I keep pointing this out, as Nate Cohn observes:
One of the big questions of this election cycle is whether it will turn out to be a “wave” election, like the one in 2010, when an upswell of anti-Democratic sentiment carried Democrats out of the House. One of the best measures of whether there’s a wave is the “generic ballot” question. Pollsters ask: Do you want Democrats or Republicans to control Congress?
Unfortunately, generic ballot polling has been sparse so far this cycle. Last week, however, there were three national polls, by Fox News, CNN and Pew Research, asking the generic ballot question. None showed an anti-Democrat wave, like the one that brought Republicans back to power in 2010. In fact, none of the three polls showed Republicans with a lead among registered voters at all.
Look, I’ll be honest and cop to the fact that I am optimistic by nature. You can always expect me to be upbeat until I have objective reason not to be. I told you every day during 2012 not to worry about a thing because Obama was going to crush Romney, and I kept hoping we could get over that last hump and lay waste to the GOP in that cycle. I still think we came very close to getting there, and the first debate created perhaps just enough drag to prevent it from happening. At the same time, I told you all throughout 2010 to stop sniping at the president because a wave was building that was going to wash us all out into the political wilderness. I was able to make these predictions largely by looking at polling data. It’s the same way I was able to have perhaps the most accurate midterm predictions in the country in 2006 (I missed by one seat, two months out).
You can look at GDP and the president’s popularity and the unemployment rate, but the most important early indicators are still polls. And the polls are simply refusing to show a Republican wave victory. It very much looks like more people are going to vote for Democrats in November than Republicans and that the country as a whole would prefer for the Democrats to gain seats, not lose them.
Of course, that happened in 2012, too, and the Democrats didn’t win back the House. I am not predicting a positive election for the Democrats. But I see no disaster on the horizon.
At this point all I care about is the Democrats holding the Senate.
Right now, it looks like losses in:
West Virginia
South Dakota
Montana
With a win in Georgia.
Arkansas is a toss-up.
Alaska is worrisome, and so are some other seats. But Kentucky is worrisome for the GOP.
As of today, it looks like +2 for the GOP with a good potential for more and a slight potential for a +1 election for the GOP.
In order to postulate a worse outcome you have to predict that the Dems will perform worse than the polls and lose some of the close races that they currently lead by narrow margins.
Could happen, but there’s nothing there to predict it will.
Do you have a hunch about how KY Senate will break?
A hunch?
Yeah. Grimes wins.
Tell me how she is less attractive as a candidate than the Turtle? Kentucky fucking HATES McConnell, too.
Still too far out to make such predictions, imo. Still, McConnell is definitely more vulnerable than Pryor.
Nothing has changed much since my last comments on this topic. I still say McConnell ekes out a victory, but that’s from this far out. Ask again in September/October.
and candidates matter in close races. Much will depend on how skilled Grimes is – something that isn’t knowable yet.
I’ll take the other side on Georgia. Rothenberg, Sabato and Kos all have it staying R, and it’s a +6 R PVI state.
If McConnell loses it would be as big, if not bigger, a shock as when Tom Foley lost.
Not true.
No one predicted that Foley would lose. Most recent poll out of Kentucky has Grimes up by three.
Has there been any polls of South Dakota?
Not that you want to look at.
Interesting that for all Rounds’ popularity he’s kept below 50% because of 3rd party type challengers. And Weiland is at 30% with out any money from the national organizations.
Thank you for the analysis.
I don’t know what this sentence means: As of today, it looks like +2 for the GOP with a good potential for more and a slight potential for a +1 election for the GOP.
It means that it looks like if the election were held today that the Republicans lose Georgia, but pick up seats in WV, SD, and MT. That would net them two seats. If they win Arkansas, that would net them three. They need six. There are a number of other close races, but the incumbents (or the incumbent’s party) are currently leading them all, at least in aggregate of recent polling. Grimes was up three in a recent poll out of Kentucky.
Thank you.
can be made that there is an anti-incumbent wave in the offing. There are a ton of incumbent Govs in trouble – some Republican and some Democratic. There are large number of Dem senators in trouble.
The terrain in the Senate isn’t very favorable. We are defending seats that benefited from the 2008 turnout, so this was always going to be tough.
If I am right about an anti-incumbent trend in the offing, then the question, it is the central one in congressional elections, is whether unpopular incumbents can win by making their opponent the issue. In the past it hasn’t worked – see the 2006 Senate races. The template for this campaign is the 2010 Nevada Senate race, but there are other examples. Look, like Reid in 2010, some of the incumbents’ numbers are terrible – with approval ratings below 45 and even below 40. They should be dead meat. Yet if I look at some of the races – Fl Gov for example where Scott has clearly drawn blood against Crist, I see signs that the incumbents have found a strategy that might work.
If I am right there is irony. The same strategy that might save Scott in Florida may save the Dem seats in NC and Ark.
I think Pryor will pull it out. His opponents vote against the farm Bill is being hung around his neck.
I goggle at the stupidity of a farm state politician voting against a farm bill in an agricultural state. It’s like voting against automobiles in Michigan. Or fishing in Maine.
I don’t know where you are getting your numbers. Below are the current averages from Real Clear Politics. (I used Huffpost pollster last time, but I know you prefer RCP, so I’m mixing it up.) If the election were held today, and the polls were correct, it would be R+6, not R+2/3.
I agree with your general point–there is no evidence for a Republican wave. But with so many seats in Red territory, the republicans can pick up quite a few seats even without a wave.
Also, remember that both LA and Georgia go to run-offs if no candidate gets 50%. This is a clear disadvantage for Nunn in GA. I don’t know what the consequences might be in LA.
Of course, it gives me no joy to point any of this out. I want us to win! We might pull it out, but the current polls only give us about a 50% shot of holding the Senate.
New Hampshire Shaheen (D) +10.4
Michigan Peters (D) +4.4
Alaska Begich (D) +3 (vs. Sullivan)
North Carolina Hagan (D) +1.8
Colorado Udall (D) +1.5
Iowa Ernst (R) +0.8
Louisiana Cassidy (R) +1.0
Kentucky McConnell (R) +2.5
Georgia Perdue (R) +3.2
Arkansas Cotton (R) +4.0
West Virginia Capito (R) +9.3
Montana Daines (R) +13.7
South Dakota Rounds (R) +14.5
My main concern, other than the Senate, is how we fare in the states. Here in Ohio, I fear that there is just not going to be enough turnout to get rid of Kasich and most of the other GOP office holders at the state level. If Kasich is re-elected, I look for him to kill all vestiges of employee rights in the state. He will be all-in to kill the public sector. It is going to be ugly here.
If Kasich wins, I expect that the GOP will have its 2016 man. Put Martinez (who is poised to win easily in November) at the bottom of the ticket and November 2016 will be 1988 deja vu.
Right now, Kasich is not tremendously popular with the Tea Party here in the state. But if he is re-elected, I expect him to take a very sharp rightward turn, even more severe than what he attempted in 2008. And I think the TP folk will find him quite amenable to their platform. He’s a smart guy. And I think he has the ability to bring the disparate groups together and mend some of the fractures in the GOP, at least long enough to get them through the Presidential cycle. He would stand out from the gang of crazies who will be vying for the drivers seat in the GOP clown car.
If the Republicans were to win, it would be a sad statement on how stupid the American electorate has become.
Yes, and we saw that stupidity in action in 2004 — an election from which I have yet to recover.
Honestly, what’s going to make the difference this fall is turnout. Whoever can get their voters to the polls has the edge.
Remember, remember to vote in November! 11-4-14
Will interest in legislatures in certain key states drive Congressional elections this year? Wisconsin, Michigan, Florida, North Carolina, and even New York have legislative hi-jinks as issues.
A second disruptor. How will the court cases extending marriage equality further into red state territory sort out? The 4th Circuit’s decision is as huge as the Charlotte school desegregation decision on busing. And it affects the territory of Bob Jones University, Liberty University, and Regent University–to name the most prominent, wealthiest, and most media savvy religious proponents of conservative politics. The politician/preacher/entrepreneurs who run those schools are not likely to go quietly.
Same for the decision regarding Utah. How will the Mormon Church react politically?
The mythology of wave elections is that of fundamental transformations in American politics. IMO, 2008 for good or ill was that wave election that did something relative to the previous wave election of 1980, which undid the wave election of 1964, which in turn reversed 1946, which partially undid 1932.
What 2010 was is what’s on the agenda this year. And that’s why this year is not likely to be a wave election as much as I would like for the elephant to be dropped.
But Democrats need to start scoring the entire picture and not just the nation’s capital. That sort of centralism has been a trap. Statewide offices, such as Secretaries of State matter, as Democrats have found out when there is a corrupt partisan GOP one. Legislatures matter, as Democrats have found out in the ALEC-run legislatures intent on a legislative railroad.
If Scott Walker, Rick Scott, Rick Snyder, Nathan Deal, Sam Brownback all go–is that a wave or not?
If Democrats gain control of Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, Florida–is that a wave or not?
IMO it doesn’t matter because those votes likely will have impact on the Congressional and US Senate lines on the ballot. This doesn’t seem like a highly ticket-splitting election no matter how much the non-affliliated voters want it to be.
Me neither.
I confidently predict that the PermaGov will remain in power.
Bet on it.
AG
Factor in voter suppression on the election day when it cannot be remedied, creative election law interpretations and voter tabulation fraud in GOP governor states. The GOP may be trying to squash the Mississippi senatorial conflict simply to have the hi-jinx card ready to play in the election.