Dem
51
GOP
49
The 2024 campaign is underway, and that means that the two major parties need to figure out who is going to oversee their campaign committees for this cycle. The Republicans will likely wait to answer that question until the situation in the House is figured out. The Democrats, on the other hand, are ready to move full steam ahead.
Let's start with the Senate. Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) did a heckuva job running the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee (DSCC) this cycle. Not only did all of the incumbents keep their seats (which is the chair's #1 job), but the party also flipped the seat in Pennsylvania. So, Peters' colleagues would very much like him to hold onto the job for another 2 years.
Peters, for his part, is not so sure. He concedes that he enjoyed running the DSCC this cycle, but says he's just not certain he wants to do it again. He might not say it openly, but the Senator knows full well that the Democrats have a brutal map in 2024, and that if things go badly, the DSCC chair is going to get a lot of blame, fair or not. Maybe Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) will manage to twist Peters' arm and get him to sign up again. Failing that, nobody knows who might do the job. Maybe they can stick Sen.-elect John Fetterman (D-PA) with it.
On the other side of the Capitol, meanwhile, the dynamic is very nearly the opposite. The Republicans now control a majority of the small fraction of seats that are actually in play. 2024 is a presidential year, which tends to favor the Democrats. And, by all indications, the House GOP Conference is preparing to spend the next 2 years shooting itself in the foot with score settling and muckraking, and relatively little in the way of governance.
Consequently, 2024 should be a good year for Democrats when it comes to the House. And the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is wide open, since current occupant Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY) just lost his seat. So, there are at least two House members champing at the bit: Ami Bera and Tony Cardenas (both D-CA). There may be others whose identities are not yet public. House Minority Leader-elect Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) gets to make the choice all by himself; it will be his first really big decision. Assuming he picks one from Bera and Cardenas to run the DCCC, maybe he can send the other one down the hall to run the DSCC.
In any event, it may be nearly 2 years until Election Day, but the outlines of the 2024 election cycle are, in many ways, already quite clear. (Z)