The 10 Senate seats most likely to flip in 2024

CNN —

Democrats faced a challenging path to holding their Senate majority even before President Joe Biden stepped aside from the 2024 campaign – and they likely still do with Vice President Kamala Harris as their presumptive nominee.

But this year’s Democratic candidates, many of them well-known incumbents, have so far been able to create some separation from the top of the ticket. The question is whether they can sustain it as these contests take off over the late summer and fall.

Nine of the top 10 seats on CNN’s latest ranking of the Senate seats most likely to flip are held by Democrats (or independents who caucus with them). And assuming Republicans flip West Virginia, where Sen. Joe Manchin is retiring, the GOP just needs to win the White House or pick up one more Senate seat to win the majority.

That’s a tough landscape for Democrats – especially when they’re defending seats in states that either twice voted comfortably for Donald Trump (Montana and Ohio) or are presidential battlegrounds. CNN polling released this week showed no clear leader between Harris and the former president – although it was closer contest than CNN had found in earlier surveys of the Biden-Trump matchup. The poll showed Harris doing better than Biden against Trump among some key demographic groups – younger voters, female voters and Black voters.

But there’s been limited public polling of Senate races that would capture the past tumultuous month in American politics – from the June 27 presidential debate that sparked Democratic consternation about Biden, the assassination attempt on Trump in Pennsylvania in mid-July, and Biden’s decision to forgo reelection nearly a week ago.