Key Republicans' shrinking leads could give Democrats new path to Senate majority

While most analyses have identified Montana as the most likely tipping point state for control of the Senate in 2024, there are races in Texas, Florida and potentially Nebraska that appear about as competitive as Montana and could give Democrats a path to the majority.

With Democrats defending Senate seats in swing states including Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada, Democratic Sen. John Tester’s race to keep his seat in Montana appears to be the most likely pickup for Republicans’ Senate effort this year.

First elected in 2006, Tester defended his seat in the 2012 and 2018 elections despite the state consistently supporting Republicans up and down the ballot. Now, however, he’s trailing Republican opponent Tim Sheehy in most polls. The importance of this race is reflected in the ad spending in the state with Axios reporting that Democrats are spending upwards of $150 per voter on ads in Montana with Republicans spending nearly $130 per voter in the state.

There are, however, a few races that look similarly close to the Montana race in the polls.

In Texas, Democratic Rep. Colin Allred trails Republican Sen. Ted Cruz by just four points, 43% to 47%, according to a recent Texas Public Opinion Research survey. Other recent surveys have found similar results, with a Morning Consult poll finding Cruz ahead by five points and an Emerson College and The Hill survey finding Cruz leading by four points.

Allred is pitching himself as a centrist Democrat and his messaging has been focused on protecting Social Security benefits, support for the bipartisan border bill, and abortion. The former Tennessee Titan’s campaign is also the first statewide Democratic campaign in recent years to launch a coordinated campaign with the state Democratic Party, meaning the state party, the Allred campaign and down-ballot candidates are pooling information and resources to coordinate voter outreach. The campaign has also outraised Cruz’s campaign every quarter thus far and has had ads on the air since mid-May.

While there have been signs that the race has been tightening, the research director at the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, Joshua Blank, cautions that “for Democrats to be competitive it requires significant turnout from their voters it also requires groups that aren’t as attached to the Republican Party to break their way.”

“That’s ultimately what happened in 2018 but it’s not clear that that’s what’s going to happen in 2024,” Blank said. “The other story here is that there’s been so much variance in Texas election results in the past decade and it’s not clear what sort of election it’s going to be.”

In Blank’s assessment, it would take something “shocking,” like a mass shooting, a death resulting from the state’s outright abortion ban or another mass power outage to make the race closer to a toss-up.

Florida is the other state where a Democratic challenger, Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, is hoping to unseat a Republican incumbent, Sen. Rick Scott.

In the race, Emerson College and The Hill polling found Murcarsel-Powell trailing Scott by just one point earlier this month. Other surveys have found a larger margin for Scott, with a Redfield and Wilton Strategies survey sponsored by The Telegraph finding a three-point lead and a Morning Consult survey finding Scott leading by five points.

The Mucarsel-Powell campaign has focused on Scott’s unpopularity in the state, with a recent poll by USA Today, Suffolk University and WSVN-TV finding him at just 35% approval in Florida, including just 59% approval among Republicans and 28% approval among independents.

Scott’s unpopularity, combined with an abortion ballot measure and the fact that Mucarsel-Powell overperformed President Joe Biden in her district by three points, could make for a competitive Senate race in the state. The Mucarsel-Powell campaign only began placing significant ad buys in recent weeks, and they see their current position as their floor of support, which they are hoping to build from. Scott’s bid to lay out a GOP legislative agenda in the Senate, which included a provision that would’ve sunset programs like Social Security and Medicare, has also made him a soft target for attack ads, even though he’s walked back some of his ideas. 

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

The director of the University of North Florida Public Opinion Research Lab, Micahel Binder, is still skeptical of Democrats’ statewide chances in Florida.

“Do I think that race is closer than Trump and Harris in Florida, I do,” Binder said. “Do I think it is going to be a one-point race, I think it’ll be closer to four or five points.”

Binder suggested that, with Vice President Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket, Florida Democrats no longer have to worry about depressed turnout down-ballot but that they probably still need a boost to make the race a true toss-up. In his assessment, independents likely won’t be enough to overcome the Republicans’ registration advantage.

In Binder’s mind, a mistake from Scott — like coming out with a new plan to sunset Medicare — or Mucarsel-Powell overwhelmingly associating herself with the state’s abortion ballot measure could bring the race to a draw. Binder also noted that the Florida Democratic Party is still in the process of rebuilding its internal structure after getting rolled by Republicans in 2022 and that the benefits of new party leadership might not manifest themselves this year.

The true wildcard of this year’s Senate elections is Nebraska, where there is both a regular and special election for Senate underway. In the regular election, independent candidate Dan Osborn is aiming to unseat Republican Sen. Deb Fischer and recent polling has suggested that he could win. A recent Split Ticket and Survey USA poll found him polling at 38% and Fischer polling at 39% and the Osborn campaign’s internal polling has found similar results in the past.

On the campaign trail, Osborn has pitched himself as a Washington D.C. outsider in an effort to contrast himself with Fischer, who initially ran for Senate in 2012 on her support for congressional term limits and a promise to limit herself to two terms in the Senate. Osborn also polls better than Democrats in the rural parts of Nebraska, which could help push him over the edge in November.

While Osborn is running as an independent, his campaign has signaled that he would vote to codify the abortion rights protections afforded by Roe v. Wade, would vote with Democrats on the bipartisan border bill they proposed earlier this year, and that he would be interested in voting for a bill like the PRO Act. While Osborn likely wouldn’t vote with Democrats on every issue, he would keep Republicans from controlling the chamber and has signaled that he may be willing to work around the filibuster on certain issues.