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Democrats have scored yet another major recruiting victory in their fight to flip control of the Senate. On Monday, former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio officially announced he would run to fill the Senate seat left vacant by Vice President JD Vance.
Michael Steele, former Republican National Committee chair and co-host of “The Weeknight,” said Brown’s comeback bid shows how Democrats could sail to victory in next year’s elections.
According to Steele, there are three types of candidates in each election cycle: the vulnerable, the secure and “the unknown.” He called Brown an unknown — an “individual who gets in a race that no one thought they would.” Steele said those candidates have a higher chance at an upset.
“That’s the part that I think all of this works to the advantage of Democrats, because they have much more of those unknowns sort of falling into their favor,” he continued, pointing to North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper’s decision to enter the Senate race in his state.
Steele also said there was another factor working in Democrats’ favor ahead of the midterms: Many high-profile Republicans are sitting on the sidelines. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu both declined to run for Senate, despite pleas from their party.
Steele said their absences open up a “battlefield” for Democrats and it’s up to them to “seize the moment, the momentum and the messaging.”
When Steele’s co-host, Alicia Menendez, asked why he believed prominent Republicans like Kemp and Sununu were sitting out of the midterms, the former RNC chair said, “It’s not complicated.”
“They don’t want Donald Trump anywhere near anything they’re touching, because their ambitions go beyond 2026,” he said. “So they don’t want to have to run in a campaign in which Donald Trump could throw some smack their way, or they may have to smack him.”
You can watch Steele’s full analysis in the clip at the top of the page.