I have a lot of things on my plate at the moment, which is making it difficult for me to set aside the time I need to do a Senate predictions piece. I’d like to do something more comprehensive than any kind of fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants analysis, but that isn’t something I can do quickly.
By way of a teaser, however, I have to warn you that I am growing increasingly pessimistic about Iowa and that the situation in Colorado has me very concerned. If we lose one or both of those two races, the entire picture on election day changes. If you’re looking for a good place to help out, these are the two most important races for control of the Senate right now. It’s probably too late for political contributions to make much of a difference, although go ahead and give if you have the spare change. The main thing you can do is either volunteer to make phone calls or contribute to groups who are doing voter mobilization efforts, and I don’t mean the DNC or DSCC.
If you’d rather play offense than defense, the states to focus on are Georgia and Kentucky, where victory is in sight but may prove elusive. Kansas and South Dakota also offer opportunities, although technically South Dakota is a defensive play (it just doesn’t feel that way).
The polls are incredibly tight in state after state and race after race, which makes predictions very difficult. The factors that might tilt races one way or the other are highly individualized. It matters a lot, for example, that the Colorado governor’s race is a dead heat while the incumbent Republican governor of Iowa is going to be reelected in a romp. That makes Bruce Braley’s job of over-performing the polls more difficult than Mark Udall’s. To do a thorough analysis of the Senate races, I need to look at these kind of state-by-state factors, and that’s time-intensive.
But, I’ll get to it.
