The 2024 Races Already Underway in Arizona and Indiana

The 2022 midterms may have only just concluded, but the 2024 races for Senate and governor are already heating up in Arizona and Indiana.

The 2022 midterms may have only just concluded, but the 2024 races for Senate and governor are already heating up in Arizona and Indiana.

U.S. Senator Mike Braun and Indiana Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch both jumped into Indiana’s open-seat gubernatorial race on Monday. The two Republicans join Fort Wayne businessman Eric Doden in the G.O.P. primary to succeed term-limited Gov. Eric Holcomb.
Braun’s decision to leave the Senate after one term to seek the governorship creates another open primary in the solidly Republican Hoosier State.
G.O.P. Reps. Jim Banks and Victoria Spartz are reportedly considering Senate campaigns, as is former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels.
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s declaration of independence effectively signaled the start of the 2024 Arizona Senate race. The Democrat-turned-independent hasn’t said whether she’d seek reelection, raising the possibility of a three-way general election in the Grand Canyon State.
Democratic Reps. Ruben Gallego and Greg Stanton are reportedly considering bids for the now-open Democratic Senate primary.
Republicans are optimistic a three-way race could help their party recover from three cycles of humiliating defeats in once-solidly-Republican Arizona.
Not everyone is ready to move on to 2024, however. Three failed statewide Republican candidates in Arizona – Kari Lake, Abe Hamadeh, and Mark Finchem – have refused to concede defeat and have filed lawsuits contesting the election results.
Hamadeh fell short by a minuscule 511-vote margin, Lake was defeated by 17,117 votes and, Finchem lost by 120,208 votes.

The Washington Post predicted the 2024 election could be “brutal” for Senate Democrats. Democrats have to defend 23 of the 34 seats up for election in 2024, including three in states Trump won by eight points or more in 2020: Montana, Ohio, and West Virginia.
The New York Times reported Arizona Democrats plan to field a candidate to challenge Sinema, while the national party has remained evasive about which candidate they would support.
CNN looked at the history of three-way Senate races, which don’t bode well for Senate Democrats or Sinema. In 1968 and 1980, the incumbent who decided to seek reelection as an independent lost, while in 2010 the two candidates who said they’d caucus as Democrats split the vote, handing the election to the Republican candidate.

The Washington Examiner’s David M. Drucker assessed how Sinema’s decision to leave the Democratic Party “scrambled” Arizona’s Senate race. One G.O.P. operative predicted a three-way split or a Gallego-Republican race would give the G.O.P. the advantage heading into 2024.
Breitbart covered a poll from Mark It Read showing Braun leading his competition by a wide margin more than a year out from the 2024 G.O.P. gubernatorial primary. Braun led in the poll with 47 percent support, compared to 10 percent for Crouch and 5 percent backing Doden.
Fox News reported on a seeming trend of Democrat elected officials leaving their party. Besides Sen. Sinema, both New York City Councilman Ari Kagan and West Virginia state Sen. Glenn Jeffries announced they’d leave the Democratic Party and join the G.O.P.

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