U.S. elections to watch this November

LV = Likely Voters

RV = Registered Voters

Italics = Incumbent

CURRENT SENATE SPLIT = Democrats, 51 vs. Republicans, 49

CURRENT HOUSE SPLIT* = Democrats, 213 vs. Republicans, 218

*4 vacant seats

FLORIDA SENATE: Rick Scott (R) vs. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D)*

FAU Poll (LV): Scott, 45% vs. Mucarsel-Powell, 43%

Scott’s political and business career has been filled with embarrassment, failure and shortcomings. Look at how he passively wasted campaign money for what was prepped to be the ‘Red Wave’ of the 2022 midterms as the head of the NRSC or his infamous affiliation to a major healthcare scandal. He has similarly been prosperous as hell: that healthcare debacle made him a multi-millionaire and enabled him to forever bankroll his own campaigns without ever having to rely on a PAC dime. And he has completed the game of American Legislative LIFE as a member of Congress and Governor. Scott is also increasingly and apparently out of touch with the political and cultural zeitgeist and he seems squishy on a vast array of issues as a natural result of his lengthy career. Scott’s race versus Mucarsel-Powell is essentially a referendum on whether Florida voters are growing tired of their state’s political old guard. 

ARIZONA SENATE: Kari Lake (R) vs. Ruben Gallego (D) 

Emerson College Poll (RV): Lake, 41% vs. Gallego, 45%

Wow, I didn’t know that an active governor could also run for Senate. At least that’s the case if you follow Lake’s continued rejection of her nail-biting loss to now-governor Katie Hobbs (D) in 2022. Arizona is a flashpoint in American politics with all its concerns over the Southern border, skepticism about Californian-Oregonian-Washingtonian Western liberalism and it happens to also be one of the 2024 Presidential Election’s most important swing-states. Gallego offers a new, and ironically old-fashioned, Democratic mold— a la Bill Clinton —that is tough on crime, reasonably restrictive on illegal immigration but still progressive at heart. Lake, for her efforts, has toned down her 2022 caricaturing of all that people consider wrong with Trumpism, but the Republican establishment is still not fond of her for openly flouting conservative conventions. If Lake loses another high-profile race again, it’s likely the end of her political career and another sucker punch for the MAGA Republican wing. 

OHIO SENATE: Sherrod Brown (D) vs. Bernie Moreno (R) 

Marist College Poll (RV): Brown, 50% vs. Moreno, 45%

Brown is center-left, Moreno is far-right. This is becoming a common ideological battle since 2022 in swing-states. Both Democrats and Republicans want to tear away centrists and Independents. Traditional Republicanism is too boring for these voting blocs, while lefty-liberalism is becoming too close to socialism for Libertarians and the aforementioned pair of voting demographics that have balked at President Biden’s massive subsidies for educational payments and undocumented immigrants. Brown is a different Democratic populist than his further left counterparts like Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT), framing issues like abortion as a matter of general personal choice rather than reproductive rights. Brown appeals to classic American individualism. Moreno, for his part, is presenting himself as a interesting through-line between the right’s tough-on-immigration views, as well as stereotypically Democratic sympathy for those same immigrants. The Republican hails his biography as an embodiment of the “rags-to-riches” American Dream that so many U.S. citizens and immigrants alike aspire to. This narrative has been called into question on several occasions, but it shows how Republicans have tried to tone down adversarial immigration rhetoric into empathetic criticism.

PENNSYLVANIA HOUSE, D-10: Scott Perry (R) vs. Janelle Stelson (D)

Franklin & Marshall Poll (RV): Perry, 45% vs. Stelson, 44%

Stelson is shaping up to be the first genuine competitor that Perry has faced over his long-time congressional seat. But enough time has now passed to see the kind of legislator Perry has become since becoming the House Freedom Caucus’ leader, a group of House Representatives that ruffled feathers during the 2022 nomination for Speaker and spearheaded that nomination and eventual Speaker’s (Kevin McCarthy R-CA) eventual ousting and retirement. Perry is not liked by his constituency– 33% of RV reported viewing him in a “strongly unfavorable” light, as well as 8% as “somewhat unfavorable” –so the real impetus for a Stelson victory will be making a name for herself as an actual alternative (44% of RV do not know her) and not just a Democratic plant to steer a contested seat blue.

NORTH CAROLINA GOVERNOR = Josh Stein (D) vs. Mark Robinson (R)

Spry Strategies Poll (LV): Stein, 39% vs. Robinson, 43%

Robinson is antisemitic, misogynistic and embraces fringe conservatism relentlessly… and he is currently in a tight race with popular Democratic Attorney General Stein. Robinson, like some other Republicans on this list, embodies the MAGA archetype: a culture warrior with no distinct policy views and is trying to win this race on the basis of moral equivalency. That equivalency being— from the MAGA perspective –do you want a loudspeaker that will champion your social discontents or another weakly Democrat in the mold of current governor Roy Cooper (D)?

PENNSYLVANIA SENATE = Bob Casey (D) vs. David McCormick (R)

Emerson College Poll (RV): Casey, 47% vs. McCormick, 41%

Pennsylvania voters have recently been known to be fickle and independently minded, as opposed to voting on strictly partisan lines. That’s why it’s such a massive swing-state for the 2024 presidential election and how we saw a bizarre, but close, fight between now-Senator John Fetterman (D) and Mehmet Oz (R), or Dr. Oz, in 2022. This still rings true for Casey versus McCormick. Regardless of Casey’s generally positive perception and incumbency, 12% of voters are still undecided. Casey has become a bit squeamish with talking about abortion, an issue that has come to wholly influence how some voters’ punch their ballots since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. Casey appealed down the middle of Pennsylvania politics as a self-proclaimed pro-life Democrat, but SCOTUS has seemingly moved him to renege on that stance. McCormick is also playing to the politics of today; Tom Suozzi’s (D-NY) special election victory to replace disgraced former Rep. George Santos (R-NY) showed how you can still promise to take illegal immigration across the Southern border seriously in a non-border state and benefit from it. McCormick has embraced the same strategy, painting Casey as soft and a Biden-disciple. Casey is a bonafide Democratic stalwart, so I imagine it’ll take quite the push to unseat him, but McCormick is certainly putting on a fight.  

FLORIDA HOUSE, D-13 = Anna Paulina Luna (R) vs. Whitney Fox (D)*

GQR Poll (RV): Luna, 51% vs. Fox, 46%

This race is really an ongoing stress test on whether the ‘Red Wave’ that failed nationally but prospered in Florida is genuine. Whether or not Florida’s presidential swing will be determined by the forthcoming marijuana and abortion referendums, its effects will probably be more telling on the down ballot. For now, Governor Ron DeSantis (R) signed a current 6-week abortion ban into law that is largely unpopular at the national level and has provided Democrats with potential fodder for November to bash Republicans with. Luna is still an incumbent though and is facing Fox, a Democrat with little name recognition in comparison. 

COLORADO HOUSE, D-4 = Trish Calvarese (D) vs. Lauren Boebert (R)*

Keating Research Poll (LV): Calvarese, 36% vs. Boebert, 46%

Boebert is essentially running as an incumbent because of her status as a sitting congressman, but Ken Buck’s (R) spontaneous and potentially malicious retirement has forced his fellow Coloradoan to enter a new district that now may be more competitive than expected. This race is objectively less consequential in terms of actual policymaking and what it means for Colorado’s congressional makeup, but it tests the extent to which a staunchly Republican constituency is willing to endure the extracurricular activities that has come to define the far-right wing of the House. From groping her date at a Beetlejuice live show to espousing law-and-order ideals without acknowledging her own child’s criminal run-ins, Boebert should be morally and politically compromised.

* = Likely matchup based on primary polling