CNN polling expert Harry Enten explained Thursday why Democrat West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin’s decision not to run for re-election spells trouble for Democrats.
Currently, Democrats hold a narrow 51-49 majority over Republicans in the Senate. With Manchin’s seat now up for grabs and almost gauranteed to be flipped by a Republican, the GOP stands to retake control of the Senate with a respectable majority, according to Enten.
The Democratic Party has “no margin for error,” Enten explained, because more than a half-dozen seats Democrats need to defend are located in states that Donald Trump won at least once.
“There are seven Democratic Senate seats up in 2024 in states that Trump won at least once. You mentioned West Virginia earlier, but there is Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Montana, Arizona,” Enten said.
“Compare that to the Republican side,” he continued. “You know how many GOP seats are up in 2024 that Trump lost at least once? Zero — a grand total of zero.”
Practically, this means Democrats stand on “far more vulnerable ground than Republicans do” because “pretty much all the Republican seats are in safe Republican areas,” Enten said.
“The fact is that going into 2024, I would much rather be a Republican running for Senate than a Democrat,” he admitted.
Democrats could, of course, over-perform in 2024, as they did in the 2022 midterm elections and in elections this week. But if the polling about President Joe Biden’s re-election chances is a harbinger for the Democratic Party as a whole, then Democrats will find themselves in a hole that will take several election cycles to dig out of.
For their part, Senate Democrats understand the challenge that lies before them.
“You look at three very difficult states in Arizona, Montana, and Ohio and then four pure purple states in Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The odds of winning all seven of those are really low, but we have to try,” one Senate Democrat told The Hill.
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!