An early look at the 2024 Senate map (Part 1 - Republican seats)

About as good of a map that the GOP could have hoped for...

In order of vulnerability here are the Republicans that are up for reelection:

• Ted Cruz (TX) - Likely R

• Rick Scott (FL) - Likely R

• Josh Hawley (MO) - Safe R

• Mike Braun* (IN) - Safe R

• Roger Wicker (MS) - Safe R

• Deb Fischer (NE) - Safe R

• Pete Ricketts (NE) - Safe R

• Mitt Romney (UT) - Safe R

• Marsha Blackburn (TN) - Safe R

• Kevin Cramer (ND) - Safe R

• John Barrasso (WY) - Safe R

* Retiring

So, as you can see here... the two seats that the Democrats will have to aim for are Texas and Florida. Coincidently the two states that are most under fire from the left are the closet seats they have to being competitive. Not sure how you feel if you are the Democrat running in these states, when your Party (and media) are doing everything to undercut the state you are wanting to represent. At the end of the day even the idea of Cruz and Scott being vulnerable might be a bit of a stretch.

In Texas Cruz beat a then up and coming Beto O'Rourke by nearly 3 points in 2018 and Democrats have lost over 100 consecutive statewide elections in the lone star state. They seem to be pinning their hopes on Colin Allred, who has only been an elected official since 2018 and is best known as a former NFL linebacker. The only reason this race is on the radar is because there are very few other races for Democrats to look towards.

In Florida Scott won in 2018 by around 10,000 votes against Bill Nelson. This was a typical Florida style close election with recounts and the whole package. But Florida has moved quite a bit to the right since 2018, and the Democrats do not really have a big name candidate to fall back on. In fact, the leading contender at this point is an author named Rod Joseph who has never been elected to any seat anywhere.

In Missouri Josh Hawley won in 2018 by just under 6 points over the incumbent Claire McCaskill. Now as the incumbent in a state that has been turning more red, he goes in as a pretty solid favorite against whoever might run against him. At this point, the Democrats have no real solid opposition recruited.

In Indiana, Mike Braun has stepped aside to run for Governor. But Trump won Indiana by 16 points in 2020 and Todd Young won his Senate last year (2022) by over 20 points, so whoever the GOP ends up with is going to start off as a heavy favorite.

After Indiana you start to run into red states where there are double digit GOP advantages with incumbent Senators running as safe bets (probably all 95% or higher). These will be largely ignored matchups unless something totally bizarre happens.

The last thing to consider here is that none of these Republican Senators up for reelection are in states that have any recent history of voting issues. You will not see Texas or Florida "stolen" by Democratic trickery. The local Governors and legislators in those two states have cleaned their elections up to the point where the second and third largest states in the country are able to accurately and quickly count ballots and report results generally before we go to bed on election night. The others are deep red states run by the GOP with little voter problems or Democratic cheating going on. It is sad to think that this is a real consideration in 2024, but unfortunately it is.