This past week had a few notable updates regarding the Senate that are worth noting. The polling is showing that the GOP candidates are running very close to Democratic incumbents or frontrunners in states like New Jersey and Wisconsin, while the situation in Arizona with Kari Lake has the potential to backslide into Republican failure further down-ballot. The trial regarding embattled Senator Bob Menendez has the potential to drag his wife into taking the fall for the both of them with the Senator facing steep legal odds in his bid for another Senate term. Let’s get to the stories.
Starting with the polling, the two main polls that caught my attention came from New Jersey and Wisconsin which show winnable contests for the Republican Party for different reasons. In the Garden State, Andy Kim (D-NJ) faces the two-pronged problem of Democrats suffering backlash from Bob Menendez’s name recognition dragging party candidates down on the ballot and having the aforementioned Senator on the ballot to siphon support. He has floated his independent bid for re-election bid as a means of paying for his legal bills while half-heartedly attempting to get revenge on the Democratic Party which abandoned him after his indictments. This also comes after he has floated pinning the crimes on his wife, a laughable charge when he is the one based in Congress, but I digress. The polling suggests that Menendez on the ballot would drag the contest for Kim within about 6-7% for the GOP with Democrats holding a 44%-38%-6% lead in the polling, something that actual turnout in the election with the factoring of the scandal could make even closer.
The other major poll from this week comes from Wisconsin where Marquette Law School shows a tied race between likely voters for Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) at 50% and Eric Hovde (R) at 50%. While this poll doesn’t show Hovde leading, it shows Hovde within credible striking distance of Baldwin with likely voters early in the election season after Baldwin has attempted to hammer Hovde on his connections to the state and after campaign opposition efforts. Other efforts have turned up fluff pieces regarding Tim Sheehy (R-MT) and Bernie Moreno (R-OH), but Hovde already forcing Baldwin on the defensive financially in polling and financing means less money can be spent on offensive opportunities which means Democrats must decide if they want to continue investing efforts in Texas and Florida knowing that the seats aren’t as likely to vote Democrat at the expense of credibly losing a Midwestern seat that should be safer than what it is. It also doesn’t help their case that more polling is showing that Larry Hogan (R-MD) is continuing to poll ahead of both David Trone and Angela Alsobrooks in Maryland meaning that money will have to be spent in the deep-blue state to keep it Democratic, further detracting from competitive races.
This comes as Arizona has become a uniquely difficult situation for Republicans owing to the horrendous quality of their candidate Kari Lake. While no one was expecting that Lake was a star candidate or would have endorsed her pre-emptively if they believed her to be a capable candidate, her campaign effectively capsized this week flipping on abortion after the state held several rounds of voting on potentially repealing the old territorial ban on abortion from the 1800s. For those that are unaware, Arizona boasts one of the higher birth rates in the country owing to a confluence of Latino, Mormon, and conservative politics merging into the state’s unique situation. With the state likely to host an abortion referendum in 2024 like those that have passed in deep-red states, one can expect that Lake, a deeply unpopular Republican who is hated among McCain Republicans even after weak attempts at reconciliation, to struggle against her better financed opponent Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) who is ardently progressive. Her one advantage is that she has her base and that Gallego’s progressivism might spur some Republicans to tactically vote for Lake this go round to avoid having his candidacy owing to his treatment of his ex-wife and Phoenix mayor Kate Gallego. We’ll see what happens with this election.
Kari Lake gets flak from both sides on abortion as she navigates Arizona law (nbcnews.com)
2024 United States Senate election in Maryland – Wikipedia
ICYMI: Washington Free Beacon seeks Gallego’s sealed divorce records – NRSC
The Conservatarian Millennial 