The 2024 campaign for the Senate has centered on a few close races that will determine the majority, but a half-dozen likely incoming senators who were on track to win their races easily will enter the chamber with high profiles, thanks to a variety of attributes, including fundraising prowess, historical significance, previous offices held or general notoriety.
One governor and five current House members have been on glide paths to Senate election at least since primary season, all running for open seats.
The most notable may be Democratic Rep. Adam B. Schiff of California and Republican Gov. Jim Justice of West Virginia.
Schiff has criss-crossed the country in recent weeks to campaign for current House colleagues and potential new colleagues facing more difficult paths in 2024.
In recent weeks, Schiff has popped up in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. He also headlined the Democrat-Farmer-Labor Founders Day Dinner in Minnesota, appearing with Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.
And that’s not to mention how he spent the weekend before Election Day, campaigning with Democratic House candidates in key districts across California.
The former House Intelligence Committee chairman and a manager of the first impeachment of then-President Donald Trump, has for years been a foil to the GOP, particularly its three-time presidential nominee.
“Guys like Adam Shifty Schiff, these are corrupt people,” Trump said this weekend in Pennsylvania before hurling insults about the congressman’s appearance. “And to think he’ll probably be a senator? Can you believe it.”
Justice, meanwhile, has been appearing along with Babydog, his English bulldog, at events to rally support for Trump’s 2024 bid, with his own race in West Virginia being noncompetitive ever since incumbent Sen. Joe Manchin III announced his retirement.
Justice and the bulldog have been regulars at Team Trump events, especially across Pennsylvania but also in North Carolina and Virginia. In an amateur video posted from one of his Pennsylvania stops, he mused that he might win his own race by 40 points against Democrat Glenn Elliott.
At an Oct. 26 stop in Erie, Pa., he urged local Republicans to get out the vote. “The Democrats are professionals at the elections,” he said, according to National Review.
Babydog, who was featured on stage at the Republican National Convention alongside Justice, will likely compete with Justice as the celebrity draw.
But Schiff and Justice are not alone in what they will bring to the Senate.
Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester cruised to victory in Delaware’s open Senate seat and has been campaigning with down-ballot candidates in her home state. She was the first woman and first Black person to represent the First State in the House, and now she will be the first to do so in the Senate as well.
She has been wearing multiple hats throughout the 2024 election cycle, serving as a co-chair of the campaign that started as fellow Delawarean Joe Biden’s presidential reelection effort but pivoted after he withdrew from the race to be for Vice President Kamala Harris and has been a regular surrogate for the presidential campaign. She’s made numerous TV appearances on behalf of the Harris-Walz ticket and her own campaign noted she was at the Ellipse for Harris’ closing-argument speech in Washington, D.C.
She’s also anticipated in other GOTV efforts for the top of the ticket, like Women Wednesdays organizing calls. On an Oct. 30 video call, she borrowed a line from Rep. Ann McLane Kuster, D-N.H., that she was “nauseously optimistic” about the prospects for Election Day.
Rep. Andy Kim, D-N.J., was poised for his biggest fight in the Garden State Senate primary, but Tammy Murphy, the wife of Gov. Phil Murphy, dropped her bid ahead of the primary. Former Sen. Bob Menendez resigned and opted not to run as an independent after his conviction on federal corruption charges. That left Kim with an easy path to election.
Kim has significant experience in foreign policy dating back well before his House days, having been a foreign affairs officer and having worked on the National Security Council staff during the Obama administration. He also was in a series of iconic images in the hours after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, as he cleaned up debris in the Capitol left behind by the mob who tried to disrupt the certification of Biden’s Electoral College win.
Two Republican House members are also Senate-bound. Rep. Jim Banks, a former chair of the conservative Republican Study Committee, has contributed to the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s efforts and also raised money in support of state legislative candidates, his campaign said.
That’s on top of events Banks has done outside of Indiana, including appearing on the trail with Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, including in Pennsylvania during the August recess. He’s also appeared with the former president himself.
Rep. John Curtis of Utah will likely replace retiring GOP Sen. Mitt Romney. And while Utah is a heavily Republican state, Curtis has reached for common ground on such hot-button issues as climate change and public land management and will likely be an institutionalist like the man he replaces.
Seniority among freshman senators is determined according to a formula that gives the higher weight to years of service in the House, and Curtis has talked up the value of his seven years in the House, due to a special election he won in 2017 to replace Republican Jason Chaffetz.
“It matters where you sit in a room. It matters where your order is speaking,” Curtis said in an interview with KSL NewsRadio.
Kim and Schiff will get a head start on seniority because they will likely be sworn in before Jan. 3. In addition to winning a full term, Schiff will fill the balance of the unexpired term of the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, which Sen. Laphonza Butler has filled as a short-term appointee. Election Day also featured a special election in California for the unexpired term Butler was appointed to.
Kim at some point will likely join the Senate ahead of schedule, with appointed Sen. George S. Helmy resigning to clear the way for Murphy to appoint Kim.
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