A new analysis published on Saturday explains why Democrats are not likely to keep control of the Senate in two years.
“The 2024 cycle could prove to be more challenging for the Democrats as they will have to defend twice as many Senate seats as Republicans,” the Washington Examiner pointed out.
“The 2024 election will have 34 Senate seats up for grabs, including 22 that are now held by the Democrats, 11 that belong to the Republicans, and the Arizona seat held by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who announced on Friday that she will now be an independent,” the report continued.
“Making things more challenging, a handful of Democrats will also be fighting for reelection in reliably red states — giving Republicans a chance to flip some crucial seats,” it added.
According to the political analyst site FiveThirtyEight, Republicans have the best chance to pick up three Senate seats currently held by Democrats: Sens. Jon Tester in Montana; Joe Manchin in West Virginia; and Sherrod Brown in Ohio, who has found himself in an increasingly red state.
Two other races other than Sinema’s seat in Arizona — Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin and Bob Casey, Jr. in Pennsylvania — could also fall into Republican hands.
“Though Republicans have ample pickup opportunities, Democrats can realistically hope to flip only two GOP-held seats in 2024: Florida and Texas,” FiveThirtyEight noted.
“Still, given the strong Republican showings in Florida recently and the inability of Texas Democrats to break through statewide, even as the state has become a lighter shade of red, the GOP incumbents will likely start as favorites in these seats in a way that isn’t true for Brown, Manchin and Tester,” the site continued.
It should be noted that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) won his November reelection race by nearly 20 points.