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June 14, 2023 - Doug Collins Podcast
24:49
Early Look at the 2024 Senate races Part 1
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You want to listen to a podcast?
By who?
Georgia GOP Congressman Doug Collins.
How is it?
The greatest thing I have ever heard in my whole life.
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In this house, wherever the rules are disregarded, chaos and mob rule.
It has been said today, where is bravery?
I'll tell you where bravery is found and courage is found.
It's found in this minority who has lived through the last year of nothing but rules being broken, people being put down, questions not being answered, and this majority say, be damned with anything else.
We're going to impeach and do whatever we want to do.
Why?
Because we won an election.
I guarantee you, one day you'll be back in the minority and it ain't gonna be that fun.
Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast today.
We're going to start the week off.
This week we're going to hit not only our Friday's Finest, James and I always do our Friday's Finest.
Looking forward to that later this week.
But also, I wanted to start this week, and I know for some of you, you feel like the election cycle never ends.
Well, it really doesn't.
And 2024 is right around whether you're looking at presidential politics, and we will get into that, I'm sure, a lot on our podcast.
But I wanted to go ahead and give an early, early look at the Senate races.
And the Senate races are important.
Yeah.
Because this, even a Democrat, we heard Kevin Walling last week on the podcast, you know, basically say that the map is not in favor of Democrats this time.
And he's right.
This is one of those times when we gain back seats in the Senate, hopefully to take it back over.
And if we can hold the House, that puts the final, you know, hopefully it would put us in a position to have a Republican House, Republican Senate, and a Republican President going into 2025. And, you know, maybe still smaller margins, but at least, you know, from a conservative perspective, you're back into at least everybody on the same team playing in the same area to try and get some stuff done.
Now, so what I wanted to do here in just a few minutes on the podcast is talk about the 10 top Senate races.
And we're going to break them up into a two-part episode.
You'll see today here on Monday and then on Wednesday, we'll come back and finish up the final five.
But these are the races that are going to depend a lot on, you know, really...
Where the next administration will go.
So let's think about this.
We're not going to talk presidential politics right now, but if the Senate was able to stay Democrat, House stays Republican, and...
From my perspective, God forbid the Democrats win the White House, you're in the same boat you're in right now.
If the House stays Republican, Senate stays Republican, and the Republicans win the White House, you're back in all three branches being in one seat again.
So these are going to be important.
So in just a minute, we're going to take a look at the top 10 Senate races here in the U.S. in the 2024 cycle.
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All right, let's get started on the top races and we're going to go through these pretty quickly.
These are going to be good times for us to talk and look and see how these things are going to go.
I'm not going to spend a ton of time investigating these races, but I want to definitely look at them because these are the races that are going to make the headlines in the next 18 months.
First one You got to go with West Virginia.
This is Joe Manchin seat up in West Virginia.
Joe Manchin has been mentioned for everything besides, I think, running for governor again in West Virginia, which of what he was before.
And he has positioned himself as a gadfly amongst the Democrats.
He has alienated Republicans this time over the past year with his bill back Manchin and the Inflation Reduction Act and the felt like that he...
You know, basically took a false premise and then, you know, helped support a really bad bill.
And so it's going to be interesting, but this is a state the Democrats have...
Manchin is the anomaly in West Virginia.
And when I say anomaly in West Virginia, you have to understand this is a state that Donald Trump carried by 39 points in 2020.
So this is, you know, not fertile Democrat ground.
Even though Joe Manchin, who has been a governor there, he's still very, very well liked, has a huge political machine in West Virginia.
He has been breaking with the White House, overriding veto, voting to override vetoes, the debt ceiling stance.
I mean, he was pretty upset about that.
The interesting cycle about this, though, and I've heard this from more than one.
The discussion is, is Joe Manchin actually going to run for Senate or is Joe Manchin going to hold out, hold out, hold out to see if Joe Biden implodes later in the fall?
And if he implodes later in the fall, then you could actually see maybe a different...
You know, look at this and that he may run for president on the Democratic side.
I think that would be a nightmare for the Biden administration if you had Manchin coming out and running a full-fledged campaign against Biden in a primary.
I don't think, I mean, I think they would, that would just be their ultimate, they don't want to have happen.
I think these are still going to be interesting issues as you go.
Manchin, first quarter fundraising, didn't raise a whole lot.
He raised $371,000, which is not a lot for a senator who's going into cycle.
You got the Republicans already attacking, but Manchin does have $10 million in the bank, and he will get a lot of cover from some groups.
The real issue here is, though, Is Jim Justice.
There's several candidates running for the Republican primary to go against Manchin.
Alex Mooney, who's a current House member, the governor, Jim Justice, is getting in the race.
And he was a Democrat who switched in 2017. But he...
He's very wealthy, has high name ID, he's very well-liked, and it's going to be interesting.
The interesting thing about this is...
Once I think Justice gets out of the primary, the question will still be for me is where is Manchin?
Is he going full in on the Senate race or is he still holding out here?
I look, this is a seat.
If Justice is our candidate on the other side now, I know Mooney pretty well.
Mooney would have a good shot at this as well.
I think Justice has your best shot of flipping this seat.
It is the number one ranked flip seat in this cycle.
On the Senate side, so we'll just have to see.
And Steve Daines, believe me, I know Steve fairly well.
Steve is running the National Republican Senate Campaign Committee, and he's going to go hard in the paint here to flip this seat in West Virginia.
It's been one that we've looked at, thought we could get for years.
This will be our best chance to actually get it.
Let's switch out to Montana.
Montana is another city.
This is John Tester, who is another mansion-like candidate who just has a stronghold in Montana.
Interestingly enough, again, though, he is...
You know, raising money, he raised $5 million in the first quarter, and more than a million of which came from small donors.
This is being reported all across the media.
But he's running in Trump territory.
Montana went Trump 16 points in 2020, very similar to what we saw in West Virginia.
But he's going to be able to depend on his brand.
And his brand is very Montana, very independent-minded, although he votes with their administration the vast majority of time, votes with the Democrats in the Senate the vast majority of times on liberal appointments and justices and also bills that he's going to have to explain.
And I think this is why he's gearing up so fast with his financial commitments because he wants to get this I give the head of where it's going.
Now, the GOP field is coming together.
This could be the one in which the GOP field could get splintered.
Matt Rosendale is a current House member from Montana.
He has been mentioned from this.
He actually lost a tester in 2018, went back and then won the House seat there.
Again, it'll be interesting to see if he decides to actually get into this race.
The GOP, though, is looking...
They've got a candidate that they're looking at who is a retired Navy SEAL, Tim Sheehy.
He's a businessman.
He has a possible potential to self-fund.
And also, you have the State Attorney General, Austin Knutson, out there as well.
The Sheehy candidate is the most attractive.
His military background, Naval Academy...
Just, you know, business background, that would be a very, very good candidate to put up against Tester.
So Montana, a second move to flip.
We'll see how that goes.
You're going to hear a lot more about this campaign, though.
The West Virginia-Montana race...
We'll dominate discussions in this 2024 cycle.
So I'm putting them out there early for you.
We're going to talk about them early, probably talk about them often, but just to know this is what's actually going on in those two states.
That's the two pickups.
Now look, if everything else is still the same, Republicans picked up Montana and West Virginia, the Senate flips from Democrat to Republican.
And so this is why these two races are so important.
It's why the Democrats are really gearing up and are fearful in those two races.
Another one is in Ohio, and it's Sherrod Brown.
He's...
Ohio has been trending red for the longest time.
Brown is the only Democrat to win a non-judicial statewide race in Ohio since 2010 timeframe.
There's another...
Again, state in which Donald Trump carried it by eight points.
J.D. Vance was just elected in a statewide race for Senate against Democrat Tim Ryan, who was a very well-known congressman from Ohio, but it beat him by six points.
Even though Vance had some struggles, he still pulled out the race very much.
Brown, though, again, still that institution.
We're seeing these three candidates and the Democrats in these top three races are very well known in their communities.
They're very well known in Ohio, so it's going to take a lot to, you know, be able to topple them, especially with the work that he's been able to do.
Now, he's, again, taking it very seriously.
He's raised $3.6 million in the first quarter, but there are wealthy Republicans who are getting in this race as well.
Bernie Marino, who it looks like early Trump support here.
You have State Senator Matt Dolan, whose family owns the Cleveland Guardians baseball team.
I think he ran last time.
Both actually ran for Senate in 2022. Marino dropped out before the primary, and Dolan ran as a moderate conservative, which didn't finish third in a crowded field.
Others who have not jumped in this race and probably won't are Warren Davidson, Jim Jordan, others in that area who are, you know, very well-known in their congressional delegations, but at this point have not decided to jump in.
This will be a more interesting race.
Ohio is still a little bit closer than the first two that we talked about, being Montana and West Virginia.
So it'll be, if this trend holds in Ohio, Of the red move that they have had over the past few years, this one should be a Republican pickup.
Again, there's three pickups.
You pick up three, you've got one to spare in the majority column.
So we'll see how this one raced.
This will be probably a very expensive race and probably a very tense race if you look at it from a perspective of You know, who's going in and the two candidates in the self-funding aspect of this race.
So just sit back.
It'll be just like it was with the Vance race.
I got a feeling here.
It's going to be tight up until the primary, and then we'll see, you know, how the general pans out from there.
Number four.
Number four is Arizona.
Arizona is probably going to be one of the more interesting seats.
I mean, Kerry Lake is still, up until just recently, still going through lawsuits based on the governor's race from last fall, in which we lost the governor's race, the Senate race out there, and everything.
The interesting part about this one, though, is that Kyrsten Sinema has decided to run as an independent and not as a Democrat.
It's not surprising for those of us who've known Kirsten Sinema for a while.
She is very independent.
She doesn't like to be labeled, you know, drawn into a box that she doesn't draw herself.
And so for her turning and seeing the issue in the state as being very, very close, It wasn't a surprise to see her make this move.
It's a surprise in the environment in which it is.
Now, Ruben Gallego, who is a Democrat, very liberal Democrat from the state, is running to her left.
And he outraged, sent him a $3.8 million to $2.1 million.
We'll see if that actually holds.
This is my key in...
The Arizona Senate race.
Gallego has to not only continue to outrace Sinema, he's also got to make inroads into Democrats who like Sinema, even moderate Republicans who like Sinema, and to say, look, we don't need a non-liberal, and that's the route that Gallego's running here, in this seat.
We want them to be a true, you know, Liberal Democrat and not an independent-minded cinema who has turned away from the Democratic Party.
This will be an ugly race.
This will be one of those that's going to be very sharply contested in the primary.
You won't hear a lot, frankly, I don't think, about the primary side of the Republican Party unless you have Carrie Lake getting into this.
Some are thinking Carrie may get into this race.
Um, she doesn't have to decide.
She's in nowhere need to decide mode, right?
She don't even have to get in.
I mean, the fall would be really, uh, the first time I think there become a, an issue of how soon she needs to get in.
So you got Mark Lamb, who is a sheriff out there.
He's the first major Republican to get in it.
Um, and the final deadline is not until next April.
So it's, it's going to be interesting to see how, uh, this race turns out.
Um, As it goes forward, because you're going to have the dynamic of a Republican, a Democrat, and an Independent running on the ballot in Arizona.
And we'll see.
Republicans believe that a Gallego...
Because this would go all the way to the Democratic...
This would go all the way to the General, since Sinema's taking herself out of the primary position.
So you would have three...
Candidates going into the general election if Sinema, Gallego, and then the Republican candidate actually all stay in.
So, you know, the question will be, you know, does the Democrat base split enough to where the Republican can jump in to this seat?
This has been a state that has had tons of problems with voting, voting irregularities and others.
You know, the question is, will they be able to correct those before the next election?
Election cycle in 2024, you know, we'll see.
But it's caused a lot of rippling effects with voters in Arizona, the candidates, the current members of Congress, the legislature out there.
So it's going to be interesting to see how this dynamic plays out.
And if you have the dynamic played out of three candidates with Gallego Sinema and then the Republican candidate, how that split will take place.
Interesting note for listeners here on the podcast today.
The...
State is very centric to Phoenix.
The Phoenix area is the main population hub.
Of course, you have Tucson, you have others, but every congressional district, at least up until, I think, until the last redistricting, and I think it still is true, has a piece of Phoenix in its district.
So you look at Maricopa County, Every congressional seat in Congress has at least a little bit of Maricopa County, which makes this a very interesting race to watch because most of your votes and most of everything that happens in the state comes out of Maricopa County, which is the Phoenix area.
These will be interesting to see is how this fades out.
Will there still be a Republican primary here?
Does Sinema go through with her promise to run as an independent?
Gallego continuing to run as a Democrat and seeing how that vote gets split in the general election in 2024. That is it.
Now, let's get to number five here in our first part of this series on early, early looks at races.
And that would be Nevada.
The Democrat is Jackie Rosen.
If you've seen something, top five seats here, all are Democrat incumbents.
Every one of them.
And so, this is what gives Republicans the hope that they can actually Win these seats because these are tight seats.
These are seats in which Republicans have done well in other races in the state, but yet have made these Senate races much more closely watched.
Democrat here is Jackie Rosen.
And, you know, again, running for reelection.
She was elected in 2018, which is a midterm year, not a presidential year, and I think that's an interesting point to take.
She won by five points.
Last fall, Cortez Masto, who is the other senator from Nevada, barely beat Adam Laxalt by less than a point.
So, again, last year was a...
Off-year election, now we're seeing another presidential election in which this is going forward to see how This breaks out.
So looking at it from the perspective of just how close this race gets, you got to look at it in the presidential primary year and the non-presidential primary year.
This will be in a presidential year.
Let's look back and see how the state got there.
It does tend to get bluer in presidential years, but Clinton and Biden both carried it by only two points.
Very small margin here.
Republicans have been...
They've had some issues with candidates.
They look like they're veteran Sam Brown.
I've heard some interesting stuff on Sam Brown, who's an Army veteran who suffered a catastrophic injury while he was serving.
He and...
He's getting into this race, and I think you're going to see him do well.
He got defeated in the primary last cycle, and also April Becker, who was also lost in the last cycle for a house seat there looking to get in.
Jim Marchant is also another candidate defeated.
He entered the race early May, but he has some issues with his background and some of the stuff that happened after the 2020 election cycle.
So we'll see how that goes.
I will say this from talking to people in D.C., talking to people in the media and others in Republican circles, conservative Republican circles, Sam Brown is the odd zone that they would like to see in this race and like to all coalesce behind and maybe get some Sam Brown is the odd zone that they would like to see in this race and like to all coalesce behind and maybe get some of these other Republicans out of the race early
You don't have to spend as much money against Republicans and you can spend all that money then later on Jackie Rosen in this race in Nevada.
But we'll, again, keep you updated.
Top five races right now.
We're going to get into the next five on Wednesday here on the podcast.
But the top five races, all Democrat, two states in which the numbers are very tight, trending a little more Democrat, the top three races, all in states in which are trending Republican heavily or are beginning to trend Republican in a sizable all in states in which are trending Republican heavily or are So as you look at this going forward, and again, here on Monday, get the week started here on the Doug Collins podcast, you got to look at West Virginia, Montana, Ohio, Arizona,
That's your top five for Senate races that can then lay the groundwork for how the presidential primary and then presidential general election will bail out itself as well.
So just an early note here, we're going to do this.
Like I said, I'm going to give you the next five of these top ten Senate races.
I'll give you an early prediction of what we're looking at for this cycle, and we'll be talking about it plenty on the podcast here over the next year or so.
So, we'll see you next time.
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