After yesterday’s primary election in Florida, the general election matchups for the most competitive Senate races this year are now confirmed. Republicans remain bullish on their chances to reclaim the Senate majority this cycle, seeing as they only need two pickups and already have near-certain win with the retirement of Sen. Joe Manchin in West Virginia. The GOP is targeting Montana, Arizona, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin for potential wins. This issue of Prime Politics analyzes the candidates contesting these frontlines of the Democratic majority.  

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Montana: As projected in a previous issue, aerospace CEO and former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy won Montana’s GOP primary and will face Sen. Jon Tester in November’s general election. Sheehy earned both Donald Trump’s and the NRSC’s endorsement during the primary race and now faces a three-term incumbent who has twice before held off GOP challengers by single-point margins in the traditionally red state.  

Sheehy’s campaign, which held a Trump-headlined rally last week in Bozeman, brands him as a business-aligned Washington outsider; Trump’s successful political career is the clear model. After earning a Purple Heart and Bronze Star in Afghanistan, Sheehy founded Bridger Aerospace, an aerial firefighting company based out of Bozeman with over one dozen aircraft and several U.S. government contracts. Though the real financial viability of the company may be in doubt, Sheehy’s military and pro-business background attracts a Montana voter base that elected Trump by more than 10 points in both 2016 and 2020. He is currently at a cash disadvantage compared to Sen. Tester, and Democratic organizers are working to label him as a wealthy transplant who overstates his business acumen. As of this writing, state polls show Mr. Sheehy leads Sen. Tester, with one even putting his current advantage at over five points.  

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Arizona: Kari Lake (pictured below) returns to the statewide ballot in Arizona, where she previously lost her bid for governor in the 2022 cycle. Lake far outraised fellow GOP contenders leading up to the July 30 primary, and eventually won the race by over 15 points. She now faces current Rep. Ruben Gallego (D) in the general election to replace Independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema.  

Lake was a local Fox News anchor for over 20 years in the Phoenix market and earned Donald Trump’s endorsement when running in the 2022 GOP gubernatorial primary. She garnered national media attention immediately after that election, when she filed several unsuccessful lawsuits claiming election tampering. Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer has since filed a defamation lawsuit against Lake's previous “threats.” Yet, Lake remains a staple on conservative media and recently earned the endorsement of former Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey despite their previous political disagreements.  

Lake has made immigration the key issue of her Senate race, and Arizona’s razor-thin margins offer potential for the GOP to reclaim a seat in a once-conservative stronghold. However, the outcome of Arizona’s race likely depends not on party-affiliated voters, but the large swath of independent voters – Lake lost 60% of that bloc in her bid for governor and will need to make inroads to win this seat for Republicans.  

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Michigan: Michigan’s Senate race is the only competitive race for an open seat, as longtime Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D) is retiring. Rep. Elissa Slotkin won the Democratic primary by 50 points in her bid to retain the seat for Democrats and will officially face former Rep. Mike Rogers (R) in the general. Both candidates boast a national security and legislative background, and Michigan remains a highly contested state where a small margin of victory is expected.  

Rep. Slotkin was an analyst for more than a decade in the CIA, White House National Security Council, and Department of Defense. At one time, Slotkin was Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs. Running for U.S. House in 2018, she flipped a GOP seat to Democrats for the first time since 2001 in Michigan’s 8th Congressional District. She currently sits on the House Armed Services, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs Committees, and is rated as a very bipartisan member of the Democratic caucus. Her formidable opponent, Mike Rogers, served in the U.S. Army and as an agent of the FBI’s Chicago Bureau for a decade before his first congressional race. He was a member of Congress for 14 years and chaired the prestigious Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He remains involved in foreign policy, serving on the boards of the Atlantic Council and Harvard University's Belfer Center.  

Recent polling suggests Sloktin holds an edge over Rogers, with averages giving her a two-to-four-point lead. However, Rogers only won his GOP primary in the first week of August, which featured tighter competition and more candidates than the Democratic field. He can now focus on defeating Slotkin, who polled well ahead of Joe Biden and remains more popular than Kamala Harris.  

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Ohio: Ohio held one of the earliest GOP Senate primaries, but one of the most competitive. Cleveland businessman Bernie Moreno, who had the endorsement of former president Donald Trump, won the contest with 50% of the vote and will face three-time incumbent Senator Sherrod Brown.  

Moreno immigrated with his family from Colombia and attended the University of Michigan. He began his business career in Boston, and later relocated to Ohio to run his Collection Auto Group dealership network. Moreno took his business from a single, low-earning franchise to a multistate network that earned him millions. Moreno has contributed at least $5 million of his own money to this campaign, which has been needed in the most expensive race this cycle.  

Moreno’s leading attack on Sen. Brown has been Brown’s cooperation with the Biden administration, and the GOP is banking that the national environment will be enough to doom Brown in a state that voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020. Brown, however, will notably skip the DNC to continue his in-state campaign and is reportedly refusing to campaign alongside Kamala Harris. He has a current polling lead over Moreno and must continue to outperform Ms. Harris by at least 10 points to reclaim the seat.  

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Pennsylvania: Neither incumbent senator Bob Casey (D) nor GOP challenger Dave McCormick (pictured above) faced a primary challenge, and McCormick gets his chance to race in a general election after losing a close primary to Mehmet Oz in 2022.  

McCormick is a West Point graduate who served five years in the army and fought in the Gulf War. After his military service, he led a lucrative career in the private sector at McKinsey & Co., as president of FreeMarkets (a software company), and as CEO of Bridgewater Associates hedge fund. He also boasts a five-year career in the U.S. Departments of Commerce and Treasury under Presidents Bush (R) and Obama (D). He remained involved in politics upon his return to the private sector, donating millions to mainly Republican candidates.  

Even as a successful businessman with a national security and veteran background, McCormick comes up against a popular Democrat in Sen. Casey who leads current polls by five-to-ten points. Though Donald Trump and Pat Toomey both won state-wide in 2016, Democrats have since swept each U.S. Senate, presidential, and gubernatorial columns on the Pennsylvania ballot. Democrats are attempting to use the same playbook that they had success with two years ago in their defeat of Dr. Mehmet Oz, branding McCormick as an out-of-stater parachuting into Pennsylvania in an attempt to buy a Senate seat – McCormick spends considerable time at his house in Connecticut.

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Wisconsin: Holding its primary on August 13, Wisconsin was the last of the top-tier Senate battlegrounds to be finalized. Businessman Eric Hovde (R), who has already spent a reported $13 million of his own money on the campaign, will face Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D) after a decisive primary victory.  

Hovde, who unsuccessfully ran for Senate in 2012, founded H Bancorp, which has grown to a $3 billion bank holding company. He is also the President and CEO of Hovde Capital Advisors, an asset management firm, and president, CEO, and Chief Investment Officer of Hovde Private Equity Advisors, LLC, a private equity firm. Hovde was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and established a foundation dedicated to research and care for victims of the disease. After earning Donald Trump’s early endorsement, he pivoted his campaign from the late primary and toward Sen. Baldwin.

Hovde trails in current statewide polling, and Sen. Baldwin has historically outperformed other Democrats on the ballot. The incumbent Democrat also enjoys a cash advantage over Hovde. Hovde will target his campaign towards Democrats’ economic agenda and Sen. Baldwin’s long tenure in Washington, while Sen. Baldwin has called him “out of touch" and “ultrarich.”

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From Founding Chairman Charlie Black:

“It is important to note that that right now, no Senate seats currently held by Republicans are in danger of flipping. West Virginia is a sure pick up for the GOP and Tim Sheehy continues to lead in Montana. Any of the seats listed above could turn Republican. So, the odds are very good that the Senate will have a Republican majority next year.”