MI-SEN 2024 Megathread - Meijer out

[ProgressiveModerate]

A lot of this insistence on Stabenow's vulnerability is already reminding me of all the obsessive attention on NH for much of 2021 and the very popular idea back then (not just among Atlas posters, but also among pundits) that Hassan was somehow the most vulnerable Senator of that cycle despite representing a reliably blue state (and certainly the bluest of the four GOP target states). It’s fair to say that MI is still a Democratic-leaning state with a very ineffective GOP state party, and plenty of "weak" incumbents have been bailed out by their state's partisan lean (including Hassan, who just outperformed Biden, and Murray, who vastly outperformed expectations/polling, to name only two).

While I could see Stabenow losing to the right challenger (not sure if that is James) in a R-leaning environment, especially if the GOP wins the presidency, I don’t think Casey losing before Stabenow is impossible (even if you don’t consider it particularly likely).

Needless to say, Whitmer was also considered one of the weakest D governors seeking reelection and she just won reelection by double digits.

I think the difference between Hassan and Stabenow is that Hassan was clearly always taking her race seriously whereas in 2018 Stabenow fell asleep at the wheel a bit and while she still easily won, it wasn't the landslide victory most expected.

I worry that if she seeks re-election, MI-Sen is just kinda placed in the background behind the more "obvious" battlegrounds, Dems don't invest as seriously as they should, and it could cost her.

I largely agree with what you're saying though.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Thank god we get some retirements from the 2024 class - Ds need younger voices in the Senate and 2030 would be a disaster full of retirements in vulnerable D seats.

Ds have a pretty strong bench; I wonder if we’ll have a seriously contested D primary? McMorrow would be amazing.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I think some of this recent backlash against Slotkin over the vote shows the issue with ideological purity and placing optics above actual policy within the Democratic Party.

On her part, it does seem like an unnecessary opening for attacks in a primary. If she really is voting her conscious though, good for her ig.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Wasn't Craig the guy who tried to forge signatures?

Seems incompetent, and if he were the nominee I feel confident in saying he'd underperform Trump unless Slotkin has some big skeleton.

I have no clue why anyone here are saying this guy would be a strong GOP nominee. Having the status of being a veteran of a police officer means zilch if you're just a bad candidate (i.e. Doug Mastriano was a former military officer, that certainly didn't help him in the end).

[ProgressiveModerate]

I suspect that in 2024, we'll see a significant amount of Trump-Democratic Senate votes. It would explain 2022 very well despite Biden's low approvals. Republican resources will be spread thin trying to attack a big map, and Biden is significantly less popular than downballot Democrats.

It isn't even impossible that Trump wins with a Democratic Senate (though it's much harder because if Trump wins, Democrats need 51 seats to control the Senate).

I don’t think there are a lot of people who like downballot Democrats who would even consider voting for Trump. He has zero appeal to anyone who didn’t already vote Republican in 2022.

The problem is Biden is a lot more unpopular than downballot Democrats. A lot of people (particularly young, city people who have seen skyrocketing mortgages/rent) who voted for downballot Democrats might hold their nose and vote against Biden, or sit out.

That isn’t true at all. I can’t imagine why voters would punish Biden for economic discontent yet spare downballot Dems.

They did that in 2022. Polls consistently showed Trump outrunning Oz for example. Democratic Senate candidates often won about half of the people who somewhat disapprove of Biden. I doubt Biden wins that much.

Or maybe - just maybe - somewhat disapproving of Biden just means "eh im not that happy with Biden, but I'm not certainly not voting for any Republican right now"

That's not really true. Voters generally approved of Democratic incumbents (Kelly, Cortez-Masto, etc.) by wide margins, and in fact those incumbents underperformed their favorability gap with their Republican opponents (who often had favorabilities over 20 points worse).

However Biden is NOT popular and his favorability gap between him and Trump is WAY less than the major candidates in 2022.

And that doesn’t mean those people won’t come around to him. Trump won over a lot of people who didn’t like him in 2020.

And one other thing is that Biden may not be popular but he isn’t really hated the way Trump is.

I'm not saying those people may not come around to him. I'm saying that Democrat incumbent Senators underperformed their approvals significantly, which means that there is no evidence yet that Biden WILL win over voters who disapprove of him. I'm not saying it won't happen, it may even be likely, but 2022 was not evidence for it, unlike many believe.

Good chance incumbent D Senators approval will go down once campaign season kicks in, all the attack ads start, and people revert more to their partisan corners.

Generally though, results should converge pretty close to Presidential partisanship; approval can help give a sense of who outruns and underruns the Pres ticket though.

For instance several polls have shown Jon Tester's approval to be well above 50% even 60%. I think everyone here would agree it's extremely unlikely if not impossible Tester gets 60% of the vote. However, most on here also agree Tester will outrun Biden by at least a few points, in part because of his strong approvals.

[ProgressiveModerate]

https://twitter.com/dabbs346/status/1721508691285832024
How to alienate all components of your party at once.

Remember that the impeachment was mostly about barring Trump from future runs, the trial didn't even happen until Trump was out of office. So a vote to impeach was effectively a vote to ban him from holding the office ever again.

So he's saying that he voted to ban Trump from the presidency...but that he would also support him anyway.

Yeah, sometimes I question why I had faifth in some of these so-called "moderate Rs" to begin with; ultimately they just do what they see as best for their political future and not neccessarily what is right or what they believe in.

[ProgressiveModerate]

The abortion amendment worked out quite well for Dems in 2022, and they won't have that boost in 2024. However, I've wondered if it possible for them to put up another one on the ballot again by just changing up the language ever so slightly. Could be an infinite win glitch if courts allow it?

Probably not. Even if another abortion amendment was able to get on the ballot, there wouldn't be the same degree of urgency there was in 2022. Still, Dems could try to use ballot initiative around another key issue to motivate base turnout; who knows what the media cycle will be like in even 3 months from now.

Dems could theoretically try to do a new ballot initiative that would undo the last abortion ballot initiative, but that would obv be a terrible look and hurt them in the end. And if it actually passed, Democrats would never live down the incompetence.