GOP primaries threaten Republican hopes of winning back Senate

Senate Republicans have a good chance of winning back the majority in 2024, but their odds could tumble depending on the outcome of primaries in West Virginia, Montana and Arizona.  

Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) is leading in the early polls in Montana, despite losing to Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) in 2018.  

Republican strategists in Washington, D.C., see entrepreneur and former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy as a more competitive matchup against Tester in the general election, but he is a relatively unknown candidate who trailed Rosendale by more than 50 points in a recent poll.  

In West Virginia, popular Gov. Jim Justice is favored by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) but could face a tough primary challenge from Rep. Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.), who is backed by the Club for Growth, a conservative advocacy group with deep pockets. 

An East Carolina University poll of 957 West Virginia voters conducted May 22-23 showed Justice leading incumbent Sen. Joe Manchin (D) by 22 points, 54 percent to 32 percent. But it showed Mooney in a statistical tie with Manchin, 41 percent to 40 percent.  

In Arizona, former television anchor Kari Lake is expected to run for the seat held by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), which could mobilize moderate Republicans and independents to rally behind the incumbent.

Lake is popular with the GOP base, but her repeated denial of the 2020 election results poses a major liability for her chances of winning a general election. Sinema, however, will also face a challenge from progressive Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), who is already taking regular potshots at the incumbent.  

Neither Manchin nor Sinema has formally announced whether they will run for reelection next year.  

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is seen during a joint address to Congress from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday, June 22, 2023.

McConnell and National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Steve Daines (Mont.) have made it a top priority to recruit candidates who have the best chance to appeal to swing voters and beat seasoned Democratic incumbents. 

But it remains to be seen if their favored candidates will emerge as the winners from the GOP primaries in West Virginia and Montana, which are 10 months or more away.

“Senate Republicans are recruiting candidates with disqualifying vulnerabilities, face ongoing pressures from their MAGA base, and are already engaged in vicious primaries. These problems show no sign of going away and will lead their ultimate nominees to defeat in 2024,” said Tommy Garcia, a spokesperson for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.  

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Senate Republicans’ biggest advantage is the electoral map.  

Senate Democrats have to defend 23 seats in the 2024 election, with as many as eight vulnerable incumbents.  

In addition to West Virginia, Montana and Arizona, Republicans also have good pickup opportunities in Nevada and Ohio.  

On the next tier of competitive races, Democrats can’t afford to get complacent about holding onto their seats in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.  

Republicans don’t have any vulnerable incumbents up for reelection next year.

The GOP establishment in Washington, however, suffered a setback when former Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) announced last week that he will become the CEO of Citizens for Free Enterprise, closing off the possibility of being persuaded to run against Sinema. 

“We have West Virginia, Montana, some other states where we may see some robust primary competition among candidates who Sen. McConnell and the [National Republican Senatorial Committee] and others see — probably rightly — as strong contenders who would give our Democratic or Democratic-aligned incumbents a run for their money,” said John LaBombard, a Democratic strategist and former senior adviser to Sinema.

“And as has been in the case in the last several cycles, we have potential challengers to those candidates in the primary who are more aligned with former President Donald Trump,” LaBombard added, “which almost means they have positions or statements that represent political baggage and will make them less electable in a general election.”

Democrats now control 51 Senate seats, which means Republicans would have to pick up two seats, or one seat and the White House, to flip the majority.

LaBombard, who now serves as a senior vice president at Rokk Solutions, a bipartisan public affairs firm, said Arizona is another example where Senate Republicans may have to make due with a candidate in the general election who was not their first choice.  

“I think Gov. Ducey has proven he can win statewide, and I think he represents a wing of the Republican Party in Arizona that is more traditionally conservative, who these days are much less exciting to many Republican base voters but who are much more viable in a general election,” he said.

Constantin Querard, an Arizona-based Republican strategist, said Lake is now the expected favorite to win the Senate Republican nomination “from a Vegas betting odds standpoint.”

He noted that Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb is the only candidate officially in the race now.

In West Virginia and Montana, Senate Republican leaders aren’t leaving any doubts that they want to see Justice and Sheehy win the primaries and challenge Manchin and Tester, respectively.

McConnell traveled to West Virginia in October to recruit Justice, and One Nation, a political advocacy group allied with the Senate GOP leader, has pledged to spend at least $2 million on a campaign attacking Manchin’s support for the Inflation Reduction Act.

Daines, the head of the Senate Republican campaign arm, announced Tuesday that he will support Sheehy, a military veteran and founder of Bridger Aerospace.  

But Mooney and Rosendale, the conservatives running against the establishment-backed candidates in West Virginia and Montana, may have significant support from outside groups, which could result in bruising primaries next year. 

The Club for Growth, a conservative, free-market political advocacy group, says it will spend as much as $10 million to help Mooney in West Virginia. The group endorsed Rosendale for Senate in 2018, when he lost a hard-fought battle to Tester by 3.5 percentage points, and backed him again when he ran for the House in 2020.  

A GOP strategist warned Thursday that Rosendale will get flattened if he decides to run against Sheehy, an early sign that the primary will be bare-knuckled battle.  

“Matt Rosendale is well on his way to becoming the next Mo Brooks. He has a freight train coming his way if he decides to run,” the strategist said, referring to Trump-aligned former Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), who lost in last year’s Alabama Senate primary against now-Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.).  

Both Mooney and Rosendale are viewed as more allied with Trump’s Make America Great Again Movement.  

Mooney has endorsed Trump’s 2024 presidential bid, and Trump endorsed Rosendale when he ran for the House in 2020.  

Jonathan Kott, a Democratic strategist and former senior adviser to Manchin, noted that Mooney, Rosendale and Sheehy have all moved to the states in which they are running, while the Democratic incumbents they hope to unseat were born there.

Kott said Mooney “is not from the state,” while Manchin has a long record of delivering results for West Virginians, such as approval of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which was included in the debt limit deal and will create an estimated 2,000 jobs in the state.   

Speaking of the Montana Senate race, Kott said, “Jon Tester is going to be the only Montanan in that race.” 

Sheehy is a Minnesota native, and Rosendale was born and raised in Maryland, where he graduated from high school in Centreville and attended Chesapeake College. 

Rosendale still spoke with traces of an Eastern Shore accent while campaigning against Tester in 2018.