Yeah, I’m sorry about that, but the battle for 2024 is already underway. And whether you like it or not, with Traitor Tot already declared for 2024, pretty much everything that happens from now to the start of the primaries, including the GOP pie fight for Speaker of the House is going to have a potential impact on 2024. Hey. I don’t write the symphony, I just play the tuba.
Not that long ago, back in 2017, GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was licking his chops at thought of obtaining a filibuster proof majority of 60+ in 2018. And why not? After all, in 2016 Traitor Tot pulled a Kremlin rabbit out of his ass and got elected President. The GO had the wind in their sails, and the Democrats had 20 seats that they had to defend in 2018, including 3 prime GOP pickup seats.Â
But here’s where history instructs. In 2018 McConnell’s pipe dream came a cropper. Trump turned out to be as toxic as Ebola, and the Democrats flipped 40 seats in the House, dragging down the Senate’s hopes. And can anyone say candidate quality? Yeah, shitty GOP Senate candidates in 2018 doomed McConnel’s pipe dream to the ash heap of history.
But guess what? History does repeat itself. because the US Senate is cyclical. Senators are elected to 6-year terms. Which means that every state will have 1 election cycle out of every 3 with no Senate candidate on the ballot. But the calendar works the same for all of them. Which leads us to the simplest leap in logic since Sir Isaac Newton had an apple fall on his head.
Because the fantastical mythical map that was going to make McConnell the Imperial Galactic Emperor of the Senate is the exact same one that is going to hit the field in 2024! And the same dream 3 GOP dream pickup seats are on the table in 2024. And they’re still the same HOP pipe dream as the Democrats dreaming of snagging the white working class vote again.
Here are the 3 GOP dream flip seats, which McConnell is going to follow like a cart horse with a carrot in front of his nose and with the same effect. Those Senate seats reside in the deep red states of Montana, Ohio, and West Virginia. That’s the attraction that is going to lead McConnel into ruin again, just like it has before. Because the first rule of politics is that There are exceptions to every rule.
West Virginia –Â In West Virginia, Senator Joe Manchin is truly a political unicorn. As much as the Democrats may wish, there isn’t another Democrat that stands a chance of being elected to the Senate in West Virginia. And there are good reasons for this.
Manchin is a well-known West Virginian. His family’s wealth springs from control of a coal mining operation, So West Virginians know that Manchin won’t screw coal miners any worse than the coal companies do. Also, he has made his moderate bona fides by consistently voting against anything that would negatively impacting the coal industry in West Virginia. Manchin is as comfortable to West Virginia voters as Mr. Roger’s signature cardigan sweater.
That being said, Manchin is as weak as he’s ever been going into a reelection fight. His opposition to several popular bills led to a kayak navy that paddled out to his houseboat mansion to confront him directly. I give Manchin credit, he came to the railing and talked to them. But Schumer may have a little easier time with Manchin this year on popular progressive bills, especially with his wingwoman Kyrsten Sinema out of the picture.
Montana – Montana may just be the biggest shiny object in the GOP universe. Jon Tester is the Democratic Senator from Montana, and he’s Montana to his toes. Shit! I’m a city boy, and I love Jon Tester. When he appears in front of a camera in a suit and tie, he looks for all the world like a Montana farmer decked out in his best-Sunday-go-to-meeting-suit.
And he knows how to play it. He liberally sprinkles his Facebook page and campaign website with pictures of him in denim, driving his combine over the family fields during harvest. And better yet, pictures of him splayed out under the combine, replacing some balky part or other. Every Montanan can imagine running into him at the feed store, or the diner. The GOP keeps throwing up a sacrificial lamb, and pumping money into the fantasy, bur Tester just keeps rolling on.
Ohio – The home of the Democratic behemoth Sherrod Brown. Brown is the right man in the right place at the right time. And he has been for quite some time now. As the state of Ohio gets more Red, Brown, the only statewide elected Democratic officeholder becomes a bigger and bigger target. Every re-election cycle, between the GOP candidate’s spending, the RNC, the RSCC, and aligned Super PAC’s, Brown is regularly outspent by 6-10 to 1. And cruises home comfortably.
So if McConnell is actually hitching his star on flipping these seats, he’s probably already doomed himself to disappointment. But McConnell has two more things to consider, one he thinks will be helpful to him, and one he doesn’t want to think about at all.
We’ll cover the one McConnell thinks benefits him first. Because these are the Democrats, and because they’re like Tina Turner with Proud Mary, We never do nothing nice, and easy, they have put a new bright and shiny toy in front of McConnell’s face. Grand Canyon Barbie in Arizona. Which is going to be another bright and shiny object, for 2 reasons.
First, Sinema is desperate. She has spent 6 years making a pathetic fool of herself on the national stage, and completely ignoring her constituents. She hasn’t had a town hall in 4 years. A recent poll shows her trailing AZ congressman Ruben Gallego 76-14. And that’s about the best it figures to get for Simena, she’s burned her bridges. Sinema is filing as an independent in order to avoid a humiliating primary loss to Gallego. Her hope is that like in Utah, the Democrats leave the Senate spot open in 2024 and back her. Fat chance.
McConnell is hoping that Sinema on the ballot in 2024 means that she’ll split the Democratic vote and give the GOP candidate the victory. Just 2 problems. One, Sinema has no Democratic base left. And two, at the moment, gubernatorial biggest loser Kari Lake is the odds-on favorite for the Senate seat. But rather than siphoning votes from Gallego, Sinema will actually siphon votes from GOP moderates that won’t vote for Lake.
And Lake is the perfect example of McConnell’s problem for 2024. Candidate quality. It literally killed McConnell in 2022. And like it or not, Traitor Tot is in the race for 2024. And in order to prop himself up, and lick his nuts to retain control of the GOP, will slate his own slate of candidates to go into battle with him. Which means more of the same old bottom-of-the-kitty-litter-box candidates that Trumpenstein fielded in 2022. Which means that not only won’t the GOP flip the Senate in 2024 the Democrats could actually gain seats again.
This is of course pure speculation. But it is speculation based on historical data, as well as the current political situation. And when you look at the current state of the GOP, and Trump’s never ending interference, there is no real reason to believe that the GOP’s slate of candidates is going to be any different in 2024 that it was in 2022. Take nothing for granted.
Lots of stuff to ponder here but I’d be cautious when it comes to WV. I lived there for over ten years (closer to eleven) after dropping out of the beltway rat-race in 2003 to look after a friend’s farm and horses outside tiny hamlet in the eastern panhandle. Martinsburg was seven miles north and a lot like my hometown back in southern Illinois. Hell, WV felt a lot like where I grew up and lived my first 26 years so I understood the place and the people.
Here’s where your analysis is problematic. Manchin might be the only Democrat that has been able to win a statewide race there for a decade now, but he’s hardly beloved. Democrats hold their nose voting for him like old-school Republicans did when voting for Trump. “Better than someone from the other Party” isn’t exactly the kind of thing that motivates voters. And Manchin’s whole fucking family is corrupt as hell and people in wV know it! His margin of victory has shrunk in his last couple of races and we are full-on into MAGA time – and trust me when I say the overly white, working class (and poor, just like back in southern Illinois) has enough white grievance to fill the entire Pacific basin. (You could drop the entire land mass of the earth into it and still have a large shroud of sea around it!) Manchin is toast. Even against a MAGA candidate that is bat-shit insane. Hell, those white goobers will turn out in droves for MAGA!
And, if McConnell wins the internal GOP war on candidate quality and the GOP puts a Shelly Moore-Capito type Republican up against Manchin he’s still toast. So consider that particular seat lost. We are going to have to find one somewhere else or the best we can hope for is going back to the power sharing type deal we’ve had the past couple of years.
On the plus side, there is the fact that Rick Scott won his Florida race with just 50.1% of the vote (and, literally, by just 10,033 votes). Interestingly, it was his VERY FIRST general election in which he actually broke 50% (in both his gubernatorial campaigns, he came in with less than 49% of the vote but Florida apparently doesn’t do runoffs because a candidate doesn’t win an outright majority in a general election).
A good Democratic candidate could win back Florida. (Rubio was going to be a real challenge simply due to his incumbency as well as his Hispanic heritage. Scott’s only got the “R” behind him.)
ted cruz barely won in 2018. yes, the bench for candidates in texas is short. A castro brother might be able to take him out. sure manchin might be week, but texas might swing blue with the right candidate.
Hey mitch. How do those cornflakes taste after frump pisses in your bowl? The only thing that McConnell & the traitors depend on is the stupidity & racism of working class white voters. I’m afraid after the traitors ended 50 years of women’s rights, voted WITH the insurrectionists, voted against healthcare for the masses, stood with the nazis & klan, and vowed to end medicare/social security, they STILL TOOK THE HOUSE. So…I guess there’s one thing they take to the bank that never changes.