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I cast my early vote for Donald Trump and J.D. Vance Monday morning. Business was brisk at the Virginia polling station as it has been across the country. Virginia’s state elections are “off-year,” so the big early turnout here is really about the interest generated in the presidential race—bolstered by the Senate candidacy of Captain Hung Cao (USN, Ret.)
Republicans are running six veterans for Senate this year, and they all have a chance to win. Cao, who was a Special Operations Officer (Explosive Ordnance Disposal and Deep Sea Diving), is closing on Senator Tim Kaine in Virginia as Trump momentum picks up in the Commonwealth, assisted by the non-stop efforts of popular Governor Glenn Youngkin. If Senate seats were selected on the basis of merit and diversity, Cao would be a shoo-in.
Indiana Congressman Jim Banks is a Navy veteran who did reserve duty in Afghanistan for a year while serving in Indiana’s state senate. Banks has all but been declared the winner but he is running through the tape.
Captain Sam Brown was medically retired from the U.S. Military as a Captain after graduating from West Point and being deployed to Afghanistan where he was grievously injured by an IED. The Purple Heart recipient is behind incumbent Democrat Jackie Rosen but Trump’s appeal in the Silver State may help Brown pull off an enormous upset.
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In Montana, Tim Sheehy is solidly ahead in the polls, and will likely defeat incumbent John Tester early on election night. Sheehy, a United States Naval Academy graduate, completed several deployments and hundreds of missions as a Navy SEAL Officer and Team Leader, deploying to Iraq, Afghanistan, South America, and the Pacific region. Since leaving the Navy Sheehy started the very successful Bridger Aerospace and its sister company, Ascent Vision Technologies.
Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump and Dave McCormick, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate for Pennsylvania, shake hands during a campaign event in Reading, Pennsylvania, U.S. October 9, 2024. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon (REUTERS/Jeenah Moon)
Another service academy grad is David McCormick, who is a West Point alum and a former member of the 82nd Airborne Division. McCormick is in a statistical tie with incumbent Bob Casey, Jr. who’s fallen behind McCormick in some polls primarily because Casey is a down-the-line Biden supporter. Pennsylvania has been moving right for two decades even as Casey moved left.
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Virginia’s Cao is also a naturalized American, one of two Senate GOP candidates who were born in countries other than the U.S. and who came through the legal immigration process. The other is Ohio’s Bernie Moreno, who was born in Columbia and whose family emigrated first to Florida when he was a child. Moreno has climbed into a tie with forever politician Sherrod Brown who left Yale 50 years ago and promptly went into the Ohio legislature and has never not been on the government’s state or federal payroll since then. Brown is a hard left vote in the Senate, but for decades and decades the last name of Brown meant gold on Election Day in Ohio, but it is Moreno with the momentum and the sparkle in this race. Brown is old, looks tired and is out of step with the ruby red Buckeye State.
Republicans are also competitive with more traditional GOP candidates but in states that are usually lay-ups for Democrats.
In Maryland the popular former governor Larry Hogan is going to benefit even in deep blue Montgomery County because of his steadfast support of Israel.
Businessman Eric Hovde has Wisconsin incumbent Tammy Baldwin begging the national Democratic Party to send help. Kari Lake is gaining on Ruben Gallegos in Arizona as voters focus on the genuinely radical—not “liberal” or “left wing” but radical—Gallegos. Nella Domenici has a shot at taking back her late father’s place in the U.S. Senate from Mexico. And the upset of the year is likely to be in Michigan, where former FBI agent and Chair of the House Intelligence Committee Mike Rogers is the strongest candidate the Republicans have offered the Michigan electorate in decades. Rogers began his adult life with a four-year stint as a Lieutenant in the U.S. Army. He went right from the Army into the FBI and then Congress.
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The ground may be shifting nationally towards Trump as Vice President Harris’s panicked shift from a cloistered castle of a campaign to a cluster-up goat rodeo of interviews has sent her supporters back to the bench in droves. Could she turn it around in the last two weeks? Perhaps. But she’d have to do some impressive and difficult interviews to pull that off. It’s possible. Just not likely.
Hugh Hewitt is host of “The Hugh Hewitt Show,” heard weekday mornings 6am to 9am ET on the Salem Radio Network, and simulcast on Salem News Channel. Hugh wakes up America on over 400 affiliates nationwide, and on all the streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel’s news roundtable hosted by Bret Baier weekdays at 6pm ET. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996 where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and his column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his 40 years in broadcast, and this column previews the lead story that will drive his radio/ TV show today.
