Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Thursday warned Republicans hoping to unseat incumbent Democrats in the upcoming 2024 general election that their opponents hold the "advantage."
Former President Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, appears to hold an advantage over President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democrat candidate, in several swing states, according to recent polls; however, Republicans running against incumbent Democrat senators in those same battleground states, such as those running to unseat Sens. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., Bob Casey, D-Pa., and Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., lag behind their opponents in recent polls.
"I think incumbency, as we learned in '22, is an advantage. Not a single incumbent lost in '22," McConnell said during a press conference alongside National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair Steve Daines, R-Mont. "Sen. Daines and I have never said we thought this was going to be easy."
Republicans have "to beat an incumbent in Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and anywhere else we can, but we never said it was going to be a piece of cake," he added.
The Republican Senate leader's words echo those of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., responding to a recent New York Times/Siena College poll.
"All the four battlegrounds they tested, every one of our Democrats was ahead, and that's because our Democrats are great candidates," Schumer said. "Every week they are going implementing the great work we did in 2022, 2021, 2023."