For Democrats To Hold The Senate, Their Red State Incumbents Will Have To Defy Political Gravity

For Democrats to retain hold of the Senate, their most vulnerable nominees will have to fend off a political realignment and outrun President Joe Biden by double digits in states he is almost certain to lose in 2024. 

Democrats currently hold a 51–49 majority. And the party’s three most vulnerable incumbents — Montana Sen. Jon Tester, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin — all are the last statewide elected Democrats in their respective states, and former President Donald Trump carried all three states twice, and rather easily. 

While all three men have unique brands, the national Democratic brand has been severely tarnished in those states — and Democrats have suffered heavy losses in all levels of state government, which started after the election of former President Barack Obama in 2008 and was accelerated by Trump’s victory in 2016.

In 2020, there was only one state that split their vote between President and Senate — Maine, where Sen. Susan Collins defeated former state House Speaker Sara Gideon by around nine percentage points despite a Biden presidential victory.  In 2016, no states split their votes. 

There are only five states — Maine, Montana, Ohio, West Virginia, and Wisconsin — that split their delegations between the parties. In 2018, there were 14 split delegations, and the most the Senate has ever had was 27 from 1979-1980, according to the Pew Research Center. 

An analysis by Sabato’s Crystal Ball found that since 2016, no major party’s Senate nominee has run more than 25 points ahead of their party’s presidential nominee. 

With the rapid decline of split-ticket voting, Brown, Manchin, and Tester will have to outrun Biden significantly if Democrats are to hold onto their majority. 

“Jon Tester and Sherrod Brown have done nothing to meaningfully distance themselves from Joe Biden, so it’s unclear why Democrats think there will be a lot of split-ticket voting in Montana and Ohio,” said National Republican Senatorial Committee communications director Mike Berg. “Our polling, as well as numerous public polls, shows Joe Manchin lit his entire brand on fire when he wrote and voted for Joe Biden’s job-killing green energy bill.” 

Democrats are well aware of the challenge ahead of them but believe their incumbents, who have regularly run ahead of the top of the ticket, can do it again. A Democratic strategist involved in Senate races noted that the Senate races in these states will be the main attraction and could allow Brown, Manchin, and Tester to “create their own political weather.” 

 “Senate campaigns are candidate vs. candidate battles. Each of these Senators continues to have the backing of their own broad, unique coalition of voters, while Republicans are putting forward flawed candidates and fighting amongst themselves in vicious primaries,” said Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee press secretary Tommy Garcia. 

Democratic operatives involved in Senate races ultimately believe that GOP primary chaos will deliver them the majority yet again. But even with brutal primaries, Montana, Ohio, and West Virginia are a lot redder than they used to be, it’s still a steep hill to climb for the Democratic Party. 

West Virginia 

Perhaps no state in the union has shifted politically like West Virginia over the last twenty years. 

Former President Bill Clinton carried the state twice, in 1992 and 1996. Then, former President George W. Bush carried it twice — by 6.3 percentage points in 2000 and then 12.8 percentage points in 2004. The state has only gotten redder since. 

Manchin, who hasn’t announced whether or not he’ll run for reelection, is the only Democrat with a prayer of retaining the seat. 

In 2012, Utah Sen. Mitt Romney became the first candidate of any party to carry all of West Virginia’s counties and defeated Obama, 62%-35%. 

But West Virginians split their tickets in huge amounts, and Manchin won easily, 60%-36.5%. Manchin ran 25 percentage points ahead of Obama. 

Six years later, when Manchin was up for reelection, he received just under 50 percent of the vote, defeating state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey by three percentage points. Two years earlier, Trump blew out Hillary Clinton by over 40 percentage points. Manchin ran slightly less than 20 points ahead of Clinton two years later. 

Earlier this year, Manchin declared “I will win any race I enter,” but if he runs this year he is likely to face his toughest challenge because of the collapse of the Democratic Party in the state. 

According to data from Ballotpedia, since 1992, there have been nineteen years of Democratic trifectas. But in 2018, when Gov. Jim Justice left the Democratic Party and joined the GOP, Republicans have had full control of state government. 

Now, West Virginia Republicans have an 89-11 majority in the House of Delegates and a whopping 31-3 majority in the state Senate. 

Perhaps reading the tea leaves, Manchin has floated becoming an independent ahead of a reelection bid, and he continues to not rule out running for president, either. He has repeatedly said that he will make his decision in December. 

Big Sky Country 

Tester was first elected to the Senate in Montana in 2006, a wave year for Republicans after George W. Bush was reelected. He defeated incumbent GOP Sen. Conrad Burns, who was seeking his fourth term, by less than a percentage point. 

Now, as Tester seeks his fourth term, he faces an electorate that has moved away from his party.

In 2012, the last time Tester was on the ballot in a presidential race, he outran Obama by about seven percentage points. Obama lost by double digits, while Tester defeated his Republican opponent by slightly less than 4 percentage points — while a libertarian candidate received 6.5 percent of the vote. 

In the Montana state legislature in 2007, Republicans had a one-seat majority in the state House while Democrats had a one-seat majority in the state Senate. Fast forward to 2023 and Republicans have a 68-32 majority in the state House and a 34-16 majority in the state Senate. In 2020, when Republican Sen. Steve Daines won reelection by double digits, it was the first time since 2000 that Montana voted Republican in the gubernatorial, Senate, and presidential races. 

Daines’s reelection margin ended up being a surprise because former Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, after a failed run for president, filed to run against him. Bullock was seen as a top recruit due to his crossover appeal — he won reelection in 2016 with Trump on the ballot. The race was one of the most expensive in the country. 

Bullock ended up running seven points ahead of Biden. Daines beat the term-limited governor, 55%-45%, while Trump defeated Biden, 57%-40%. 

In 2018, Tester received over 50 percent support, the first time he had done so in a Senate campaign. He performed 9.7 percentage points better than Biden’s 2020 performance and nearly 15 percentage points better than Clinton’s performance. 

He defeated Republican Rep. Matt Rosendale in 2018, and Rosendale appears to be making preparations for another Senate bid. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, led by Montana Sen. Steve Daines, Tester's partner in the Senate, has recruited retired Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy into the race. It's expected to be one of the most competitive and closely watched primaries in the nation.

Tester’s ability to defy political gravity relies on his political brand. A seven-fingered organic farmer, he has cultivated a “Mr. Montana” image while remaining a reliable Democratic vote. His ability to turn out Montana’s native tribes to support him has been a key factor as well. 

Ohio 

Ohio Democrats, after multiple bruising elections, have some pep in their step after voters last month rejected Issue 1, which was widely seen as a proxy vote on an abortion referendum that’s coming up in November. 

But Ohio, once a quintessential battleground state, has become solidly red on the presidential level, and Brown will have to outrun Biden in order to win. 

Brown has proved to be a talented campaigner and has cultivated an image as a populist politician through his “Dignity of Work” slogan. 

He defeated now-Gov. Mike DeWine in the 2006 election by around twelve percentage points and won reelection in 2012 by around six percentage points while Obama won Ohio by around three percentage points. 

He faced former Rep. Jim Renacci in the 2018 race, winning by a similar margin with a similar coalition to Trump’s two wins in the state in 2016 and 2020. He ran strong in the post-industrial northeast counties in the state like Trumbull, Ashtabula, and Portage. His 2018 result was around eight percentage points better than Biden’s 2020 losing effort. 

In an analysis for Politico, veteran political analyst Kyle Kondik, an expert on Ohio Politics, argued that one reason why Ohio isn’t in play in the presidential election is because of the counties surrounding Ohio’s cities. Twelve of the 15 counties that surround Cuyahoga (Cleveland), Franklin (Columbus, and Hamilton (Cincinnati) became more red from 2012 to 2020. 

In a silver lining for Democrats, however, Brown still ran ahead of “No” on Issue 1 in much of the northeastern region of the state where Democrats have fallen so rapidly. 

In 2022, an open-seat race saw now-Sen. J.D. Vance defeated former Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan, who outraised and outspent Vance, by six percentage points. Republicans swept all of the statewide election positions, including all three seats on the state Supreme Court while expanding supermajorities in both houses of the state legislature

Democrats are hoping that the already-bruising primary between Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, state Sen. Matt Dolan, and former car dealership owner Bernie Moreno will leave the eventual nominee hampered and down on cash by the time the general election comes into focus.