| | | | |  | | By Marianne LeVine | WILL THERE BE A WAVE OF SENATE DEM RETIREMENTS IN '24? As Democrats look to expand their 50-50 Senate majority in November, they have an even tougher election cycle on the horizon in 2024. Democrats will have to defend 23 Senate seats, including in the battleground states of West Virginia, Ohio, Montana and Arizona. Any retirements would almost surely make the task that much more difficult, Burgess reports. At least eight members of the Senate Democratic caucus are still undecided about running for re-election. That includes Sens. Jon Tester of Montana and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, both of whom won in 2018, a year when Democrats lost four Senate seats in red or purple states. "I will not make a decision until sometime early next year," Tester said. People "say, 'that's bullshit, you've already made up your mind,'...You make up your mind after you have a chance to talk everything over with your family." Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) also has not revealed whether she plans to run for re-election. Another challenge for Democrats is that their likely best pick up opportunities in 2024 are Florida and Texas, both reliably red states that have two GOP senators. There is some positive news for the party, however: Democratic senators from Nevada, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio said they planned to run for re-election in 2024. "Am I undecided? No. I am all in. I'm definitely running," Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) told POLITICO. OK NOW, BACK TO 2022: Republicans are making inroads in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, two states that are crucial to their hopes of winning back the Senate, POLITICO's Holly Otterbein and Natalie Allison write this a.m. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Pennsylvania GOP nominee Mehmet Oz started the general election with low favorability ratings and a spending disadvantage for television. But Johnson is now retaking a lead in the polls and the race between Oz and Democratic Lieutenant Gov. John Fetterman is tightening. If Republicans hold Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, they'd only need to win one more Senate race to gain the majority. Some stats from the story: Republican and Democratic strategists attribute the shift primarily to a deluge of television ads attacking Democrats as soft on crime. In Wisconsin, for example, Johnson and GOP groups have spent more than $19 million on television ads between Labor Day and the end of September, while his Democratic opponent Lieutenant Gov. Mandela Barnes and his allies spent less than $14 million, according to AdImpact. Meanwhile, Fetterman's lead is also decreasing. While Oz has not led in a released poll, a recent Franklin & Marshall poll had Fetterman up by three percentage points this month, compared to 13 percentage points in the organization's August poll.
| | | | JOIN NEXT WEDNESDAY FOR A TALK ON U.S.-CHINA AND XI JINPING'S NEW ERA: President Xi Jinping will consolidate control of the ruling Chinese Communist Party later this month by engineering a third term as China's paramount leader, solidifying his rule until at least 2027. Join POLITICO Live for a virtual conversation hosted by Phelim Kine, author of POLITICO's China Watcher newsletter, to unpack what it means for U.S.-China relations. REGISTER HERE. | | | | | GOOD MORNING! Welcome to Huddle, the play-by-play guide to all things Capitol Hill, on this Wednesday, October 5, where your fill-in Huddle Host is wondering when was the last time a retiring incumbent shared the same name as a candidate vying to replace him or her and they were not related.Thoughts? Send them to mlevine@politico.com and ktm@politico.com. WALKER FALLOUT, DAY 2: Even before the Daily Beast published its bombshell report that Herschel Walker paid for a girlfriend's abortion in 2009, top Republicans in the state warned months ago that such a story could be a potential death blow to the football star's Senate run. Four people with knowledge of the preliminary discussion said the allegations were known in the Peach State and brought to Walker's team as a way to dissuade him from running, POLITICO's Meridith McGraw, Natalie Allison and Sam Stein report. Walker's team, however, downplayed the impact of the potential story, predicting that it wouldn't come out before the election. One person close to the Walker campaign said that his son Christian Walker "told his dad that you have to tell the truth and come clean on this." Christian Walker, in a statement to POLITICO, denied that he spoke to his father or the campaign "about ANYTHING to do with a specific abortion case." POLITICO has not independently verified the Daily Beast report. REPUBLICAN LEADERS RALLY FOR WALKER: Even as some Republicans privately worried that the latest allegations against Walker would put their odds of winning the Senate seat in peril, party officials ranging from National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair Rick Scott (R-Fla.) to former President Donald Trump rushed to Walker's defense on Tuesday. Scott accused Democrats of conducting a smear campaign and compared the situation to sexual assault and harassment allegations brought against Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas. Meanwhile, Steven Law, president of Senate Leadership Fund said the GOP super PAC is moving "full speed ahead" in Georgia. More from Natalie Allison and your temporary Huddle host here. One dynamic we're watching is how much Democrats talk about the specifics of the Daily Beast report. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), who Walker is challenging, said he'd "let the pundits decide how they think it will impact the race." Senate Majority PAC's affiliate group, Georgia Honor, is up with an ad today highlighting Walker's support for an abortion ban without exceptions, according to the Democratic outside group's spokesperson. But whether Democrats dive into the allegations themselves remains to be seen. RELATED: "GOP moves to contain Herschel Walker's latest scandal: 'We're going to need a few days to assess'" from CNN's Manu Raju, Gabby Orr and Alex Rogers; "Republicans fear losing U.S. Senate seat as Walker's woes mount", from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Shannon McCaffrey and Greg Bluestein; "GOP leaders rally behind Walker. But in Georgia, Republicans fret" from the Washington Post's Annie Linskey and Cleve R. Wootson Jr.
| | | | STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president's ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today. | | | | | CAN DR. OZ GET JOSH SHAPIRO VOTERS?: Pennsylvania GOP Senate candidate Mehmet Oz is taking a divergent campaign approach from the party's gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano by aiming for broader appeal to suburban swing voters, per the Philadelphia Inquirer's Jonathan Tamari. "Oz's approach has Republicans talking up their hopes for 'Shapiro-Oz' voters as a key to a Senate race that has shown signs of tightening," Tamari writes, referring to the state's Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Shapiro. "Those hopes are a tacit admission that many Republicans are writing off Mastriano, and hoping Oz can outperform him." More here. AD WARS: The Republican Jewish Coalition Victory Fund is out with a $1.5 million ad buy in Pennsylvania attacking Fetterman for a 2013 incident where he pulled a gun on an unarmed Black jogger, according to the New York Times' Katie Glueck. Fetterman, who was Mayor of Braddock at the time, told the police he heard gunshots and saw a man running. Meanwhile, the gun safety group Everytown has a $2.1 million ad campaign in Pennsylvania to attack Oz and Mastriano for opposing universal background checks, per the Philadelphia Inquirer. RELATED: "Cortez Masto to face $2M in Spanish-language attack ads in homestretch of tight Nevada Senate race" from NBC News' Natasha Korecki; "'Only violence': Paul unleashes explosive new ad as he skips forum with Booker" from McClatchy DC's David Catanese TIM SCOTT 2024 INTRIGUE: Amid speculation that Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) is laying the groundwork to mount a presidential run in 2024, his top aide Jennifer DeCasper is leaving the Senate to start her own consulting firm, POLITICO's Alex Isenstadt reports. DeCasper will guide Scott's political activities and advise a new super PAC aligned with the South Carolina Republican. Scott, who is also up for re-election this year, is expected to travel to more than a half-dozen states to promote GOP candidates. He's also slated to return to Iowa this week, after visiting in August. More here. HOW PROXY VOTING IS PLAYING OUT ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL: For House members, proxy voting is a double-edged sword. While it allows incumbents to spend more time on the campaign trail, it's also becoming a point of attack for their opponents, per Roll Call's Avery Roe. "Throughout 2022, data shows proxy voting peaked in the week that a member's primary election was held," Roe writes. "The 21 percent rate of proxy voting in those weeks was nearly double the weekly average of 11 percent for the 117th Congress overall, CQ Roll Call found." Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), who is running against J.D. Vance to replace retiring Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), has voted by proxy 60 percent of the time since winning the Democratic nomination, an increase from 29 percent earlier this year. Vance has accused Ryan of phoning it in, while Ryan told Spectrum News he plans to continue to use it, saying "it's an opportunity for me to both be in Ohio but yet cast my vote here." QUICK LINKS "In the last 6 elections Obamacare was at center stage. This midterm it's being ignored, along with these 3 other issues," from The Boston Globe's James Pindell "Ron Jon's Record Is 'Target-Rich' for Dems—and Yet He's Winning," from the Daily Beast's Ursula Perano and Jake Lahut "The Pain and Glory of Cori Bush," from The Cut's Rita Omokha TODAY IN CONGRESS The House and Senate are out. AROUND THE HILL Not a lot.
| | | TUESDAY'S WINNER: Shiv Patel was the first to correctly guess that the House, since reaching its current 435-member size, has had six Speakers who have been elected with fewer than 218 votes. TODAY'S QUESTION: Who did the first statue in the National Statuary Hall Collection depict and which state provided it? The first person to correctly guess gets a mention in the next edition of Huddle. Send your answers to ktm@politico.com. GET HUDDLE emailed to your phone each morning. Follow Marianne on Twitter @marianne_levine | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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