Wishful thinking? Chuck Schumer predicts Democrats will keep the Senate again in 2024
Ryan King
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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is resolute, exuding confidence that Democrats will retain the Senate in 2024 despite the brutal map the party faces.
Pointing to “benefits that are already in the pipeline” from the marquee legislation that Democrats finagled through Congress, such as the Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS and Science Act, Schumer postulated that many voters will warm up to Democrats in the next election cycle.
“Yes, I absolutely do [believe it will] if we stick to our North Star, which is: help people with things that they need help with,” Schumer predicted of the Democrats winning the Senate in 2024, according to NBC News. “We believe government should help everyday families, but on things they care about, not in some ideological way.”
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Democrats had been widely expected to get shellacked in the House races during the midterm elections, but when the dust settled, the party massively outperformed expectations. On the Senate side, Democrats managed to expand their caucus by one seat, a rare feat and the first time since 1934 that a sitting president’s party expanded both Senate and governor’s seats during a midterm.
The past election was also the first time in over 100 years that all incumbent senators won reelection, according to the Washington Post. But 2024 is a dramatically different landscape. Democrats only had to defend about 14 seats, but in 2024, they will be defending 23 of the 34 seats.
This includes three seats in the vulnerable states of West Virginia, Montana, and Ohio, as well as the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, and Arizona. Further complicating matters is Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s (I-AZ) recent exit from the party.
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To help boost their chances, Schumer is keen on having the Democrats govern pragmatically to refrain from off-putting voters. He contrasted this with Republicans, whom he argued are held hostage by radical forces from within the party and are embroiled in inner-party turmoil and soul-searching over former President Donald Trump.
“The MAGA influence on the party will not go away very quickly. They’re very strong. They’re very active. They’re hard-right,” Schumer explained, according to NBC. “I think the election results in 2024 might be better than a lot of people are now predicting.”