The battle for the Senate is set to hit a crescendo in the coming weeks as campaigns reach another gear and voters increasingly tune in after Labor Day.
Republicans have long been the favorite to win back the upper chamber, but Vice President Harris replacing President Biden has further scrambled the playing field for both parties.
As the weeks and months have wound down, so has the battlefield of contests — with Montana and Ohio likely comprising the ballgame for both parties.
While the GOP was hopeful to nab more seats, those chances have dwindled. Still, even after factoring in the Harris bump Decision Desk HQ gives Republicans a 70 percent chance to take the chamber.
Outside of West Virginia, which has been a foregone conclusion for months, here are the top five seats likely to flip:
It’s simple: If Republicans win Montana, they win back control.
The ruby red state has been the top priority of Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), the chairman of the Senate GOP’s campaign arm, and with good reason.
He personally recruited Tim Sheehy to run against Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), and all signs are looking up for Republicans.
Multiple surveys in recent months indicate Sheehy is in the driver’s seat, with Decision Desk HQ’s average of polls showing him with a 3.5 point lead.
One Republican operative said a recent internal survey showed Sheehy up 4 points, and Democrats indicate they believe Tester is down by a low single-digit margin.
As of Friday, DDHQ gave Sheehy a 73 percent chance of victory.
But the big question for both parties revolves around how much former President Trump tops Harris by in Montana.
In 2020, Trump beat Biden by 16 points and Democrats say if the margin stays the same then Harris has a shot. But a 20-point margin, they concede, will be tough to overcome.
“A +16 [margin] is doable. A +20 is very difficult,” one Democratic strategist said. “He is the only [Senate Democrat] down right now. He has a fighting chance … He has to just stay in the state and hope Trump only wins there by 15 to 16 points.”
Republican have grown increasingly bullish about finally flipping Tester’s seat after two failed attempts and are quick to note that Montana is the only state where they hold a lead. They think the only thing that could save Tester is a monumental screw-up by Sheehy that alienates Trump voters.
“Tester needs a miracle,” one Republican operative said. “He can't afford to be losing ever, and he's losing.”
Montana and Ohio have been lumped together as the two best pick-up opportunities for the GOP for much of the cycle.
But the closer November gets, the more the two races diverge and the more Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) is viewed as likely to nab a fourth term.
Brown, to be sure, is fighting an uphill battle. Trump won Ohio by 8 points in 2016 and 2020 and the state has become less kind to Democrats over time.
But Brown has run a strong race. Even Republicans hold his ads in high regard and his consistent economic populism argument has proven effective.
He also received a major boost by being the only candidate on the airwaves for five months after Republican Bernie Moreno won his primary in March, though GOP super PAC’s and outside groups have been a constant presence.
GOP operatives concede that Brown’s spending has left a mark.
“Moreno made a strategic move to wait to spend until he saw the whites in their eyes,” said former Rep. Steve Stivers (R-Ohio). “The question is: did he wait too long?”
The GOP nominee recently rolled out a $25 million ad blitz, and Republicans are spending heavily independent of him. Last week, pro-Moreno forces spent about $8 million alone, with that figure set to rise week over week.
According to recent surveys, Brown has held a consistent 5-point advantage and DDHQ puts his chances of winning at 63 percent.
Republicans are hopeful they can chip away at that lead, but they acknowledge it won’t be easy.
“No Democrat who is as liberal as he is can survive in a state that has gone as hard red without a magician's ability to trick voters,” a second GOP operative said. “And he's got it.”
After the pair of red states, the battle gets much harder for Republicans looking to pick off a swing state, but the open seat in the Wolverine State is becoming one of their better chances.
Former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) is attempting to defeat Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) in a state that has not elected a Republican to the upper chamber in 30 years, but Republicans have reasons for optimism.
Michigan is one of the few states on the Senate map that does not feature a Democratic incumbent and some recent surveys show the race is within striking distance.
Yet, it still might be a reach. Republican operatives remain concerned with Slotkin’s wide fundraising advantage over the ex-House GOP member.
“He doesn't have enough right now,” a third GOP strategist griped.
In addition, they are worried about the margin in a presidential race. A Trump victory in Michigan would likely be by only a few thousand votes — just as in 2016 — and operatives say it is unlikely Rogers will run even with the former president.
The latest poll by The Hill and Emerson College signals as much, with Harris leading by three points and Slotkin holding a 6-point advantage over Rogers.
Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) is the favorite over Republican Sam Brown, a retired Army captain in a race that has moved with the political winds in recent months.
But what hasn’t changed is that a Brown victory would represent a big upset.
Republicans are worried that Brown, like Rogers, is behind the 8-ball financially and is unable to get his story out to the masses without hard campaign dollars. It’s something Democrats are also quick to note.
Nevada’s primary wasn’t until June and Brown is still trying to introduce himself to voters while some polls have him as far down as double digits.
According to the latest Emerson College/The Hill poll, Rosen leads by 10 points, with Harris’s entrance into the presidential playing a key role. Multiple surveys taken after Biden’s disastrous debate performance that ultimately led him to drop his bid showed a narrowing race.
Now, DDHQ gives Rosen an 81 percent chance of winning.
As a second Democratic operative put it, Rosen was likely “super excited” about the swap as “she’s not exactly an independent brand,” unlike Brown, Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and other incumbents on the ballot this fall.
“There’s no way for her to separate herself from the top of the ticket, and now she doesn't have to worry about that,” the operative said. “It's harder to hit her on being a generic Democrat. Now she's just back to being a nice, Jewish woman who's a team player for the Democratic party."
There’s no way to slice it: It has not been a good couple of days for David McCormick.
The Republican nominee made multiple major blunders in the past week when he confused an shooting in Philadelphia, Pa., for one that actually happened in Philadelphia, Miss., and was rebuked by Hersheypark for misidentifying the price of a ticket to the amusement park.
Yet, some Republicans still see a glimmer of hope in the Keystone State.
They point to McCormick’s well-funded campaign and the fact the state’s 19 electoral votes will likely decide the White House, meaning the race will in no way slip from the public’s consciousness.
But taking down Casey, the scion of one of the state’s preeminent political families, was never going to be easy. The latest Emerson/The Hill survey shows Casey leading by 4 points, with Trump and Harris dead even, underscoring the mountain McCormick has to climb.
“Is McCormick really gonna run within 50,000 votes of Trump? I don't see how that's possible,” the first GOP operative said. “There are Casey/Trump voters, and they are old and white, from Northeast Pa., and Southwest Pa. ... They've been voting for the [Casey] name for 40 years.”
“[McCormick] isn't doing anything to give me reason to think he's going to win,” they added.
