New 2024 headaches for House Democrats

David Mark

March 31, 07:00 AM March 31, 07:04 AM

Three months into the 118th Congress, seven House members are looking for promotions to the Senate. And in two cases, the candidates are causing political headaches for House Democrats, as the departure of battle-tested incumbents means their seats are now up for grabs.

Both are class of 2018 members, Reps. Katie Porter (D-CA) and Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), political foot soldiers in an army of House Democrats who that year beat incumbent Republicans and helped their party win House control midway through former President Donald Trump’s single White House term. Their 2024 Senate bids practically guarantee Democrats and allies will need to spend tens of millions of dollars to defend these House districts, in which Porter and Slotkin would otherwise have been the favorites to win again.

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It’s part of a broader 2024 battle for the House, where Republicans hold the House majority by a narrow 222-213 edge. Democrats are aiming to win back control of the chamber after a single two-year term, while in the Senate, Democrats are trying to hold on to their majority, currently at a slim 51-49 over Republicans.

Porter, in her effort to win statewide, is among three Democratic House members from California, along with Reps. Adam Schiff and Barbara Lee, seeking the Senate seat of retiring Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D). Porter will leave behind a competitive Orange County House seat in California’s 47th Congressional District. Porter in 2022 won the coastal Orange County and Irvine district 51.7% to 48.3% over Republican Scott Baugh, an attorney and former GOP leader in the state Assembly.

Baugh is running again in a test of how blue traditionally Republican Orange County has turned. Under California’s top-two election system, Baugh is likely to make the November ballot. Democrats angling for a spot on the November ballot include state Sen. Dave Min, a onetime faculty colleague of Porter at University of California, Irvine’s law school, and former Rep. Harley Rouda, who in 2020 lost reelection after one term to GOP Rep. Michelle Steel in a different district whose boundaries no longer exist.

In Michigan, Slotkin is running for Senate to replace retiring Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D). Slotkin, a former CIA analyst and Defense Department official, largely has the Democratic Senate primary field to herself. But the House seat Slotkin is vacating, the Lansing area and northwestern Detroit exurbs 7th Congressional District, could flip to Republicans under the right political circumstances.

Slotkin has twice handily won reelection to the House. But the district in 2020 would have backed President Joe Biden over former President Donald Trump only 49.4% to 48.9%. So far, the candidate fields on both sides are fluid.

For the other 2024 Senate candidates, their looming departures won’t mean party turnover. In California, Schiff's Los Angeles, Burbank, and Glendale district is solidly blue. So is the Oakland and Berkeley 12th District, which Lee is giving up to wage a Senate bid.

In Indiana, meanwhile, Rep. Jim Banks looks to have the Republican Senate primary field largely to himself, clearing a path for his likely succession of GOP Sen. Mike Braun, who is running for governor in 2024. The northeastern 3rd District, represented by Banks, is deeply Republican: In 2020, Trump would have beaten Biden there 63.9% to 34%. So, the House Republican primary to replace Banks is really the only contest that matters.

It’s a similar theme in the eastern and northern West Virginia 2nd District with Rep. Alex Mooney (R) running for Senate. The district in 2020 would have backed Trump over Biden by more than a 2-to-1 margin, so the real prize is the GOP nomination, which several prominent Republicans are seeking.

And out west in Arizona, Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) is running for Senate against Democratic-turned-independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema. Gallego, representing the downtown and western Phoenix 3rd District, has a liberal voting record and is an outspoken Trump critic trying to position himself more toward the center in his statewide bid. Yet Gallego is vacating one of the most Democratic districts in the nation, with a Latino majority, meaning the primary contest is key in deciding who succeeds Gallego in the House.