Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer said Thursday that he will retire at the end of this term.
— Blaine Luetkemeyer (@RepBlaine) January 4, 2024
Luetkemeyer represents the oddly-shaped, safely Republican 3rd congressional district. He was reelected to his eighth term in 2022 by a 30% margin.
This brings to 37 the number of current House members not seeking reelection this November. This includes two members who have announced they will be leaving before the end of the term.
Rep. John Curtis (UT-03) is joining an increasingly crowded field seeking the 2024 Republican nomination for U.S. Senator from Utah. Incumbent Mitt Romney is retiring from the safely Republican seat.
Other notables in the race include Utah House Speaker Brad Wilson, as well as Brent Hatch, son of the late Sen. Orrin Hatch. The elder Hatch held this same seat for 42 years before retiring in 2018. The Utah statewide primary (for offices other than president) is June 25.
Curtis is completing his 4th term in the U.S. House. As with all four of the state's congressional districts, it is safely Republican. Curtis was reelected with a 35% margin of victory in 2022.
The second day of the year brings the first election of 2024.
South Carolina State Senate District 19
Republicans hold a 30-14 partisan edge over Democrats in the South Carolina State Senate. There is one independent. Members serve four-year terms; the next regular elections are this November.
2024 begins with two vacancies in the U.S. House. One is in CA-20, where former Speaker Kevin McCarthy's resignation was effective as of December 31. The other vacancy is in NY-03; George Santos was expelled on December 1.
With these departures, the Republican majority has narrowed. When the House reconvenes next week, the party will hold 220 seats, with Democrats controlling 213.
Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert said Wednesday that she will seek reelection to Congress in Colorado's 4th congressional district, switching from District 3, where she is currently completing her second term.
The move allows her to avoid a prospective rematch against Adam Frisch, a well-funded Democrat who came within roughly 500 votes of defeating the incumbent in 2022. The race was the closest U.S. House race that year, despite the conservative lean of the district.
We wrote earlier this month about several Oklahoma legislative special elections as the final ones for 2023. It turns out things weren't quite finished, which brings us to Thursday's State House special election in Delaware.
Delaware State House District 37
Democrats hold a 26-14 partisan edge in the Delaware House of Representatives. There is one vacancy to be filled with this special election. Members serve two year terms; the next regular elections are in 2024.
While clearly not today's biggest news around the 2024 presidential election, we wanted to note two ratings changes from The Cook Political Report.
The forecaster moved Michigan and Nevada from Leans Democratic to Toss-up. These were the first updates since their initial ratings were released this past summer. Read the analysis ($)>
Oklahoma closes out the 2023 election calendar with a State Senate special general election and a State House special primary.
Polls close at 8:00 PM Eastern Time.
Oklahoma State Senate District 32
Houston is the nation's 4th largest city, with a population of approximately 2.3 million. Mayor Sylvester Turner was ineligible to run for a third four-year term.
A large field competed in the November 7 election to succeed Turner. As widely expected, State Sen. John Whitmire (42% of the vote) and U.S. Rep Sheila Jackson Lee (36%) finished well ahead of the field. Saturday's runoff is required as neither received a majority.
Both candidates are Democrats, although the election is officially nonpartisan.
Republican Kevin McCarthy (CA-20), who served as House Speaker for nine months before being ousted in October, will resign from Congress at the end of the year.
He made the announcement as part of an opinion piece posted to WSJ.com on Wednesday.
McCarthy is in his 9th term, currently representing California's 20th Congressional District. He was reelected by a 34% margin in 2022, the largest GOP margin in the state that year.
