Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) believes incumbency can be an advantage to Senate Democrats looking to keep their seats over Republican hopefuls.
In the 2024 general election, there are seven critical swing states that either former President Joe Biden or former President Donald Trump must win to secure the presidency. Five of those, save for Georgia and North Carolina, feature Senate races with Democrats trying to hang on to their seat and overall majority in the Senate.
“I think incumbency, as we learned in ’22, is an advantage,” McConnell told the Hill. “Not a single incumbent lost in ’22. Sen. Daines and I have never said we thought this was going to be easy,”
In 2022, every incumbent kept their seat, and Democrats picked up victories in Arizona and Pennsylvania, with Sens. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and John Fetterman (D-PA) flipping the seats en route to winning a true majority in the chamber.
“We’ve got to beat an incumbent in Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and anywhere else we can, but we never said it was going to be a piece of cake,” McConnell said.
In Nevada and Pennsylvania, Trump was leading the polls and tied with Biden in Wisconsin, but their Senate races tell a much different story. In Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, incumbent Democratic senators are polling far ahead of their Republican challengers, according to a New York Times/Siena poll.
Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Bob Casey (D-PA), and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) are polling far ahead of their Republican challengers in the same poll that puts Trump ahead of Biden. In Wisconsin, Baldwin is leading Republican candidate Eric Hovde, 49% to 41%. Rosen is leading Republican challenger Sam Brown 40% to 38%, and Casey is leading Republican David McCormick 46% to 41%.
In Arizona, Trump had a 42% to 33% advantage over Biden in the poll, but Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), who is giving up his seat in the House to run for Senate against former TV anchor Kari Lake, is leading Lake 45% to 41%. While Gallego is not the incumbent, he has strong name recognition as a sitting member of the House.
Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee communications director David Bergstein believes the well-known element of Senate Democrats will allow them to keep control of the chamber.
“Senate Republicans once again have a ‘candidate quality’ problem with their recruits,” Bergstein said in a recent memo. “Now the damaging revelations emerging about the GOP’s Senate recruits have grown to include their lies about their biographies on the campaign trail, scandals stemming from their finances and a lifetime of unvetted statements and policy positions.”
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Bergstein’s statement about “candidate quality” mimics remarks made by McConnell last year before the 2022 midterm elections.
“I think there’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate. Senate races are just different — they’re statewide, candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome,” McConnell said in 2022.