The only thing more difficult than securing a majority of the Democrats’ 51 seats during the 2024 election cycle could be finding a senator willing to accept the job.
Democrats are still unsure who will lead the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, a job Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (R-Ariz.) made even more difficult with her decision to register as an independent on Friday. The party is already defending six Senate incumbents in seats former President Donald Trump won at least once, including three in states he won by double digits in both 2016 and 2020.
The search became a struggle for both obvious and obscure reasons. The DSCC chairman could face ideological and divisive battles within the party in both Arizona and California. The rise of online fundraising has made the connections with major donors that accompany the work less valuable than in the past. More than half of the party’s senators are either running for re-election or are members of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (NY) leadership team.
But more than anything, the brutality of the map facing Democrats would blow away any glory-seeking politician.
“It’s a tough map,” said Sen. Steve Daines (Mont.), who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the GOP’s equivalent. “It’s perfectly understandable why no one wants this job.”
Sen. Jon Tester, a former chairman of the DSCC and one of three state Trump incumbents in double digits, floated a string of names.
“Nobody wants to do it because it’s a lot of work,” Tester told HuffPost. “I don’t know who could do that. Obviously, Peters doesn’t want to do it again,” he said, referring to incumbent Sen. Gary Peters (Mich.), who managed to add to the Democratic majority despite a difficult political environment.
The tester was right on this point.
“I’m very proud of our victories in this election,” Peters, who also won a re-election bid in 2020, said in a statement to HuffPost. “I will not chair the DSCC for the 2024 cycle.”
Tester then named three other candidates: “There are other people. Kelly, Padilla, Ossoff, there are others.”
However, spokespeople for Sens. Mark Kelly (Arizona) and Alex Padilla (California) indicated their bosses were not interested in the job. Padilla, a spokeswoman said, wants to spend time with her teenage children. Kelly, a spokesman said, has been running for Senate for 46 consecutive months and wants a break. A spokesman for Sen. Jon Ossoff said the Georgian had “zero interest.”
A representative for Sen. Tina Smith (Minn.), another candidate floated by aides, said she wasn’t interested in the gig either.
Since Trump’s 2016 election reshaped American politics by increasing the GOP’s appeal to white working-class voters, 2024 is shaping up to be a daunting year for Democrats. Senators Jon Tester of Montana, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, and Joe Manchin of West Virginia—all representing states dominated by white working classes—have been able to defy political gravity in part by their good fortune of being re-elected in years of a strong Democratic Party. from 2006, 2012 and 2018.
That luck could easily run out in an election that will require him to convince thousands, if not millions, of voters to vote in states that the Democratic presidential nominee will almost certainly ignore in 2024. In the last two cycles of presidential election, only Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) convinced voters to elect her even if they supported a presidential candidate from the opposite party.
In addition to those three states, Democrats will also have to defend the seat now held by Sinema — who, despite his protestations to the contrary, is essentially functioning as a Democratic caucus member — in the swing state of Arizona as well. holders of the state of Pennsylvania. , Wisconsin and Michigan.
And their chances of recovery are likely nonexistent: Their best hope is likely to be defeating Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in an extremely expensive state where no Democrat has won nationally in three decades . He is also likely to target Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), but he has repeatedly shown a willingness to spend hundreds of millions of dollars of his own personal wealth.
The exposure is such that a bad Democratic year could lock up the ruling party in the Senate for the foreseeable future.
Adding to the difficulty are some potentially high-profile battles within the group. Sinema has yet to formally announce whether she plans to run for re-election, but a run would immediately spark intense debate within the party over whether home Democrats explicitly support her, stay neutral or support a potential Democratic challenger.
Appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders — another Democratic-aligned independent — indicated he was ready to support a Sinema challenger.
“I support progressive candidates across the country, people who have the courage to take on powerful special interests,” Sanders said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen in Arizona. We’ll see who they nominate. But it’s definitely something I’ll keep a close eye on.”
California Democrats are also waiting for Senator Dianne Feinstein, who is 89 years old and he is clearly struggling with his job, to announce his retirement. This would create a high-profile and ideologically charged showdown between different factions of the Democratic Party. While DSCC typically remains neutral in primaries, navigating hurt feelings and multiple rounds of voting in the state’s top 2 system could be an added headache.
And it’s a nuisance for a job that has become less attractive.
When Tester and Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) took office for the 2016 and 2014 cycles, respectively, part of the reason was to build ties with national donor networks ahead of their tough re-election bids. But nearly every Democratic senator facing a competitive race now raises nearly as much from small online donations as they do from standard fundraisers.
Look at two of the Democratic senators being considered for the job: Kelly, for example, raised $38 million in donations under $200 in 2021 and 2022 and raised $47 million in donations over $200 . Ossoff has raised $69 million in small donations for his 2020 race and $75 million in donations of more than $200.
Finally, the number of potential candidates is reduced. 26 of the party’s 51 senators are running for re-election, already in a leadership role, or both. Others are over 70 years old or parents of young children. (One senator, John Hickenlooper of Colorado, is Both.)
“When you get rid of senators who are running for re-election, have just won re-election or are geriatrics, there really aren’t many names left,” said a Democratic Senate aide, who requested anonymity to speak sarcastically about their peers. . .
Igor Bobic contributed to the report.
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