The Cleveland Plains Dealer posted this article today claiming the Democrats are improving their chances of retaining control of the Senate. I don’t know diddly about any of this so I’ll let the article speak for itself:
In the past few days, a number of the major election forecasting models have lurched back toward the Democrats.
According to Christian Science Monitor, the New York Times Upshot model now judges the race for the Senate to be a tossup, with a 51 percent chance Republicans will win a majority, and a 49 percent chance for Democrats. […]
The Christian Science Monitor reported missteps haven’t caused Republican chances of winning the Senate to decline from 65+ percent plus to a toss-up, but a change in the models themselves: As the election nears, they begin to place more emphasis on poll results in individual races, as opposed to underlying political fundamentals.
The author of the piece, Ray Jablonski, identifies the Senate races in Colorado, Iowa and Kansas as being three key states for Democrats. I have no idea why he thinks that those three in particular are critical, though I certainly agree it would be important to win all three (yeah, I am Mr. Obvious), so my questions for you are as follows:
Which state races do you feel the Dems must win to keep control of the Senate?
Which Senate races not mentioned above do you feel the Democrats are at risk of losing, and why?
Finally, a personal story: my son, reasonably up to speed on politics because, well I talk to him all the time, surprised me yesterday, when he told me he didn’t think mid-terms were that big a deal. I had to go to great lengths to explain to him the significance of losing the Senate. He gave me the impression that most of his friends share a similar mindset, though he promised to let me drag him to the polls in November. I know this is anecdotal, but it bothered me that even someone who is committed to voting for Democrats and supports a progressive agenda, would express such sentiments about the upcoming election.
So:
How concerned are you about turnout in a non-presidential year election among young people and other groups which generally support Democratic candidates?
