Five challenges Republicans face in taking back the Senate in 2024

Republicans still smarting from their disappointing midterm performance are facing a host of challenges in their bid to take back the Senate in 2024 despite a favorable map. 

The party only needs to defend 11 seats, while Democrats need to defend 23, some of which are in red states. 

But challenges still loom for Republicans, who were widely expected to perform well up and down the ballot in 2022.

Here are five hurdles the party faces in its bid flip the upper chamber.

GOP skepticism of mail-in voting

For years Democrats have championed early and mail-in voting in an effort to boost their base’s turnout in elections. Republicans, on the other hand, have relied on in-person Election Day turnout. 

That reliance can be attributed, in part, to former President Trump stoking skepticism about mail-in voting in 2020. Trump continued to rail against mail-in voting after last month’s midterms, writing on Truth Social that “you can never have fair & free elections with mail-in ballots.” 

Now, Republican leaders are calling on their voters to embrace early and mail-in voting to boost turnout in 2024 and beyond. 

“If you wait until Election Day, you’re starting a race where you’re 30 yards behind,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told Fox News earlier this month. 

Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel echoed this sentiment in an interview on Fox News earlier this month. 

“Our voters need to vote early. There were many in 2020 saying don’t vote by mail, don’t vote early, and we have to stop that, and understand that if Democrats are getting ballots in for a month, we can’t expect to get it all done in one day,” she said. 

But it will ultimately be up to the party’s voters, who appear to have largely listened to Trump’s message. According to a study from Pew Research conducted last year, 62 percent of Republicans said voters should only be allowed to vote early or absentee if they have a documented reason. 

Trump

November’s midterm elections demonstrated how Trump was a drag on the GOP’s chances this cycle, with a number of his endorsed candidates losing election bids up and down the ballot.

Trump intervened in several Republican Senate primaries, including in Georgia and Pennsylvania, which his critics say played a role in more electable general election candidates losing their primaries. 

According to a Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey released after the election, 20 percent of voters named Trump as the clear loser after the midterms, while 14 percent said the same about “MAGA Republicans,” a reference to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan. 

And Trump has been grappling with a slew of negative headlines since announcing his third presidential bid for 2024. The former president faced backlash after meeting with the rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, and white nationalist leader Nick Fuentes at Trump’s residence in Palm Beach, Fla. On top of that, he drew criticism from inside and outside of the GOP for saying earlier this month that he wanted to terminate parts of the Constitution. 

Abortion 

While Republicans sought to make rising inflation, crime and the flow of migrants over the southern border top campaign issues this cycle, abortion access in the wake of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade was a galvanizing factor for Democrats. 

Twenty-seven percent of voters said that abortion was the most important issue in deciding their vote, only behind inflation at 31 percent, according to exit polling. 

The issue is also thought to have turned the tide in pivotal Senate races, including Pennsylvania, where Democratic Sen.-elect John Fetterman campaigned on it, particularly in Philadelphia’s suburbs. 

Over the weekend, McDaniel attributed some of GOP candidates’ losses to ignoring the issue. 

“It was probably a bigger factor than a lot of people thought,” McDaniel told host John Catsimatidis on “Cats Roundtable.” “We’ve got to get conversant on that.”

Black voters 

In 2022, Democrats continued to outperform Republicans with Black voters, which helped the party win key races. 

Georgia was one of the strongest examples of this dynamic, where Republicans hoped Senate candidate Herschel Walker, who is Black, would boost the party’s standing with the state’s voters. However, a CNN poll published days before Georgia’s Senate runoff found that 96 percent of Black voters in the state said they would cast their ballot for incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, while only 3 percent said they would cast theirs for Walker. 

Nationwide exit polling also showed Black voters overwhelmingly supporting Democrats. However, in a potential bright spot for Republicans ahead of 2024, Black voters did shift slightly to the right from the 2018 midterms by 4 points. 

Young voters 

Democrats also largely benefited from the participation of voters belonging to Generation Z in 2022, presenting another challenge for Republicans going into 2024. 

In fact, Gen Z voters may be largely responsible for thwarting the red wave. In Pennsylvania, Fetterman won the Gen Z contingent by 46 points. Meanwhile, in Georgia’s Senate runoff, voters under 30 cast 156,000 early votes in the runoff. More than 90,000 Gen Z voters cast their ballots early or absentee in the race. 

Gen Z’s large turnout in the midterms presents a future problem for Republicans, with the voting bloc saying they favor Democratic stances on issues like gun control and abortion access.