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Club for Growth Action Monday hinted at its plans to enter the 2024 Senate races at the start of a challenging cycle for Democrats, who must defend 23 seats (including multiple battleground states) while the GOP must defend just 10 seats.
The conservative group hinted it will likely wade into the Montana Senate race, endorsing GOP Congressman Matt Rosendale if he chooses to run, and the West Virginia Senate race, where the GOP winner could face Democratic Senator Joe Manchin if he decides to pursue a re-election bid, club president David McIntosh told a small group of reporters Monday night.
“We see that as really strong opportunities to move from Democrat to Republican,” McIntosh said.
In West Virginia, McIntosh checked out two Republicans, Attorney General Patrick Morrissey and Representative Alex Mooney, as possible candidates. Mooney has already announced his bid and Morrissey could run again after falling short to Manchin as the party’s nominee in 2018.
Of Rosendale, another unsuccessful 2018 nominee who could run again (against Democratic Senator Jon Tester), McIntosh said, “We know his record. We like what he did in terms of the speaker selection process.
McIntosh added that The Club is also looking at what’s happening in Michigan, where the GOP field is still taking shape after Michigan’s Democratic senator Debbie Stabenow announced her retirement long ago. However, McIntosh acknowledged that the state is “tough for Republicans, but we’ll see who’s running there.”
In Arizona, where now-independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema has yet to share her 2024 plans, McIntosh made it clear that there is one GOP candidate the group will not support: 2022 gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, who continues to cast doubt on the 2022 and 2020 elections despite her loss.
“If Kari Lake were the candidate, we would probably stay out of the race,” he said. ‘She doesn’t need us. She is not really, as far as I know, an economic conservative.”
The conservative group has has already announced its approval from Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), who is running to replace outgoing Indiana Republican Senator Mike Braun.