The Official 2024 US Senate Thread

Bob Casey up 4 in Pennsylvania.

Republican Senate challengers lag well behind Trump in public polls.

How is the Wisconsin race now a toss-up?

Ruben Gallegos has a commanding lead over Kari Lake.

After its last poll showing Slotkin up 5, Quinnipiac now has the Michigan Senate race deadlocked.

Marist poll:

[quote] Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R) had the largest lead, ahead of Democratic Rep. Colin Allred by 5 points, 51 percent to 46 percent. Meanwhile, Florida Sen. Rick Scott (R) led Democratic former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell by 2 points, 50 percent to 48 percent, and Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) led Republican Bernie Moreno by 2 points, 50 percent to 48 percent.

And take a gander over here every now and again...

With Jon Tester polling well outside the MOE, our best hope is that he can be this cycle’s Susan Collins, who was way down in the polls before going on to win, fairly easily, in ‘22. Of course, Maine is not as blue as Montana is red, & Collins wasn’t running in a presidential election.

[quote] Republicans are still favored to take control of the chamber, and their data brought some hopeful news with tightening races in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. But other pickup opportunities, namely Maryland and Michigan, are moving in the wrong direction. And Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, one of the two incumbents running in a state Trump won in 2020, looks surprisingly strong in Ohio.

[quote] And now two GOP-held states, Texas and Nebraska, may be emerging as late-breaking problem spots.

[quote] The memo warns of two defensive problems: In Texas, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz is only up 1 point in the latest poll, and Law describes Nebraska as “a serious trouble-spot” where they are polling to “assess whether intervention is necessary” to help GOP Sen. Deb Fischer. (The incumbent released a poll last week showing her up 6 points.)

A possible silver lining in the lost West Virginia seat.

I think Slotkin has a good chance of winning. She's a moderate Dem. I hope she ends up on a presidential ticket someday.

Allred ads all over Texas TV and they include the Cancun airport footage of Cruz!

The Nebraska Senate race.

Ted Cruz now has a lead outside the MOE.

[quote] Hoping against hope that this is the year Ted Cruz is going down.

The University of Texas poll shows Cruz seven points ahead. The “Allred mirage” probably helped Cruz raise more money but that’s about it.

Dislodging a Senate incumbent is very difficult and unlikely, unless the senator is a Democrat in a red state or a Republican is a blue state, and even then it’s not easy (e.g. Brown in Ohio). There no lack of pipe dreams during an election season, though, right?

I have a feeling Tester will win and this twat in Nebraska is going to win and decide the majority. If you thought Manchin and Sinema were a pain in the ass…

Like Ted Cruz, Tammy Baldwin has never been behind in a poll so far. I think it's very likely they both win. No big surprise, unless running for reelection in a deeply red state, reelection to the Senate has mostly been a lock in recent cycles. See Ron Johnson.

This is unusual. Casey is running an ad in Pennsylvania in which it is mentioned that “he sided with Trump to end NAFTA and put tariffs on China to stop them from cheating.” Maybe Casey’s internal polling is making him try to save himself if it looks like Trump is winning the state.

It would be good if Osborn won and stayed in his own caucus, at least for a while: corralling all senators into one caucus or another for fear of losing their committee assignments is not a positive and it contributes to a deeply polarised culture.

Nebraska's now been moved from “likely Republican” to “leans Republican” by Sabato's Crystal Ball.

[quote] Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) is privately telling donors he can win his race if Vice President Harris stays within eight percentage points of former President Trump in the state, according to people familiar with the matter.

[quote] Why it matters: That's doable. Trump currently leads Harris by seven in the RealClearPolitics average of Ohio polls.

[bold]Republican super PAC warns the end may be near for Ted Cruz[/bold]

With 21 days left to election day, even Republican Senator Ted Cruz's biggest supporters are worried about his chances of winning this November.

According to an Oct. 8 Senate Leadership Fund (SLF) internal polling memo obtained by Politico, Cruz is up only by a single point against Democratic challenger, U.S. Rep. Colin Allred. That's a slide from Cruz's September lead which had him leading by three points.

"Beginning in early August, Colin Allred has been heavily outspending Ted Cruz on TV, closing up the multicandidate ballot to a single point," the memo reads. "GOP outside groups (including a dedicated Cruz super PAC) joined the fray in September and narrowed Allred's spending advantage. We are carefully monitoring additional media placements and will have fresh polling numbers here next week."

more at link

Dan Osborn, a union leader and political independent, is within striking distance of Senator Deb Fischer, Republican of Nebraska, while in Texas, Representative Colin Allred, a Democrat, has more ground to make up against Senator Ted Cruz, according to new polls from The New York Times and Siena College.

The results offer more evidence that the election remains excruciatingly tight up and down the ticket with little more than a week until ballots are tallied. They also show that in several Republican states, non-Republican candidates are running ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris, who trails former President Donald J. Trump by wider margins in Nebraska and Texas.

The Nebraska poll has found that Mr. Osborn, an industrial mechanic who is running as an independent voice for the working class, is trailing Ms. Fischer, a Republican who has kept a relatively low profile since taking office in 2013, by two percentage points, 46 percent to 48 percent, with 5 percent of likely voters in Nebraska either undecided or refusing to answer.

In Texas, Mr. Allred, a former professional football player from Dallas, trails Mr. Cruz, once a rival of Mr. Trump’s but now a loyal ally, 46 percent to 50 percent. In a contest this close, a small polling error could tilt the race in either direction. But the current margin is about the same as Mr. Cruz’s margin of victory against his last well-funded Democratic challenger, Beto O’Rourke, in 2018. That year, Mr. Cruz beat Mr. O’Rourke, 51 percent to 48 percent.

Mr. Trump is running ahead of the Republican Senate candidates in both states.

He leads Ms. Harris in Nebraska, 55 percent to 40 percent. But the state parcels out its five electoral votes in part by congressional district, and Ms. Harris leads comfortably in the so-called blue dot around Omaha, 54 percent to 42 percent, putting her on track to secure a single — and potentially critical — electoral vote. If Ms. Harris won the “blue wall” states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin but lost the Sun Belt swing states, that single Nebraska electoral vote could be the difference between a Harris victory and an electoral tie, which almost certainly would lead to her defeat in the House of Representatives.

The surprisingly close Senate contest in Nebraska could decide which party controls the Senate next year. For Democrats to retain their majority, they would have to defend tightly contested Democratic seats in the tossup states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona, while staving off Republican challengers in the conservative-leaning states of Ohio and Montana. The Montana race, between Senator Jon Tester, a Democrat, and Tim Sheehy, a Republican newcomer, has appeared to be trending away from the Democrats.

Mr. Osborn, diligently refusing to compromise his independent status, has not said which party he would side with to secure committee assignments in the Senate. But if Mr. Osborn beats Ms. Fischer and joins the Democrats, he may provide an increasingly important insurance seat for Ms. Harris’s party.

Mr. Osborn’s steadfast independence appears to be keeping the race close. In Republican-dominated Nebraska, Ms. Harris is actually leading among independent voters by 10 percentage points. Mr. Osborn is leading Ms. Fischer among independents by a much wider margin: 31 percentage points.

Mr. Osborn “is so much more relatable to us everyday folk in Nebraska,” said April Baker, 42, an independent voter in Omaha who is an anti-human trafficking consultant and undecided on the presidential race. “Like, he seems to have more of his finger on the pulse of what’s going on. He’s not someone who’s out of touch with reality.”

A special election for Nebraska’s other Senate seat is not close. Senator Pete Ricketts, a powerful Nebraska Republican, is favored to hold on to the seat he was appointed to in 2023 after Senator Ben Sasse resigned. Preston Love, a civil-rights leader who is a traditional Democrat, is trailing Mr. Ricketts, 38 percent to 56 percent.

In Texas, Mr. Allred is outpacing Ms. Harris. Mr. Trump leads the vice president by 10 percentage points, 52 percent to 42 percent, in a head-to-head contest. Mr. Allred, who is backed by 46 percent of likely voters in Texas — four percentage points better than Ms. Harris’s tally — is buoyed by his success with Black and Hispanic voters. Mr. Allred has the support of 76 percent of Black voters, compared with Ms. Harris’s 71 percent, and is backed by 56 percent of Hispanic voters, versus Ms. Harris’s 50 percent.

Mr. Allred is also winning 9 percent of likely Texas voters identifying themselves as Republican. Ms. Harris is capturing about 6 percent.

Democrats had been bullish on their chances with a former football player in football-crazy Texas running against Mr. Cruz, who is from the state’s dominant political party but has never been beloved by voters.

Katherine McDonald, 45, a field supervisor for a local security company in Dallas, has not forgotten Mr. Cruz’s decision to join his family in Cancun, Mexico, while his state suffered through power outages driven by a brutal winter storm in 2021.

“I don’t see Allred doing that,” she said. “I see him struggling right alongside us.”

She said she would vote for Mr. Allred and for Mr. Trump.

But even as Texas has grown more diverse and urban, it has remained elusive to Democrats, in part because its Hispanic population has been drifting toward the Republicans.

In the new poll, 31 percent of Hispanic voters in Texas identified the economy as their top issue, by far the biggest category of concern. For Hispanic voters, the economy loomed larger than it did for white voters, Black voters and those of other races and ethnicities. By the slimmest of margins, 48 percent to 47 percent, likely Hispanic voters in Texas said that Mr. Trump would do a better job at handling their top issue than Ms. Harris would.

Democrats eyeing the big prize of Texas’ 40 electoral votes in future elections can take solace in one factor: The growing urban centers are increasingly Democratic. Ms. Harris still trails Mr. Trump in the region around Texas’ largest city, Houston, 45 percent to 50 percent, but she leads the former president in Greater Dallas-Fort Worth, the state’s largest metropolitan area, by six points, San Antonio by seven points and Austin by 15 points.

Mr. Trump’s lead largely rests in the smaller cities, towns and rural areas, where he dominates, 67 percent to 28 percent.

1 million pissed-off Puerto Ricans in Orlando may have just put Florida in play again.

Slotkin ahead in Michigan. I don't believe she's been behind in any polls, typically a strong sign.

Slotkin is POTUS/VPOTUS material IMO.

Democrat Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico is polling better than GOP candidate Nella Domenici. I think Heinrich will defeat Nella who is clearing trying to capitalize on her late father's political career. My nickname for Nella is "Nepla" combination of Nella and nepo.

That race, R28, has never been mentioned nationally as one that is at issue.

NYTimes decides to reveal this now?

I'm clinging to hope for Tester.

Good! I’m glad to see Native Americans turning out in force!

I sent a bunch of GOTV postcards to Native Americans in AZ throughout the summer. A whole series on who to contact to get information on registration, how to become more active and get involved for their communities.

I love to see a higher turnout amongst this group!