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2024 contest brings hurdles into view for both parties

With a new Congress set to begin, both parties are already looking to 2024, when Senate Democrats will have to defend nearly half of their members and compete on turf that has become more difficult for the party to win. For now, at least, Democrats appear to be far more united than their Republican counterparts. But Senate map tilts toward republicans as 2024 election comes into focus. Democrats have more seats to defend, including some states Donald Trump won. The Associated Press has the story:

2024 contest brings hurdles into view for both parties

Newslooks- NEW YORK (AP)

Both political parties are opening the new year confronting critical questions about the people and policies they want to embrace as the next election speeds into view.

The challenges are particularly urgent for Republicans, who hoped to enter 2023 with a secure grip on one, if not both, chambers of Congress. Instead, an underwhelming midterm election yielded only a thin House majority that will expose fierce intraparty divisions this week as California Rep. Kevin McCarthy fights for the speakership. And before the end of the month, the Republican National Committee must resolve a divisive leadership battle of its own.

FILE – House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., walks to the chamber for final votes as the House wraps up its work for the week, at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Dec. 2, 2022. Republicans face contentious leadership battles inside their new House majority and at the Republican National Committee. But former President Donald Trump will be central in virtually every conversation as the GOP enters what will likely be a nasty and crowded presidential primary that begins in earnest this spring. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

A central figure in virtually everything is Donald Trump, the former president who transformed the GOP more than seven years ago and is still fighting to exert his will over Republicans in Congress, the RNC and Republican voters just as the next presidential primary season begins.

FILE – Former President Donald Trump arrives for a New Year’s Eve party at Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Fla., Dec. 31, 2022. Republicans face contentious leadership battles inside their new House majority and at the Republican National Committee. But Trump will be central in virtually every conversation as the GOP enters what will likely be a nasty and crowded presidential primary that begins in earnest this spring. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)

RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel acknowledged, in an interview, that her party’s greatest political challenge ahead may come from within as party leaders navigate Trump’s outsized role.

FILE – Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel speaks to a packed room at the opening of the RNC’s new Hispanic Community Center in Suwanee, Ga., June 29, 2022. A decade after its last election autopsy, the Republican National Committee is moving forward with a new post-election audit designed to examine the GOP’s underwhelming performance in the recent midterms and the party’s broader struggles in the years since former President Donald Trump took power. (AP Photo/Ben Gray, File)

“There’s so much at stake we can’t afford to be divided heading into 2024,” McDaniel said, promising that the RNC would be neutral in the looming presidential nomination process. “If we are divided, we will lose.”

For now, at least, Democrats appear to be far more united than their Republican counterparts.

President Joe Biden speaks after a toast in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2022, during the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit dinner. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

But much depends on Joe Biden and whether the 80-year-old president will follow through on his plan to seek reelection. If he eschews another term — and a formal announcement may be months away — Democrats would be thrust into a murky future with no obvious popular alternatives.

Sanders
FILE – In this March 15, 2020, file photo, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., participates in a Democratic presidential primary debate at CNN Studios in Washington. The progressive advocacy group Our Revolution is rebranding now that Bernie Sanders is no longer the undisputed leader of the left. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who did not rule out another presidential bid of his own, said Democrats are also at a “pivotal moment,” facing cracks in their delicate political coalition among young people, African Americans, Latinos and working-class voters.

“It pains me very, very much that we’re seeing more and more working-class people voting Republican,” he said in an interview. “Politically, that is a disaster, and Democrats have to recognize that serious problem and address it.”

Though many voters may be tired of the never-ending campaign that is U.S. politics, especially after a high-stakes midterm election in 2022, the tense dynamics guarantee the political spotlight will only burn brighter in the new year. If history is a guide, the opening presidential primary debates are just seven months away. And the debate stage is expected to be crowded — at least on the GOP side. No fewer than 10 high-profile Republicans are actively weighing 2024 presidential bids in open defiance of Trump, emboldened by the growing belief that the former president is as politically vulnerable as he’s ever been.

Incumbent Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, his wife Casey and their children on stage after speaking to supporters at an election night party after winning his race for reelection in Tampa, Fla., Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

At the moment, Trump is the only announced candidate in the Republican primary. But a handful of candidates are expected to join by the end of March, while some higher-profile contenders — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, among them — believe they can wait until late spring or even early summer to make their intentions known.

Few believe Trump will be easy to topple in a GOP primary. Already, he has begun to lash out at would-be rivals by name, and he maintains a rock-solid grip among the party’s most active voters, who will dominate GOP primary contests.

Former Vice President Mike Pence sits for an interview with the Associated Press, Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2022, in New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

Still, voters will have several options in a likely field that features DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and outgoing Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, among several others. Most have already begun actively courting donors and making connections on the ground in early states on the presidential primary calendar.

C-SPAN 2024 election coverage
FILE – 70th United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo waves as he is introduced at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Feb. 27, 2021, in Orlando, Fla. From the point of view of C-SPAN, the 2024 presidential campaign begins this Friday, March 26, 2021. The network is sending it cameras to suburban Des Moines, Iowa, to tape Pompeo speaking to a breakfast meeting of the Westside Conservative Club, to be aired later in the day on Friday. (AP Photo/John Raoux, File)

Before the presidential nomination process begins in earnest, the GOP must first resolve a contentious leadership fight in the House. And by month’s end, the Republican National Committee will decide whether to elect McDaniel to a fourth two-year term.

Much of the energy from Trump’s Make America Great Again movement has rallied behind California attorney Harmeet Dhillon in an increasingly nasty leadership fight that will be decided at the committee’s winter meeting later in the month after three consecutive disappointing election cycles.

FILE – Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan speaks during a news conference, Oct. 25, 2021, in Annapolis, Md. A resurgent GOP is poised to reclaim one, if not both, chambers of Congress and retain its lock on dozens of state legislatures and governor’s offices. The turnaround — which is expected but far from assured — is fueled by an unpopular Joe Biden presidency, deep frustration with the lingering pandemic and fresh concerns about inflation, as well as the GOP having history on its side.(AP Photo/Brian Witte, File)

Trump and his loyalists will figure prominently in each of the clashes. But prominent establishment Republicans are pushing back much more aggressively.

Steven Law, a key Mitch McConnell ally who leads the Senate GOP’s leading super PAC, vowed to “play a much more assertive role” in shaping future Senate contests. That’s just as the incoming head of the Senate GOP campaign arm, Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., suggests that his committee will actively play in Republican primaries to ensure that candidates who can be more competitive with the broader general election audience advance. That’s a notable reversal from the committee’s current hands-off practice, which was blamed for elevating candidates who failed to expand their support beyond the base.

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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., speaks with reporters following a closed-door policy lunch, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, June 14, 2022. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

On paper, Senate Republicans have major opportunities ahead in red states like West Virginia, Montana and Ohio, where Democrats are up for reelection in 2024. To take full advantage, however, the GOP must avoid the same “candidate quality” issues that plagued the party in the November midterms as a slate of deeply flawed Trump-backed candidates lost key Senate contests in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania.

“Recruitment is going to be job one, starting now,” Law said. “The first step is to do everything we can to get the best possible candidate in the field.”

Law was optimistic that Trump would stay out of Senate primary contests in 2024 given the needs of his presidential campaign. McConnell, R-Ky., the Senate’s Republican leader, offered a similar sentiment in a recent interview with NBC News.

“We can do a better job with less potential interference,” McConnell said of Trump. “The former president may have other things to do.”

Meanwhile, Democrats have issues of their own to sort out — the most pressing, of course, is whether Biden will seek a second term. Already, he is the oldest president in U.S. history. Polling suggests that a significant number of voters in both parties don’t want him to run again.

President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden arrive to board Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., on Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2022, with their grandchildren Natalie and Robert and escorted by Air Force Col. William Chris McDonald, right, and his wife Diana McDonald, left. Biden and his family are traveling to St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

The Democratic president, who spent new year’s weekend with family in the U.S. Virgin Islands, has said he aims to make a final decision over the holidays.

Biden told reporters the day after the midterms that he intends to run, but that he is a “respecter of fate.” Aides and allies are already making preparations for a campaign launch, though they are avoiding overt steps that could be seen as getting in front of Biden’s decision-making process.

A formal campaign launch isn’t expected until the second quarter of 2023, both to maximize the incumbency advantage offered to Biden — allowing him to try to stay above the political fray for as long as possible — and to avoid having to report fundraising during the historically weak first quarter.

And while a 2024 Biden run is likely, some Democrats are working to change his mind.

A progressive group has been running ads under the banner “Don’t Run Joe” across Georgia, Michigan and South Carolina in recent days. The ad campaign features Democratic voters condemning the president as “status-quo Joe,” while highlighting his weak polling numbers.

“If he runs, the election is at serious risk,” one voter says of Biden in the new ad, which will also begin running on CNN in Washington, D.C., on Monday, according to one of the group’s leaders, Norman Solomon.

There is no clear Democratic alternative should Biden not run, however. That may help explain why most Democratic officials are openly encouraging the president to run again.

FILE – Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., speaks at a hearing Oct. 28, 2021, on Capitol Hill in Washington. President Joe Biden’s increasingly stark warnings about Trump-fueled elements of the Republican Party are making up the core part of his midterm message, combined with repeated reminders to voters about recent Democratic accomplishments and a promise that democracy can still produce results for the American people. Khanna, said that “politics is somewhat like a team sport, and the president is the quarterback.” (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

In an interview, progressive leader Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said he wouldn’t challenge the president in a primary and he discouraged anyone from the party’s progressive wing from doing so.

“At this point, I don’t think a candidacy from someone would do anything other than weaken the president. And why would you want to do that headed into an election that’s going to be close?” he said.

Quentin Wathum-Ocama, president of the Young Democrats of America, has been critical of Biden in the past but said he’s “good” if Biden wants to run again.

Even if young people are not overly excited about the Biden administration, he said, they feel a “sense of duty and obligation” to support the party because of the threats to democracy that Trump and his allies represent.

“We’re not always going to be super enthused, but we’re going to show the hell up,” Wathum-Ocama said. “We’re obligated to show up because we know what happens next — and that could be something even scarier than what we saw on Jan. 6.”

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., talks to reporters as Democrats work on a way to lift the debt limit and find a way to pass President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2021. Sanders was critical of Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, of West Virginia, a key holdout vote on the Biden overhaul. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Sanders insisted that the Democratic Party “has got to be more than the anti-Trump party.”

The Vermont independent said Democrats in Congress must move with real urgency to address the erosion of working-class voters who are increasingly willing to support Trump and his Republican allies. He called on Senate Democrats to adopt a higher minimum wage, among other worker-friendly legislation that would test the new Republican-controlled House’s commitment to working-class voters.

As for his own 2024 intentions, the 81-year-old Sanders, who sought the Democratic nomination for president in 2016 and 2020, said it was not the right time to discuss whether he might launch another White House bid.

“I’ll make a decision at the appropriate time,” Sanders said. “People need to breathe.”

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