2024 Senate Races: Not All Leads Are Created Equal

Last week, The Hill and Emerson Polling released a series of Senate polls. In the Friday edition of this newsletter, we discussed how they could be interpreted as good news for Democrats. In today’s edition, I’ll offer a contrarian take.

The positive spin on the numbers is that Democrats are leading in all of these races. What’s not to like? It is always better to be leading than it is to be losing. With that said, not all leads are created equal.

Let’s sort these races into two bins. We’ll start with open seats. In Arizona, Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego leads Republican Kari Lake 45% to 43%. In Michigan, Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin leads former GOP Rep. Mike Rogers 42% to 40%. The latter is roughly in line with our poll average, while the former is a better showing for Lake than some recent polls.

The problem is one of expectations.The Michigan poll isn’t bad for either party; it shows a close race with a large number of undecideds, which is probably what our baseline should be. The fact that Lake has made it so close this early, however, is a bit of a surprise. Given some of the problems she’s had with more moderate segments of the Arizona GOP, I would have expected a healthy lead for Gallego before the race closed somewhat at the end. If the race is close now, it’s a welcome surprise for the GOP, and a sign that Lake actually has a decent chance to win.

The news in the other three races is considerably worse for Democrats. Sen. Jacky Rosen is up 45%-37% over potential nominee Sam Brown, Sen. Bob Casey is up 46%-42% over businessman Dave McCormick, while Tammy Baldwin is up 46%-43% over Eric Hovde. Again, to be clear, it is better to be up than down. At the same time, to be an incumbent hovering in the mid-40s against unknown opponents is a sign of weakness. To be in the mid-40s and only up three or four points is bad news.

None of this is to predict victory for Republicans in any of these races. I’d still consider Democrats favorites in all of them, with the potential exception of Michigan (I see it as more of a tossup, though we should bear in mind that the GOP has won exactly one Senate race there since 1972). But it does suggest that these incumbents are soft, and that if President Biden ends up losing these states in the fall, these incumbents are by no means locks to avoid following suit.