Senate GOP leaders are changing their primary strategy, in stark contrast with their Democratic counterparts, who are sitting out the 2024 candidate selection process.
Republicans are determined to avoid a repeat of their lackluster 2022 midterm performance by wading into key states’ GOP primaries to ensure more electable candidates reach the November ballot.
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GOP Senate primaries last cycle were dominated by hard-line conservative candidates who ultimately cost the party its chance of retaking the majority. Even after some in Senate GOP leadership like Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) warned about electability problems, the former National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) remained neutral during the primaries.
However, the strategy is shifting this cycle under the leadership of Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT), who has now endorsed four candidates running in 2024: Gov. Jim Justice in West Virginia (R-WV), Sam Brown in Nevada, Tim Sheehy in Montana, and Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) in Indiana.
“We will continue working to recruit candidates who can win both a primary and a general election,” Daines said in a statement provided to the Washington Examiner.
The committee has not been so heavily involved in primaries since Republicans gained control of the Senate in 2014, although they focused on pushing out candidates they believed couldn’t win rather than boosting their preferred choices.
Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), the third-ranking Senate Republican, endorsed Sheehy on Monday, which has largely been seen as an attempt to get Montana Republicans to coalesce behind the former Navy SEAL. Sheehy is believed to be more centrist and a safer challenger against incumbent Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT). It is unclear whether Sheehy will have the Republican field to himself. Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-MT), a conservative who has previously been backed by the Club for Growth and who lost to Tester in 2018, is also considering a run.
“There’s evidence that we’ve got to get the electable candidates on the field,” said Sen. John Thune (R-SD), the Senate minority whip, who has also endorsed Sheehy in Montana. “It would be nice if we could clear the field there.”
The aggressive intervention could ultimately hurt other Republican candidates running, such as Jim Marchant in Nevada and Rep. Alex Mooney (R-WV) in West Virginia. Both candidates have support from the party’s more conservative wing. Some of the Senate conference wants the NRSC to stay out of the process.
“I have long said that I don’t think the NRSC should be involved in primaries and that I think their history in terms of being involved in primaries has not been a good one — they often get it wrong,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said earlier this year, speaking with the Washington Examiner. “I think the NRSC in the past opposed in primaries senators like Mike Lee and Rand Paul and Marco Rubio. I think those decisions are better made by the voters rather than the folks in Washington.”
On the other side of the aisle, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the party’s Senate campaign arm, has thus far steered clear of crowded primaries for must-win general election races, especially in races without incumbents.
A DSCC official confirmed to the Washington Examiner that the organization tends to avoid getting involved in primary races that don’t involve protecting an incumbent Democrat. The organization will be heavily invested in Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV), Tester (D-MT), Bob Casey (D-PA), and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) during their reelection campaigns this cycle. The four are critical to the Democrats’ slight hold on the Senate majority.
“Across the Senate map Republicans are brawling in vicious primaries and putting forward flawed candidates with disqualifying baggage,” David Bergstein, a DSCC spokesman, told the Washington Examiner in a statement. “That’s a toxic combination that will lead their campaigns to defeat in 2024.”
Asked by the Washington Examiner on Tuesday about the hands-off primary strategy, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), who chaired the DSCC from 2017 to 2019, said that while there have been instances of the organization engaging “in the early stages … to shape a primary,” its “overall philosophy has been to allow the competition to happen.
“I think the Republicans have a particular problem because the last cycle showed that all these Trump candidates could win primaries but went down in the general,” he added. “And so they, I think they have an immediate and present concern about trying to prevent that from happening again.”
Senate Democratic hopefuls have been flooding primaries for vacant seats across the country in recent months.
Hill Harper, a liberal actor known for his roles in The Good Doctor and CSI: NY, announced his plans on Monday to challenge centrist Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) in her bid to succeed retiring Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) next year. Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), who chairs the DSCC, said in March that it was too soon to say if the committee would get involved in the state’s primary.
Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX) will now have to face Texas state Sen. Roland Gutierrez in the Senate Democratic primary to challenge Ted Cruz’s bid for a third term. Allred has boasted impressive fundraising numbers thus far, raising $6.2 million in the second quarter of 2023.
Texas political watchers have said Gutierrez could be a formidable challenger, thus preventing Allred from stockpiling that money for what is certain to be an expensive general election fight.
Democrats have failed to coalesce around a candidate in the contest to block Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) from a second term, with Missouri state Sen. Karla May becoming the third candidate to enter the state’s 2024 Democratic Senate primary over the weekend. She joins Wesley Bell, a St. Louis prosecutor, and Marine veteran Lucas Kunce, the runner-up in last year’s primary contest to replace retired Missouri GOP Sen. Roy Blunt in the 2024 contest.
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A total of 34 Senate seats, 20 held by Democrats, 11 held by Republicans, and three held by independents, will be up for grabs next cycle. The three independent senators caucus with Democrats, which means Democrats will be defending 23 of the 34 seats in 2024.
Democrats must protect seats in Republican terrain such as Ohio and West Virginia and in swing states such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Nevada.
