Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, have been working for months to recruit the most electable candidates in must-win swing states to retake the majority next year.
Both men have said their path to victory in 2024 relies on wins in Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, four states with Democratic incumbents up for reelection. On the other side of the aisle, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the party’s Senate campaign arm, confirmed to the Washington Examiner last week that it planned to be heavily invested in Sens. Jon Tester (D-MT), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Bob Casey (D-PA), and Joe Manchin's (D-WV) reelection campaigns this cycle.
OHIO SECRETARY OF STATE FRANK LAROSE ENTERS GOP SENATE PRIMARY
Democrats currently only control the Senate by a 51-49 margin, meaning Republicans only need to net two seats to win back control. GOP Senate hopefuls in each of the four states have been jumping into their respective races since late last year.
These are the Republicans challenging the most vulnerable Senate Democrats in the 2024 contest.
Montana — Jon Tester
Tester's decision to run for a fourth term was a major win for Democrats, giving the party a fighting chance in a state Trump carried by over 16 points in 2020. Senate GOP leadership views the seat as within their reach given how red the state is and is trying to prevent a crowded primary contest that would weaken their candidate in the general election. They've coalesced around former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy's candidacy while privately dissuading Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-MT) from throwing his hat in the ring.
Sheehy has the backing of Daines and Gov. Greg Gianforte (R-MT), while Rosendale has the backing of the well-funded Club for Growth despite not being in the race yet. Party establishment has said that Rosendale's 2018 loss to Tester proves he cannot win statewide.
Daines, who lobbied Sheehy to get in the race for months, told Politico late last month that he was encouraging Rosendale to stay in the House "to build seniority ... and help Republicans hold their majority."
Tester has declined to say if he'd prefer to face Sheehy or Rosendale, who he demonized as "Maryland Matt," a real estate developer from the Old Line State who falsely claimed to be a rancher, during their 2018 contest.
Ohio — Sherrod Brown
Senate Republican leaders have been wading into Montana, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia's 2024 GOP primaries in a shift from their 2022 strategy. In Ohio, however, the party's Senate campaign arm is staying out of the growing primary field of Republicans looking to challenge incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown's (D-OH) bid for a fourth term.
Brown's reputation as an unabashed progressive in an increasingly red state has made him a prime target of Senate Republicans as they look to reclaim control of the upper chamber. Despite benefiting from the power of incumbency, strong name recognition, and high approval ratings, Brown's 2024 race will be the highest-profile fight of his career.
Daines acknowledged that Senate GOP leadership was staying out of the Buckeye State primary late last week, just ahead of Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose's Monday announcement that he was entering the race. An NRSC spokesman pointed the Washington Examiner to those remarks when reached for comment on the committee's Ohio strategy.
"When you have three candidates that any one of them could win the general election, we don’t stay up late at night worrying about that," the NRSC chief said on Thursday of the Ohio contest.
LaRose, who was actively raising money through a super PAC months before launching his 2024 bid, will have to walk a political tightrope of sorts while presenting himself to voters. The centrist Republican has tried to distinguish himself from former President Donald Trump's false election fraud claims and has been unapologetic about his work to uphold the 2020 election results, though he cannot risk alienating base voters by promoting either.
LaRose also began making calls to donors about a potential run after some Republicans pushed for him to enter the 2022 primary, though he ultimately decided against a bid.
State Sen. Matt Dolan came in a close third in the 2022 GOP Senate primary, just behind former Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, who had the backing of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) was the eventual winner of that contest after he secured the coveted Trump endorsement. Unlike Vance and Mandel, who ruled out a 2024 Senate bid, Dolan has run both races as an unapologetic Trump critic while avoiding making him a focus of his campaign. He launched his most recent bid in January.
Aside from his legislative work in the state Senate, Dolan, the son of billionaire Cleveland Guardians owner Larry Dolan, is a lawyer in private practice.
It is unlikely that Dolan will secure Trump's endorsement, and it seems even less likely that he's seeking the former president's support.
Bernie Moreno, an Ohio-based businessman with ties to the former president, is taking a different approach. Moreno declared his candidacy in early April, two years after agreeing to sit out the 2022 race as it became clear Trump was planning to endorse Vance. The Trump ally eventually went on to back Vance himself, helping prep him for general election debates and raise funds.
Trump praised Moreno ahead of his campaign launch, but he withheld an endorsement of the self-proclaimed political outsider. Vance, the only Trump-backed candidate who won their statewide race in the 2022 cycle, endorsed Moreno in late May.
Pennsylvania — Bob Casey
The contest for Casey's seat is expected to be one of the most competitive of the 2024 cycle. Pollsters say Casey, the son of former Pennsylvania Gov. Bob Casey Sr. and the longest-serving Democratic senator in Pennsylvania history, enters his latest race as the slight favorite, with his candidacy being boosted by the power of incumbency and strong name recognition.
The Pennsylvania senator has long cast himself as a centrist Democrat, though Republicans are certain to attack his support for most of President Joe Biden's legislative agenda. He has also begun to face questions over his views on abortion, especially as a staunch Catholic.
The NRSC has been trying to recruit former Bridgewater executive David McCormick to get in the race. A Pennsylvania political group launched by McCormick, who lost the 2022 GOP Senate primary for the vacant seat eventually won by Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), said Wednesday that it had raised more than $1 million from May 2 to June 5.
McCormick is not the only GOP name who has mulled a run. State Sen. Doug Mastriano, Pennsylvania's 2022 GOP gubernatorial nominee who lost that contest by nearly 15%, had also considered entering the race. He ultimately ruled against the idea, saying in May he would instead continue to serve in the state Senate and work to grow his political movement.
Daines had rejected the idea of Mastriano as the 2024 Senate nominee, recognizing that Casey will be a formidable candidate even if the election cycle turns into a difficult one for Democrats. He said of Mastriano in March: "We need somebody who can win a primary and a general election. His last race demonstrated he can’t win a general."
West Virginia — Joe Manchin
Manchin, a centrist Democrat representing the heavily Republican state, has yet to decide if he'll run for another term next year and has said he is still deciding what he will do in 2024. He has also fiercely defended plans from the centrist group No Labels to create a third-party presidential ticket amid speculation that he could be the party's nominee.
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West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, a Democrat-turned-Republican, is the only Republican in the ruby-red state who polls competitively against Manchin, a longtime friend-turned-political foe. Manchin, a former governor himself, had endorsed Justice in his crowded 2016 gubernatorial primary race when the latter announced his party switch.
Justice has also polled well ahead of his main primary competitor, Rep. Alex Mooney (R-WV), who launched his Senate bid late last year. Like Rosendale in Montana, the West Virginia lawmaker has the backing of the conservative Club for Growth, which has been blanketing the airwaves with campaign ads painting Justice as an out-of-touch "RINO," or Republican in name only.