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Campaign Report — Stabenow throws Democrats a Senate curveball

January 5, 2023 Published by

Just In | The Hill 

Welcome to The Hill’s Campaign Report, tracking all things related to the 2022 midterm elections. You can expect this newsletter in your inbox every Tuesday, and Thursday as we make sense of this year’s elections and look ahead to 2024.

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Dems’ 2024 Senate map gets even tougher

The 2024 Senate map was always going to be a tough one for Democrats.

The party will have to defend more than twice as many seats as Republicans, including in battleground states like Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. They also appear to have few promising opportunities to flip GOP-held seats; Democrats’ best shot looks to be Florida – a longtime swing state that has lurched to the right in recent years.

So it goes without saying that Sen. Debbie Stabenow’s (D-Mich.) announcement on Thursday that she won’t seek reelection in 2024 was unwelcome news for Democrats, who are still riding high after expanding their narrow Senate majority in the 2022 midterm elections.

Stabenow, the chairwoman of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee and a close ally of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), is the first Democratic senator to forego a reelection bid in 2024. Her coming retirement also creates a prime pick-up opportunity for Republicans, who are eager to recapture the Senate majority after blowing their chance last year.

GOP on offense: Within minutes of Stabenow’s announcement, Republicans were already promising an aggressive effort to contest her Senate seat.

“We are going to aggressively target this seat in 2024,” Mike Berg, the communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said in a statement. “This could be the first of many Democrats who decide to retire rather than lose.”

Of course, it’s not all doom and gloom for Democrats. The party performed particularly well in Michigan in 2022; Gov. Gretchen Whitmer won reelection by a nearly 10-point margin and every Democratic House incumbent held their seat.

And in explaining her decision to retire, Stabenow said that she had been “inspired by a new generation of leaders,” expressing hope in Democrats’ prospects for 2024. 

“Under the cloud of unprecedented threats to our democracy and our basic freedoms, a record-breaking number of people voted last year in Michigan,” she said in a statement. “Young people showed up like never before. This was a very hopeful sign for our future.”

What the Speaker drama means for Trump   

Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) isn’t the only one with his reputation on the line when it comes to his prolonged and so-far fruitless bid to become the next Speaker of the House.

Former President Donald Trump came out in support of McCarthy on Wednesday, hoping that his stature within the GOP would be enough to persuade a group of hard-right Republican members of Congress to end their rebellion and back the California congressman for the job.

The McCarthy bet: But that endorsement hasn’t put an end to the drama. The election for the Speakership is now in its third day, and McCarthy has been forced to offer a long list of new concessions to his detractors in an effort to clinch the top leadership post.

Of course, McCarthy’s Speaker ambitions are still alive and he very well could still win the job. But the fact that Trump wasn’t able to immediately quell the rebellion marks the latest blow to his influence over the GOP, especially after Republicans suffered a lackluster midterm election cycle that saw them only barely win the House majority and miss their shot at taking control of the Senate.

For a former president, that usually might not matter much. But Trump’s once again running for the White House, and his inability to immediately rally Republicans around McCarthy could raise questions about just how powerful he remains. 

2024 WATCH

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu isn’t ruling out a bid for the 2024 Republican nomination.

The recently reelected governor told Fox News in an interview that he’s having conversations about a potential White House run, and suggested that there’s still plenty of time for him — or anybody else — to make a decision.

“I think people have to understand it is, what? Jan. 4 or 5, right? Of ‘23? So we still have well over a year before we even get to the first-in-the-nation primary,” he said. “There’s going to be a lot of time before folks even get in the race.”

That may be true, but the clock is still ticking and, so far, only Trump has made his intentions clear. And someone like Sununu will need time to introduce himself to voters and make his name known outside of his home state if he has any hope of competing for the GOP’s presidential nod. 

Trump puts GOP in a bind on abortion 

Republicans have long allied themselves with opponents of abortion rights. Trump is making that once-steady friendship more difficult.

In a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump appeared to criticize hardline opponents of abortion rights, blaming them for a spate of Republican losses in last year’s midterm elections.

“It wasn’t my fault that the Republicans didn’t live up to expectations,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social. “I was 233-20! It was the ‘abortion issue,’ poorly handled by many Republicans, especially those that firmly insisted on No Exceptions, even in the case of Rape, Incest, or Life of the Mother, that lost large numbers of Voters.”

Republicans have already been regrouping on their messaging on abortion rights since November. But Trump’s remarks throw another curve ball into the equation, raising the question of how the party addresses the matter going forward. 

A BIPARTISAN PICK IN PENNSYLVANIA

Pennsylvania Gov.-elect Josh Shapiro is making a seemingly odd choice for his state’s chief elections official: a Republican.

Shapiro is poised to nominate former Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt as secretary of the commonwealth, elevating a Republican to oversee what’s expected to be a hard-fought 2024 election.

Schmidt fits in with Shapiro’s promise of putting together a bipartisan administration in a crucial battleground state. Shapiro became a central figure in Pennsylvania’s 2020 election when he pushed back on Trump’s claim that widespread voter fraud and malfeasance robbed him of a second term in the White House.

Shapiro, who beat election-denier Doug Mastriano last year in the race for the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion, pointed to Schmidt’s track record in explaining his decision to nominate a Republican for the chief elections job.

“Al Schmidt has a proven track record of defending our democracy, protecting voting rights and standing up to extremism — even in the face of grave threats,” Shapiro said in a statement. 

That’s it for today. Thanks for reading and check out The Hill’s Campaign page for the latest news and coverage. See you next week. 

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