The race for the Senate: Here are the top races to watch

By Susan Davis

Republicans are favored to take control of the chamber next year thanks to a 2024 election map that has Democrats defending seven seats in conservative or swing states and on offense just two in the safe Republican states of Texas and Florida.

Democrats narrowly control the Senate 51-49 today, but with West Virginia all but certain to flip Republican after the impending retirement of Sen. Joe Manchin who registered as an independent in May.

Here are the races to watch:

Arizona

Democratic Congressman Ruben Gallego has consistently polled ahead of Republican Kari Lake in the closing weeks of the election. Gallego has performed particularly well among Latino voters who have a large, and growing, influence in the state.

“I think we are seeing a coming of age for politics in Arizona,” said Stephen Nuño-Perez, politics professor at Northern Arizona University, who says Latinos increasingly are expanding their political impact in the state each election year.

Samara Klar, a politics professor at the University of Arizona say they will be watching the Latino vote closely on election night with predictions that Latino voters could make up as much as 25 percent of the state’s voting demographic.

“It rightfully gets a huge amount of attention because Latinos are a growing portion of our electorate,” Klar said.

Nevada

Incumbent Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen appeared poised to win the race early this election cycle, but Republicans saw an opening at the end of the race that inspired a last-minute run by the GOP in the Silver State.

In the final two weeks, the Senate Leadership Fund directed more than $6 million to the state in a “Hail Mary” effort to boost Republican challenger Sam Brown. They hoped the last-minute spending spree could fuel an upset by Brown, an Army combat veteran and Purple Heart recipient injured in Afghanistan.

“So they stormed in with millions in late advertising,” Kenneth Miller, politics professor at the University of Las Vegas, said ahead of Election Day. But “whether or not that makes a difference is a different story.”

Miller says he’s pessimistic the new spend will “move the needle” but wasn’t ruling out a Brown win.

Republicans were re-energized by Brown’s chances after new polling and early voting returns signaled stronger support than expected.

“Her fortunes are simply going to be tied to party ID,” said Miller, who added that Democrats are repeating their 2022 playbook in Nevada this year, focusing on issues such as abortion. However, economic issues and immigration played high for voters frustrated by housing shortages and cost of living increases.

Michigan

The race was consistently tied through the final weeks of the election as Republican Mike Rogers and Democrat Elissa Slotkin campaigned to replace Sen. Debbie Stabenow who is retiring.

Rogers, 61, is a former FBI special agent who served in the House for 14 years and chaired the House Intelligence Committee. He retired from the House in 2014, and worked as a CNN national security analyst and a radio host and criticized former President Trump frequently. But Rogers backed Trump’s presidential campaign once he launched his Senate bid and publicly touted the former president’s endorsement in his race. He defeated former Michigan Rep. Justin Amash in the GOP primary.

Slotkin, 48, was elected to the House in 2018 and was among a group of female candidates that cycle with national security backgrounds. She worked as CIA analyst during the Iraq war, and emphasized during this year’s campaign that she worked under both GOP and Democratic administrations.

Slotkin focused on differences with Rogers over issues like reproductive rights and support for electric vehicles – a big issue for a state that is home to the big 3 auto manufacturers. Rogers also faced questions about whether he lived in the state because he moved to Florida after he retired from Congress and had not moved into a new home he was building in Michigan.

The race at the top of the ticket looms large – as part of the so-called “blue wall” Michigan was closely contested by both Vice President Harris and GOP nominee Donald Trump.

Montana

Montana has long been considered one of the best opportunities for Republicans to make gains in the Senate. Incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Tester is facing Republican Tim Sheehy in a state that has grown increasingly conservative in recent years.

Tester was elected in 2006 and since then, hasn’t won reelection by more than four percentage points. He’s the lone statewide-elected Democrat.

He’s held onto his seat in part thanks to his strong personal brand, a third-generation Montana farmer who proudly proclaims himself as the “Senate’s only working farmer.” He’s touted his bipartisan track record, his efforts for farmers and veterans, and tried to maintain distance between himself and national-level Democrats.

But this cycle tested whether personal brand can motivate enough voters to split their tickets.

Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL, was handpicked to run by the state’s junior Senator, Steve Daines, who’s leading GOP efforts to regain a Senate majority.

Sheehy moved to Montana in 2014, where he founded Bridger Aerospace – an aerial firefighting and aerospace services company.

The challenger received the endorsement of former President Donald Trump and is running on a platform that’s similar to Trump himself in 2016; a political outsider stressing issues of the border and the economy.

Ohio

The race for the Ohio Senate seat was essentially a dead heat ahead of the election and widely considered to be one of the tightest of toss-ups races in the country. Incumbent Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown is facing Republican Bernie Moreno in this critical state.

Both parties poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the state that was considered the nexus of the battle for control of the Senate.

Brown has been in the Senate for nearly 18 years, flipping a seat in 2006. He went on to win parts of the state that former President Barack Obama failed to carry in 2012.

But Brown has never before been on the ballot alongside former President Donald Trump, who handily won Ohio twice.

Moreno, a former car dealership owner, tried throughout the campaign to tie Brown to national Democrat figures, including Vice President Kamala Harris. Moreno, whose family immigrated from Colombia to Florida when he was a young child, spoke frequently on the trail about immigration issues. In one ad, Trump, who endorsed Moreno, appears on video talking about how Moreno will “secure our border” and that Brown is a “radical left politician”.

Ohio has grown increasingly Republican in recent years and Brown’s campaign hinged on convincing hundreds of thousands of Trump voters to split their ticket and send Brown back to Washington. To do that, Brown worked on building up margins in cities and suburbs that lean Democratic while also showcasing his work with Republicans.

Brown and Democrat allies pointed to Moreno’s stance on abortion, including a comment about why abortion would be an issue for women over the age of 50. Ohioans voted last year to enshrine abortion rights into their state constitution.

Wisconsin

Sen. Tammy Baldwin, the incumbent Democrat, is facing Republican Eric Hovde in one of the most evenly politically divided states in the country.

Republicans made concerted efforts to recruit wealthy candidates in key races this year and Hovde is one example: a venture capitalist who invested $20 million of his own money into the race. But also like other Senate Republican candidates, he was attacked as a carpetbagger for living in recent years in his Orange County, California residence.

Baldwin, the first openly gay person elected to the Senate in 2012, keeps a low profile in Washington but was comfortably re-elected back home in 2018.

However, she has never faced a candidate as well-funded as Hovde in her prior campaigns. Like many Democrats, Baldwin focused on abortion rights and tried to paint Hovde as part of an extremist GOP minority on the issue. Hovde previously described himself as “100% pro-life” in past political campaigns, but in this one campaigned on his support for exceptions in the case of rape, incest, or if the life of the mother was at stake.

Pennyslvania

Sen. Bob Casey, the incumbent Democrat is running against Republican David McCormick in one of the more negative and personal Senate races of the cycle.

Pennsylvania–seen as a must win state for both presidential candidates–has seen staggering sums of political advertising flood its airwaves: more than $1 billion has been spent leading up to the election.

Ads included Casey attacking former hedge fund executive McCormick as an out-of-touch carpetbagger for maintaining a residence in Connecticut in addition to his Pennsylvania home.

McCormick is a returning candidate. He lost the 2022 GOP Senate primary to celebrity Dr. Mehmet Oz, who went on to lose that November. This time, McCormick had no primary challenge and the quick support of Senate Republicans’ campaign operation and Trump’s early endorsement in the race.

McCormick didn’t face a primary challenge and enjoyed quick support from the Senate Republicans’ campaign operation as well as Trump’s early endorsement.

Casey’s ties to the state run much deeper: he’s the son of former senator and governor Bob Casey Sr., and he himself has successfully won statewide elections six times prior to 2024. While Casey enjoyed early leads in polling for much of the year, the race rapidly tightened in the closing weeks of the race and quickly aligned with the presidential race with a statistical tie and an outcome unlikely to differentiate from the top of the ticket.