IMAGINE THE GOP NOMINATES NORMALS?:

Even though almost every competitive race went the way Senate Democrats needed them to last fall, in the 118th Congress, they enjoy only a fragile 51-49 majority. Further, they had three big things going for them in the midterms: a favorable map, a shockingly poor batch of low-quality GOP opponents, and a Supreme Court decision that revved up left-leaning activists across the country.

As important as all three of these factors were in Democratic Senate victories, the most significant one was the map--and that will look drastically different next cycle.

In 2024, nearly half of the Democratic caucus--23 senators--is up for re-election. Of those, 8 are considered vulnerable: 5 in battleground states (Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Virginia) and the other 3 in solidly red states (Ohio, Montana, West Virginia). Republicans, on the other hand, have only 11 senators up for re-election in the 2024 cycle, and all of them represent states Trump won in 2020.

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