2024 Elections: Every Senate, House and Governor Race Americans Should Follow — Like Nebraska's Surprise Battleground

During a presidential election year, down-ballot races are easily overlooked as all eyes turn toward the Electoral College. But a president can't legislate without a like-minded Congress, and the Supreme Court's recent push toward states' rights has made gubernatorial and local races more important than ever.

Heading into the election, the United States Congress is narrowly divided. Democrats currently control the Senate 51-49, and Republicans control the House of Representatives 220-212, with a few seats vacant.

Republicans have a likely path to winning the Senate majority in November, and Democrats are on strong footing to retake control of the House, but neither side has room for error in an election cycle where razor-thin voting margins will determine Washington's priorities for years to come.

Countless battleground races are in play this November — from the Senate to the House to statehouses around the country — but a few remain toss-ups in the truest sense. Here are some of the most competitive 2024 election races to watch, regularly updated with the latest polling averages from poll tracker FiveThirtyEight.

U.S. Senate

Florida — Scott vs. Mucarsel-Powell

Latest polling: Scott up 4.6 points

Florida Sen. Rick Scott has received some warning signs in his bid for reelection as some polling shows Democratic challenger Debbie Mucarsel-Powell within striking distance of his seat.

Scott, 71, is not only vying for a second term in the Senate, but has expressed a desire to replace Mitch McConnell as the Republican Senate leader in the 119th Congress. Though he's still a front-runner in his reelection race, former Florida Rep. Mucarsel-Powell, 53, has slimmed his polling lead nearly in half since June.

Scott previously served eight years as the Florida governor and has a strong lead on his opponent in terms of experience, but with a lengthy track record comes political baggage. Mucarsel-Powell's younger, fresher campaign has stayed competitive in a state that voted solidly Republican in the last two presidential elections.

Michigan — Slotkin vs. Rogers

Latest polling: Slotkin up 4.0 points

Longtime Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow, 74, decided not to seek reelection in Michigan in 2024, giving Republicans an opportunity to pick up a critical swing state seat.

Democrats quickly lined up Michigan Rep. Elissa Slotkin — who has proved an invaluable asset to her party by winning three congressional toss-up elections — to run in Stabenow's place, hoping that she can continue her streak. Slotkin, 48, faces former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, a 61-year-old Republican who retired from the House in 2015.

Slotkin is a former CIA analyst who worked with George W. Bush's National Security Council and was tapped to oversee international security as an assistant defense secretary in the Obama administration. Rogers is an Army veteran and former FBI agent who spent 14 years in Congress before taking a decade-long hiatus from politics.

Montana — Tester vs. Sheehy

Latest polling: Sheehy up 5.4 points

Control of the Senate could come down to the firmly Republican state of Montana, where moderate Democrat Jon Tester has defied the odds since 2006, securing three consecutive terms in Congress' upper chamber. Now Tester, 68, is considered the most vulnerable Senate incumbent running for reelection in 2024. Though the farmer and former music teacher has enjoyed high approval ratings for most of his tenure, today's hyper-partisanship puts him in a trickier spot with conservative voters.

The Democratic incumbent faces a challenge from Republican Tim Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL from Minnesota who relocated to Montana in 2014 to start an aerial firefighting company. Sheehy, who will be 37 years old on Election Day, quickly eliminated Tester's onetime advantage, and is seen as the favorite to win by some pollsters.

Nebraska — Fischer vs. Osborn

Latest polling: Fischer up 1.0 points

An unexpected Republican Senate seat has become the most vulnerable in the nation, according to recent polls. GOP Sen. Deb Fischer is running for a third term in Nebraska's general Senate election in November (there's a separate special election involving the other seat, where Republicans are handily ahead), and she has a formidable challenger in political newcomer Dan Osborn, an independent who says he's always been registered as nonpartisan.

In an unusual move, Osborn has vowed not to caucus with either party if elected, meaning he would form his own independent caucus and disrupt the typical two-party split between Democrats and Republicans. The other independents in Senate, like Bernie Sanders, caucus with Democrats and are therefore counted as Democrats in the overall tally.

Osborn, 49, is a Navy veteran and former union president, and his lack of party affiliation has seemingly resonated with voters who are disappointed in Fischer's leadership. The Nebraska Democratic Party opted not to run their own candidate this year in order to boost Osborn's chances, though the independent candidate declined their endorsement.

Fischer, 73, suffered low approval ratings heading into her reelection year. She is the ranking member on the Senate Rules Committee and previously served in the Nebraska Legislature.

Ohio — Brown vs. Moreno

Latest polling: Brown up 1.6 points

Democratic Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, 71, may be looking at the toughest reelection battle of his three-term Senate career, seeking victory in a state that has turned comfortably Republican since his last campaign. Trump won Ohio by 8 points in 2020, and freshman Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance defeated his Democratic opponent by 6 points in the 2022 midterms.

Brown is the only Democrat who still holds a partisan, statewide office in Ohio. He faces a challenge from Republican car dealership owner Bernie Moreno, 57, who began to embrace far-right views in the lead-up to his campaign. Moreno has the backing of Trump and the rest of the MAGA machine, and has gained ground in one of multiple races that Democrats need to win in order to retain control of Senate.

Texas — Cruz vs. Allred

Latest polling: Cruz up 3.4 points

Texas Democrats have long talked about turning the state blue, and while Republicans still have the advantage in the 2024 elections, statewide polling suggests that a couple of upsets are certainly possible. Notably, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz — who placed second behind Trump in the 2016 GOP presidential primaries — faces a serious challenge from Democratic Rep. Colin Allred.

Allred, 41, was a professional football player for the Tennessee Titans who turned to a career in civil rights law and politics. He defeated a Republican incumbent in his 2018 congressional race and is now eyeing Cruz's seat in the Senate.

Cruz, 53, joined the Senate in 2013 and is seeking a third term. The staunchly conservative lawmaker has a history of making enemies on both sides of the aisle, and has been both an opponent of reproductive rights and same-sex marriage, lauding the overturning of Roe v. Wade and suggesting that Obergefell v. Hodges — which legalized gay marriage nationwide — should similarly be overturned. In the 2024 Senate race, he has stayed quieter on his abortion views.

Wisconsin — Baldwin vs. Hovde

Latest polling: Baldwin up 3.0 points

Wisconsin's Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin is seeking a third term in the U.S. Senate this election cycle. Baldwin, 62, became the first openly lesbian woman elected to Congress when she joined the House of Representatives in 1999, and made history again as the first openly LGBTQ+ senator when she assumed her latest role in 2013. She is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and has a background in law and local politics. During the 2020 presidential election, she was rumored to be on Joe Biden's initial running mate shortlist.

Baldwin faces 60-year-old Republican Eric Hovde in the 2024 election, a businessman who previously sought his party's Senate nomination in 2012. Though Hovde and his family have deep roots in Wisconsin, the candidate has faced criticism on the campaign trail for owning a $7 million mansion in Southern California and failing to vote in 17 of the last 30 elections in Wisconsin (when he voted in 2023, his absentee ballot was delivered to the California home). Still, in a state that's politically divided, his solidly conservative values and endorsement from Trump have put him within arm's reach of unseating the incumbent Democrat.

U.S. House

CA-45 — Steel vs. Tran

Latest polling: Toss-up

Rep. Michelle Steel, 69, joined the list of vulnerable California Republicans in September when election forecasters shifted her House race from "lean Republican" to "toss up" territory. Steel, who was first elected to Congress in 2020, represents a flip-flopping district that voted for Biden four years ago but also supported Republican state candidates in the 2022 midterms.

Democratic opponent Derek Tran has gained momentum in California's 45th Congressional District, outraising Steel's campaign in the second fundraising quarter. Highlighting his experience as a trial lawyer and Army veteran, Tran is running on a platform largely in line with his party.

Throughout the race, identity-based attacks have flung between candidates. Tran, the son of Vietnam refugees, has been accused of exaggerating about his Vietnamese fluency to resonate with voters in Little Saigon; Steel, who is from South Korea, was accused by her opponent of coming to the United States "for economic gain."

MI-07 — Hertel vs. Barrett

Latest polling: Barrett ahead

Democrat Curtis Hertel Jr. and Republican Tom Barrett — two former colleagues in the Michigan state Senate — are vying for the same House seat in Michigan's 7th Congressional District this year, as incumbent Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin seeks higher office.

MI-07 is one of the most purple districts in the nation. In 2022, Barrett's well-funded attempt at defeating Slotkin failed; with a new Democrat in the race this time around, he hopes to have more success. Unlike last time around, Barrett is running with Trump's endorsement.

Barrett, 43, is an ex-Army helicopter pilot who worked as an analyst for the Michigan Department of Treasury. Hertel, 46, comes from a well-known family in Michigan politics and has held multiple elected positions. Hertel hopes to thwart his opponent's momentum in the race by spotlighting his bridge-building record in comparison to Barrett's hyper-partisan approach to politics.

NY-17 — Lawler vs. Jones

Latest polling: Toss-up

Republican Rep. Mike Lawler unseated a longtime Democratic congressman in a 2022 upset, contributing to his party's narrow takeover of the House after the midterms. In his first reelection battle, though, Lawler's ability to retain the seat appears uncertain — his biggest asset is that he has a relatively bipartisan voting record that could appeal to a divided constituency.

Lawler, 38, finds himself in a close race against former Democratic Rep. Mondaire Jones, 37, a progressive who was ousted in a different district in 2022 after just one term in Congress. While New York's 17th Congressional District has a slight liberal tilt on the Cook Partisan Voting Index, Jones doesn't seem to have an automatic advantage; the little polling available hints at another nail-biter on Nov. 5.

NY-22 — Williams vs. Mannion

Latest polling: Mannion ahead

Partisan control of the House may very well come down to New York, where another swing district has a Republican incumbent fighting for his political life. In New York's 22nd Congressional District, which contains Syracuse and part of the Finger Lakes, 57-year-old Rep. Brandon Williams finds himself in an uphill battle to defend his seat. He was elected to the House by only 1.5% in 2022, and the state's recently redrawn congressional map doesn't help his chances.

Williams' Democratic opponent this year, New York state Sen. John Mannion, has had a strong showing in local polls. Syracuse University political science professor Grant Reeher previously explained to Spectrum News 1 that Mannion, 56, is more visible in the community than Williams, which exposes a weak spot for the incumbent. But Reeher also cautioned that Williams has already exceeded expectations on Election Day once before and shouldn't be underestimated.

PA-08 — Cartwright vs. Bresnahan

Latest polling: N/A

Northeastern Pennsylvania's 8th Congressional District is the most Republican-leaning district in the nation that is represented by a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Democratic Rep. Matt Cartwright, 63, was first elected to the House in 2012, and his incumbent advantage has seemingly helped him hold the seat thus far in an increasingly conservative district that voted for Trump in 2020.

In his bid for a seventh term, Cartwright faces a challenge from Republican businessman Rob Bresnahan, 34, who runs the electrical contracting company that his grandfather founded. Local infrastructure has become a key issue in the race, with Cartwright having campaigned from day one on a specific goal to revive the rail system in the area.

WA-03 — Gluesenkamp Perez vs. Kent

Latest polling: Toss-up

Two years after Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez flipped a House seat blue in a district that voted for Trump in 2020, she'll rematch with the same man she defeated before — far-right Army veteran Joe Kent.

Kent, 44, rode Trump's endorsement to Election Day in 2022, ousting the incumbent congresswoman at the time in the Republican primaries. Though he was popular enough to win his party's nomination, his promotion of conspiracy theories and association with far-right extremists made him less appealing to a general election audience, allowing Gluesenkamp Perez to slide in with an upset victory.

This time around, Gluesenkamp Perez has a bipartisan record to run on. The 36-year-old former auto repair shop owner is a Blue Dog Democrat who has broken from her party on several occasions in Congress and proven that neither party owns her vote. Still, after winning in 2022 by less than 1%, she can't assume that reelection is guaranteed.

Governor

New Hamsphire — Ayotte vs. Craig

Latest polling: Ayotte slightly ahead

Two lifelong New Hampshirites are fighting for the governor's seat after a drawn-out primary season concluded in September in the race to replace outgoing Republican Gov. Chris Sununu. New Hampshire is unique in that its congressional delegation is entirely blue, but its state-level government is entirely red.

GOP nominee Kelly Ayotte, 56, has experience as a former U.S. senator and New Hampshire attorney general, which gives her a head start in a state that's known to look beyond party lines. Ayotte is facing former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig, 57, who only narrowly secured the Democratic nomination after a bitter primary battle that divided the liberal base.

In the Senate, Ayotte had a moderately conservative record, aligning with Republicans on most issues — including pushing to pass a national abortion ban — while taking left-of-center stances on some issues, like LGBTQ+ rights. Now that governors have a strong influence on issues like reproductive rights post-Roe v. Wade, Craig will aim to keep Ayotte's more staunchly conservative positions at the front of voters' minds as they head to the ballot box.