Democrats also took victories in the attorney general and secretary of state races.

But Trump’s strength in Michigan is a positive indicator for Republicans as a whole. He is up ten points on Biden in a hypothetical head-to-head race in the Wolverine State, according to a CNN/SSRS poll taken November 29-December 6 among 1,197 registered voters with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percent. A Morning Consult/Bloomberg News poll conducted from November 27-December 6 showed Trump four points up over Biden in a two-way race. The poll included responses from 703 registered voters, and the margin of error was plus or minus four points.

In Nevada, Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) is up for reelection after Republican Adam Laxalt nearly flipped Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s (D-NV) seat in the 2022 midterms. Laxalt, the former attorney general of Nevada, lost his race to Cortez Masto by less than 8,000 votes, which translated to under one percent. A snowstorm in the northern part of the state on election day likely hampered Laxalt’s chances.

Daines noted as much while speaking with Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle in March and contended Republicans must embrace ballot harvesting operations where legal in order to overcome similar happenings in the future.

“Adam Laxalt’s race was breaking the right way for us but the Democrats, they do a much better job in their ballot harvesting and stuff,” Daines said. “But there was a snowstorm and so many of our voters wait until election day to vote. The problem is when that snowstorm hit our counties, which is everything north of Las Vegas, Clark County is where Las Vegas is and that’s the big Democrat stronghold, but the snowstorm hit all of our counties in the north — all the way up to Reno — and when you lose by four votes per precinct, the weather was a factor out there. I’ve got to make an appeal to our patriots out there: We’ve got to get Republicans, conservatives, patriots voting earlier where it’s allowed in their states.”

And while Laxalt came up just short, Gov. Joe Lombardo (R-NV) won the gubernatorial race in Nevada last year by 1.5 percent over former Gov. Steve Sisolak (D-NV), and Republicans also took races for lieutenant governor and controller. Democrats, however, won the attorney general and secretary of state contests.

Clinton and Biden carried Nevada in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections over Trump, but a string of polls out of the Silver State indicate Trump is leading Biden there in a hypothetical general election match-up in what should be a worrying sign for Democrats. Trump has led Biden in hypothetical match-ups in the latest Nevada polls from Emerson College, the New York Times/Sienna College, and Bloomberg News/Morning Consult, FiveThirtyEight shows.

In Virginia, where Clinton’s 2016 running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), is up for reelection, Republicans have had successes in recent statewide races, indicating their competitiveness against Kaine and Democrats heading into 2024. In 2021, Republicans swept all three statewide races in the Old Dominion. Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) won his race by nearly two points over former Gov. Terry McCauliffe (D-VA). At the same time, Republicans also swept the lieutenant governor’s race and the attorney general contests. Democrats held the three offices going into that election.

These flips came after Biden won the state in 2020 by ten percent, following Clinton’s five-point victory there in 2016. A poll conducted by Roanoke College’s Institute for Policy and Opinion Research from November 12-20 found that Trump is gaining steam in Virginia. Biden led Trump 48 percent to 44 percent in November, though Biden has trended in the wrong direction for months. He has seen “a continued drop from his 9- and 16-point leads” in polls the institute conducted in August and May, according to a release.

The poll sampled 686 adults, and the margin of error was plus or minus 4.31 percent.

Retired Navy Captain Hung Cao is vying for the GOP nomination in Virginia as he hopes to square off with Kaine in the general election. Cao told Breitbart News in late November that Republicans’ chances in Virginia should not be underestimated.

“I think it’s wrong for people to underestimate Virginia and what it can bring to the political battlefield,” Cao said. “I’m going into this because there is a path to victory. Don’t forget the last three statewide elections in Virginia were won by Republicans. Governor Glenn Youngkin, Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears, and Attorney General Jason Miyares were all Republicans, and those were statewide races.”

Cao also pushed back on mainstream media narratives and leftist talking points that Democrats had some resounding victory in Virginia in the 2023 off-year elections.

“If you look at the 2023 race, people will call doom and gloom on Virginia, but to be very honest, we only are down by one Senate vote in the Virginia Senate, and then down by one in the House of Delegates. But if you look at the entire electorate in 2023, it was pretty much dead even of Republicans and Democrats that came out this past election cycle, so I think that 2024, being a presidential year, more people will turn out. I mean, presidential years are just the way they are, you know, most people only vote in presidential years; they’ll wear their Sunday suits and come out there and vote, and so I think the more people that come out in 2024, the better  [it]will be for Virginia and for this country,” Cao said.

Finally, Wisconsin rounds out the final tier of states where Republicans have a strong shot at a Senate seat pick-up opportunity. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) is running for reelection after a series of tightly contested statewide races in 2022, when Republicans won two contests, and Democrats took three. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) narrowly secured another term after defeating radical Democrat Mandela Barnes by one percent, while Republican John Leiber emerged as the victor in the race for treasurer by just 1.4 percent.

Conversely, Gov. Tony Evers (D-WI) beat out Republican Tim Michels by 3.4 percent on the way to reelection, and Democrats also won races for attorney general and secretary of state with thin margins of 1.4 percent and .3 percent, respectively. The ticket-splitting in 2022 exemplifies how competitive Wisconsin will be in 2024.

Like many states on this list, Wisconsin helped place Trump in the White House in 2016 before turning to Biden in 2020, and polling trends indicate another potential tight race between Biden and Trump should they both earn their parties’ respective nominations.

Trump leads Biden in a hypothetical two-way race by four points in the latest Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll out of Wisconsin, which sampled 681 respondents from November 27-December 6. The lead falls within the four-point margin of error and followed another joint survey from the news organization and polling outfit conducted on October 30-November 7, where Trump led a two-way race by one.

However, Biden is five points ahead of Trump in Wisconsin in a head-to-head race at 37 percent to 32 percent, according to a J.L Partners/Daily Mail poll with field dates of November 27-December 1. That poll included 550 respondents, and the margin of error was plus or minus 4.2 percent.

If the GOP somehow runs the gamut and sweeps all four tiers, they would land a staggeringly powerful 58-seat majority. And while that outcome is unlikely, the map illustrates the myriad of pathways for Republicans to take at least a multiple-seat majority in 2024.