Exchange Monitor 2024 U.S. election digest

Editor’s note: the election digest tracks lawmakers whose constituencies include Department of Energy nuclear sites or civilian nuclear reactors that are being decommissioned.

Most lawmakers with big nuclear constituencies look, as usual, safe to win reelection this November. However, a few are retiring and some are in tight races. The Exchange Monitor’s election digest is tracking them all.

Senate:

Among the expected Senate retirees were: 

• Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.). Butler was appointed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) to serve the remainder of the late Dianne Feinstein’s term. California includes the Energy Technology Engineering Center, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a satellite campus of the Sandia National Laboratories, the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant and the San Onofre Nuclear Generating System, among others.
• Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah). In September, Romney announced he’d leave the Senate because “[a]t the end of another term, I’d be in my mid-eighties. Frankly, it’s time for a new generation of leaders.” Utah has the Department of Energy’s Moab UMTRA site, plus EnergySolutions’ corporate headquarters and its commercially operated low-level waste disposal site. 
• Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.). Similar to Romney, Stabenow said that “[i]nspired by a new generation of leaders, I have decided to pass the torch in the U.S. Senate.” Michigan is home to the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station, which plant owner Holtec International is trying to restart with a $1.5 billion Department of Energy loan.

Outside of the expected departures, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) is in a tight race this year against Bernie Moreno (R). Brown led his challenger by about 5 percentage points, according to a RealClear Politics average of five polls conducted this year. The latest of these polls, by Remington Research, showed Brown with a 6% lead, comfortably above the poll’s 4% margin of error. Ohio includes DOE’s Portsmouth Site and the EM Consolidated Business Center, the office’s acquisitions hub.

A special case in the Senate this cycle is Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), who was convicted on July 16 of 16 charges including bribery, fraud, acting as a foreign agent, and obstruction. 

Menendez had pleaded not guilty and was considering still running as an Independent prior to the conviction and subsequent calls from fellow Democratic Senators to resign. New Jersey is home to Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating System and Holtec International, the company decommissioning that plant and many others outside of the state, including Palisades in Michigan. 

Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.), who is running for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Menendez, had a 7% lead against Republican real-estate developer Curtis Bashaw in a June poll by Kansas City, Mo.-based firm co/efficient. 

In an April poll by Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, N.J., Kim was up 9 percentage points against Bashaw and another Republican challenger, Mendham Borough Mayor Christine Serrano Glassner. That lead was well outside the older poll’s 4.3% margin of error.

House

Meanwhile, in the House, Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), whose district is near DOE’s Portsmouth Site, has said he will retire to spend more time with his children. Wenstrup’s district is predicted to be taken by political newcomer and businessman Dave Taylor (R) who runs his family’s ready mix concrete supplier.

Kim, running for Menendez’s Senate seat, is highly likely to leave the House. House members typically do not run for reelection if they seek other office and Kim is polling ahead in his race. Democrat Herb Conaway was the runaway winner of a June primary for the Democratic nomination in New Jersey District 3 that Kim now represents. The district includes Oyster Creek and Kim won its House seat by more than 10 points in the 2022 mid-term election.

Among the Representatives in tight races are Reps. Gabe Vasquez (D-N.M.) whose district includes the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) whose district includes the shuttered Indian Point Energy Center in Buchannan, N.Y., and Daniel Newhouse (R-Wash.) whose district includes the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site and who again faces tough competition in Washington’s upcoming Aug. 6 primary election. 

Polling was scarce for the New Mexico District 2, but Vasquez, up against former Rep. Stella Herrel (R-N.M.) in a rematch of their 2022 race, was behind by one point as of September 2023, according to a poll conducted by SurveyUSA for local television station KOB4. 

Incumbent Lawler of New York District 17 was, according to a poll last year that is among the the only public research about the race, in a virtual tie with Mondaire Jones, a former Democratic Congressman who entered this year’s contest after losing his seat following a 2022 redistricting in New York state.

Newhouse again faces his district’s unusual Aug. 6 primaries. From these open, or jungle, primaries, the two candidates with the highest percentage of votes, regardless of party, will advance. 

In the past, a Democratic candidate has been able to advance to the general election, but this year, Newhouse has competition from two Republicans in the race: Tiffany Smiley, who lost to Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) in the 2022 midterms, and Jerrod Sessler, a Navy veteran and former stock car racer who did not make it past the 2022 primaries and has received an endorsement from former President Donald Trump (R). 

Newhouse was one of 10 Republican Representatives who voted to impeach then-President Trump after a pro-Trump mob rioted on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, 2021. Most of those 10 lawmakers subsequently lost elections amid continuing support for Trump among Republican voters.

Safe

The rest of the Hill’s nuclear cohort appears likely to be reelected without trouble. The list of safe-seeming incumbents is: 

• Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.). Vermont includes the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station.
• Rep. Julia Brownley (D-Calif.). California District 26 includes the Energy Technology Engineering Center, portions of which were cleaned up by DOE’s Office of Environmental Management.
• Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II (D-Mo.). Missouri District 5 includes the Kansas City Plant.
• Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.). Kentucky District 1 includes DOE’s Paducah Site.
• Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.). Michigan District 6 includes the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station. 

• Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-N.M.). New Mexico District 3 includes Los Alamos National Laboratory.
• Rep. Charles Fleischmann (R-Tenn.). Tennessee District 3 includes the Oak Ridge Site, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Y-12 National Security Complex.
• Rep. Michael Flood (R-Neb.). Nebraska District 1 includes the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Generating Station.
• Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.). Nevada District 4 includes the Nevada National Security Site.
• Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas). Texas District 13 includes the Pantex Plant.
• Rep. William Keating (D-Mass.). Massachusetts District 9 includes the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station.
• Rep. Nicholas Langworthy (R-N.Y.). New York District 23 includes the West Valley Demonstration Project.
• Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.). California District 49 includes the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS). 
• Rep. Celeste Maloy (R-Utah), who squeezed out a primary win, but with such a close margin that her opponent can ask for a recount. Utah District 2 includes the Moab UMTRA. 
• Rep. Kevin Mullen (D-Calif.). California District 15 includes the Sandia National Laboratory’s California campus, located near the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
• Rep. Bradley Schneider (D-Ill.). Illinois District 10 includes Zion units 1 and 2.
• Rep. Michael Simpson (R-Idaho). Idaho District 2 contains the Idaho Site and the Idaho National Laboratory.
• Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.). New Mexico District 1 includes the Sandia National Laboratory.
• Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.). California District 14 includes the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
• Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.). New York District 20 includes the Separations Process Research Unit.
• Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.). South Carolina District 2 includes the Savannah River Site.

In addition to the list of seemingly safe Representatives are the Senators likely to retain their seats. These Senators include:

• Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.)
• Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.)
• Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.)
• Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas)
• Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.)
• Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.)
• Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.)
• Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.)
• Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.)
• Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)
• Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)