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.
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.
Which is funny since Hickenlooper is really a Chamber of Commerce Republican. Does anyone know why he and Udall are doing really shitty in the polls? It seems that Udall hasn’t pointed out Gardner’s extremism.
I started taking a closer look at the polls yesterday and when I got to CO, it was the that had me scratching my head. Still not adding up for me; so, should probably do more research.
I’ve got relatives in Colorado. Colorado is Arizona with a pinch of Utah with a recent dash of California for icing.
They’re doing shitty because the Democrats have basically no message and until 4 weeks ago no advertising. The GOP candidate for governor literally said things like he wants Colorado to seize the national parks here from the feds and the Democrats did nothing with that. Meanwhile, the GOP candidates are running wall-to-wall anti-Obamacare ads and you’d have to be a political junkie to know that millions of Coloradoans now have health insurance because of ACA – because the incompetent Democratic politicians won’t tell you that.
The Dem strategy is to count on late deciders with scare ads about the GOP extreme positions against women and against people of color (read: Latinos). We went from absolutely zero Democratic ads countering a tidal wave of outside-funded pro-GOP ads to now the Dems have maybe a 65/35 advertising advantage.
It may work. The last 3 elections (2008, 2010, 2012) the Democrats outperformed the aggregate polls here by as much as 4.5 points based primarily on the large Latino population – which the racist wingnut politicians have successfully alienated as thoroughly as possible. However, the GOP has learned from those losses and although their candidates are as extreme as before they have done a good job hiding their real views.
Thanks for your “on the ground” observations. Hick’s and Udall’s strategy to spend their money later rather than sooner is a reasonable decision considering that name recognition isn’t a problem for them. It llows them to make their ad buys when they can lock in lower rates. OTOH, doesn’t appear that they built in some flexibility to respond early when their opponents made outrageous claims. And the “scare” ads they are now running sound as if they were put in the can months ago and are now sort of stale or are more current but contain a whiff of desperation.
The “scare” ads are very professionally done and well-researched and, yes, probably were created (or at least drafted) early in the year. This appears to have been the plan from day one.
The other topic that gets less news coverage but is a significant part of the advertising – probably 3rd behind health care/obamacare and women’s issues – is energy/environment. The pro-pollution industry is running a very, very slick campaign from astro-turf organizations designed to look pro-environment about energy policy which talks mostly about jobs and a bit about “safe” fracking (like the terms “clean diesel” or “clean coal” this is a marketing oxymoron). Part of the cleverness is that most of the ads don’t mention any candidates – but a second set of ads from different groups attack the Democrats for not supporting energy jobs. The giveaway is that the first set of ads are all on heavy circulation from August-October, clearly part of a coordinated campaign. The Dems have been weakly responding with anti-GOP ads on their pro-pollution positions.
However, one hopeful sign is that the NRA is running a huge ad blitz that may backfire. I think anyone with feet on the ground here knows that a) NRA members (and I was one decades ago before the extremist takeover of the leadership) and sympathizers are already basically pure wingnuts and are thus already fired up to vote pure GOP, and b) people who don’t sympathize with the NRA, who are interestingly still the majority, are turned off by their ads.
Yes, the NRA ads feature a token woman, a token Asian, and a token black, but the guy who gets the majority of the air time – and is on ALL of the web ads and snail mail material – is a skinhead with shooting glasses and a smirking grin. These ads explicitly support the GOP candidates by name – I wonder if they may actually generate votes the other way.
I think I speak for everyone when I say we very much appreciate your efforts, and are just glad you’re well enough to write at all. I’m certain it will be more than worth the wait.
A WaPo article, Whistleblowers say USAID’s IG Removed Critical Details from Public Reports, warrants reading in full. Deserves a diary and lively discussion as well. If such a discussion could be had that was limited to USAID, other US IG reports, and why the hell it’s Sen Coburn highlighting this IG report. The subject IG report has to be but the tip of the iceberg, and not just at USAID, but most federal agencies and extending back for over a decade (decades if we want to be totally honest).
Here’s why I’m worried about Iowa.
I’m always surprised when absentee ballots are counted as Republican or Democratic. Likewise with early voting results. In Illinois the absentee ballots are sealed and delivered to the precinct on Election Day, so how does anyone know what’s in them? And are the early votes tallied early?
FWIW CO has another personhood amendment on the ballot and AR and SD have minimum wage increases on theirs. Those should drive more Dem voters to the polls. But recent LV polls, if they’re close to being accurate, are putting AR and CO beyond reach.
FWIW CO has another personhood amendment on the ballot and AR and SD have minimum wage increases on theirs.
How much is Pryor letting people know that the minimum wage thing is going to be on the ballot? Is he making voters aware at all? If not, it shows he’d rather kiss Walmart’s ass then retain his seat.
it’s all about GOTV
plain and simple.
Not worried about Colorado. I simply do not believe the polling coming out of that race; it doesn’t add up, make sense, etc. The Republican winning Latinos, and not just winning, but by a sizeable margin? Bullshit.
About those early voters in Iowa: are the Republicans turning out new early voters? Or are the people who would vote on election day now voting early? Early voting numbers are meaningless without that sort of analysis.
Arkansas I now have as toss-up, whereas before I had Pryor winning it slightly. The rest remain the same, except I might be inclined to put GA as toss-up when before I had it lean R. Depends on how much they tamper with the new voter registrations.
IIRC, CO polls for some time have underestimated DEM results and overestimated GOP results. With that in mind, when I put my thumb on the scale for Udall, he still keeps coming up short. OTOH, my gut says the CO polls are crappier than ever.
I can’t comment authoritatively on the poll science – too busy these days to study them and I’m really sick of political news to be honest.
However, speculatively, who the hell answers a poll nowadays? When we get these calls we tell them to kiss off. I suspect that the people who tend to answer these polls are also the people who are more likely to answer a specific poll if they are upbeat about the race. Similar to the big poll bounce Romney got after the first debate – that bounce did not show up at all in those polls that surveyed the same people week after week for a year. This may be why the polls are showing Latinos for the GOP – there are a few pro-GOP Latinos but they are a small minority here and probably over-represented in the polls.
But, sadly, the fact that we are reduced to hoping the polls are wrong given the difference between the policy positions of the two parties shows how god awful pathetic the alleged Democratic message apparatus is. Hell, probably 45% of the people who have insurance because of Obamacare are probably voting GOP because they don’t know that a GOP governor could kill the health care exchange.
Joni Ernst (aka Van Halen’s “Jeanie’s Got A Gun”) is – IN MY MIND – completely “Off-The-Hook”. It’s ALL about GOTV (Get-Out-The-Vote). And while Senate races across the country are close – from what I’ve gleamed from my readings is that the Dems have been pouring a lot of time, energy and $$$ into the GOTV in those various states. The only poll that counts is on Election Day. Independents will not support the GOP as they have in the past — they are the “X” factor in the 2014 mid-terms!
Political Flyer Photo of Lynching Distributed in North Carolina
Fayetteville by “Concerned Citizens of Cumberland County”
Tag Line:
If Kay Hagan doesn’t win, the impeachment of Obama begins.
No one seems to know who Concerned Citizens of Cumberland County is.
No one seems to know who Concerned Citizens of Cumberland County is.
Sure!!!!!!!!! It’s obviously a KKK-type group. “Concerned Citizens of … ” used to be a fall back for Southern racists when being associated with the KKK become untenable. I imagine you knew that and were just reporting what the idiot newsfolk were saying.
Koncerned Kitizens of Kumberland, my thought exactly.
If you posit dirty politics, there are all sorts of scenarios.
It does have that reverse slam smell about it, doesn’t it?
That, ratf-cking, you name it. When is the last time the Democratic Party as we now know it tried to ratf-ck the GOP? It just doesn’t happen.
There are so many bad polls out there this year (it seems like the GOP is intentionally flooding the market with pollsters with zero track record and a ridiculously tight likely voter screen) that I think there will be a lot of surprises relative to what the polling averages are saying. There’s simply no way to discount just how shitty a polling firm is until it’s proven wrong.
That said, here’s my take on the race as of now: we’re starting with 53 Democrats, 1 solid independent (Bernie Sanders), 1 waffling independent (Angus King, who brays every now and then about how he might switch sides), and 44 Republicans. We then start with the races that are definitively safe for one side or the other:
Safe Republican
Alabama (Sessions (R) – incumbent)
Idaho (Risch (R) – incumbent)
Maine (Collins (R) – incumbent)
Mississippi (Cochran (R) – incumbent)
Montana (Daines (R) – replacing Walsh (D); R pickup)
Nebraska (Sasse (R) – replacing Johanns (R); R hold)
Oklahoma (Inhofe (R) – incumbent)
Oklahoma (Lankford (R) – replacing Coburn (R); R hold)
South Carolina (Graham (R) – incumbent)
South Carolina (Scott (R) – incumbent)
Tennessee (Alexander (R) – incumbent)
Texas (Cornyn (R) – incumbent)
West Virginia (Capito Moore (R) – replacing Rockefeller (D); R pickup)
Wyoming (Enzi (R) – incumbent)
Safe Democratic
Delaware (Coons (D) – incumbent)
Hawaii (Schatz (D) – incumbent)
Illinois (Durbin (D) – incumbent)
Massachusetts (Markey (D) – incumbent)
Michigan (Peters (D) – replacing Levin (D); D hold)
Minnesota (Franken (D) – incumbent)
New Jersey (Booker (D) – incumbent)
New Mexico (T. Udall (D) – incumbent)
Oregon (Merkley (D) – incumbent)
Rhode Island (Reed (D) – incumbent)
Virginia (Warner (D) – incumbent)
This means, no matter what else happens, you are guaranteed 43 Democratic senators, 2 independent senators (1 who will definitely caucus with Democrats no matter what), and 45 Republican senators (unless there is some really deep-hidden oppo research about to get dropped on either Capito Moore or Daines, they have effectively already won). What does that mean? It means we are already starting at what is nearly a tied score (45-44), with every single race being contested in what either a purple state or a red state. In short – clearly at a disadvantage.
So how do I think the 11 races that will decide the Senate pan out? This is what I think happens:
Alaska (Begich (D) – incumbent): I think that, contrary to all the polls, Begich wins this one in a squeaker thanks to his ground game (which Booman has already mentioned on the blog), as well as a scandal-ridden Sean Parnell being taken down by the fusion I/D ticket of Bill Walker and Byron Mallott – which will help provide some coattails for Begich / negative coattails for Dan Sullivan.
Score: 44D – 2I – 44R
Arkansas (Pryor (D) – incumbent): Mark Pryor won in a very tough year nationally for Democrats in 2002, and he was unopposed(!) in 2008. But Arkansas has become a deep shade of red over the course of the Obama administration, and I don’t think there’s enough residual Democratic love left over to get Pryor over the finish line. Tim Cotton is, at best, a Manchurian candidate for the Koch Brothers, but unless the story of his campaign writing $400k to a seemingly non-existent consulting firm turns into a story about him pocketing money directly, he’s going to win in the mid-single digits. Pryor will go down as the last federal Democrat to represent Arkansas for decades.
Score: 44D – 2I – 45R
Colorado (M. Udall (D) – incumbent): Cory Gardner is a nutjob, but it seems like Udall’s extremely laser focus on his support for a personhood amendment has backfired, and almost all public polling has shown Gardner in the lead. However, Colorado is notorious for underpolling Hispanics, and with this being the first VBM (vote by mail) election in the state, it’s even harder to poll than usual. Both of these factors work in the favor of Democrats, and I think Udall pulls it out – but by barely more than Michael Bennett scraped by Ken Buck in 2010. After John Walsh’s implosion in Montana and Bruce Braley’s campaign in Iowa, this has to be the worst-run campaign on the Democratic side in a competitive race this cycle.
Score: 45D – 2I – 45R
Georgia (Chambliss (R) – retiring; Nunn (D) v. Perdue (R)): While getting Michelle Nunn to run was a big get, I initially had very little faith she’s win unless one of the nutcases got out of the GOP primary – Karen Handel or Phil Broun. That didn’t happen, but Perdue was basically a Georgian version of Mitt Romney. While the Peach State went for Romney, it appears that Nunn is picking up enough white support to edge ahead in the polls. While Georgia has a runoff if no one clears 50% – and Democrats have never won a runoff here – I’m going to go with a bold pick and say that Nunn is going to win outright on Election Day, clearing the 50%+1 hurdle, but not by much. Perdue has continually shot himself in the foot over his outsourcing past, and there has been a huge voter registration drive that is capturing more of the minority vote in a state that will be a swing state at the presidential level far before Texas does (even though Texas demographics should favor us more). Nunn will likely be an absolute pain in the ass in the Senate initially, but with her state’s changing demographics, she could very well lead the charge back to relevance for Georgia Democrats.
Score: 46D – 2I – 45R
Iowa (Braley (D) – replacing Harkin (D)): Braley’s been even more incompetent than Udall, if only because Joni Ernst is quite a bit more open about how certifiable she is. Unfortunately, his ads left a lot of attack-ad material on the cutting floor, and his quip about a farmer from Iowa (Chuck Grassley) running the Judiciary Committee – in front of a bunch of lawyers at an out-of-state fundraiser – was stupendously idiotic. That said, Braley seems to have gotten back on track, the polls are coming back his way, and Ernst is beginning to self-destruct – she cancelled all her editorial board meetings for endorsements, likely because you can’t fly the freak flag in a closed room in front of relatively intelligent people for that long. There’s a bit of freaking out over the early voting numbers, but the Democratic side is turning out new voters; Republicans are just getting their voters to vote via absentee as opposed to show up on Election Day. It’s tighter than it should have been, but Braley wins this by low single digits.
Score: 47D – 2I – 45R
Kansas (Robert (R) – incumbent): Clearly Roberts had not run a real campaign in a long time. The fact he got less than 50% against a Teabagger who made fun of patients on social media speaks volumes – and basically sleepwalking afterward while Greg Orman quietly crept up in the polls – is a clear indication he expected to cruise. While the NRSC came and triaged his campaign and breathed life into it, he’s still basically running neck and neck with Orman. Unfortunately (for him), Roberts has the misfortune of sharing a ticket in a year when Kansas is primed to toss out a deeply unpopular Republican governor (Sam Brownback). Nobody loves Roberts – what was the last memorable thing he did in the Senate? – and bringing in Ted Cruz and other far right-wingers to shore up his base has firmed up his numbers, but it will remind Kansans why they’re fed up with far-right experimentation in their state. It’ll be close, but Orman wins by around the same margin that Paul Davis will beat Brownback – in the low/mid single digits. Pat Roberts will then retire to his true home state of Virginia.
Score: 47D – 3I – 45R
Kentucky (McConnell (R) – incumbent): Nobody likes Mitch McConnell. He’s paying people to show up at campaign rallies, and even after a 30-year career in the Senate, nobody there seems to like him either. But what he does have in spades is experience in getting elected despite being an unappealing, boring candidate that you probably wouldn’t piss on if he was on fire. Alison Grimes has done a great job in keeping it this close, and I hold out idealistically that she wins somehow. But realistically, electing Democrats on a federal level when you have to go outside of Louisville seems like too far a stretch. McConnell will win by slightly less than he beat Bruce Lunsford in 2008 (53-47).
Score: 47D – 3I – 46R
Louisiana (Landrieu (D) – incumbent): Mary Landrieu has had nothing if not tough elections. She barely won the runoff in 1996 (with 50.17% of the vote), and she barely scraped by in 2002 with just over 51%. She won the jungle primary outright in 2008 – but with only 52% of the vote. She’s facing a candidate bereft of any personality whatsoever (aside from being your ‘establishment’ conservative, which means you keep your crazy thoughts to yourself) in Bill Cassidy. This is definitely going to a runoff, and all polls have shown Landrieu losing by a small margin. That said – I will make a bold prediction and say that Landrieu wins this, perhaps by an even tighter margin than her inaugural election in 1996. She has done this before and has the ground game to win. Furthermore (spoiler alert!) – Democrats will have already secured the majority by December, demoralizing Republican turnout and firing up our side even more.
Score: 48D – 3I – 46R
New Hampshire (Shaheen (D) – incumbent): The polls have appeared to be tightening, but everything I have heard about Scott Brown in public is a joke. There’s no way that someone who literally represented Massachusetts in the Senate just 2 years ago gets to go back after blatantly moving over to run for the seat. Shaheen has been running a very solid campaign, and she wins the race by more than the polls are predicting – high single digits. Nobody likes a carpetbagger.
Score: 49D – 3I – 46R
North Carolina (Hagan (D) – incumbent): I marked Hagan to be a weak candidate from the onset; she won by a comfortable margin in 2008 because Liddy Dole self-destructed. That said, after Pat McCrory and Art Pope went about dismantling the state’s reputation for moderate policies and politics, I always felt her prospects were better than others thought. And when the GOP’s best candidate was Thom Tillis – the Speaker of the State House that passed odious policy after odious policy – I thought Hagan would always have a fighting shot. Impressive fundraising and good debate performances have left Hagan with small – but, more importantly, persistent – leads in just about every polling, outside of the really shitty firms. She won’t win by more than 5%, but I have nearly zero doubt that she’s going to earn a second term cleanly.
Score: 50D – 3I – 46R
South Dakota (Johnson (D) retiring; Weiland (D) and Pressler (I) v. Rounds (R)): Clearly the last late-breaking race in the battle for the Senate, Rounds was expected to cruise easily. The news around his handling of the EB-5 program in his state has blown up recently, though, and Democrats have to be kicking themselves for not doing enough oppo research ahead of time and investing ahead of time to pounce when opportunity arose. Frankly, I’m a bit pissed that Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin didn’t run; had she decided on it, she would be the clear favorite right now – even with Pressler in. As it is, Weiland is struggling to break 30% in the most recent polls (Which are a bit old now), while less flattering news comes out about Pressler (waffling on aborting, part of Fix The Debt, has a primary residence in DC) and Rounds continues to absorb body blows on EB-5. The other shoe likely won’t drop before the election, but the question is – is it enough to bring Rounds down and propel either Pressler or Weiland into the upper 30s (where the winner will likely fall)? I don’t think so. Pressler has zero money and ground game (his wife is his only staffer), and while Weiland is belatedly working hard to run up the vote count on SD reservations, I don’t think it will be enough. Rounds wins the race, but I don’t think he clears 40%. That said, with any kind of polling a bit stale (and Rounds absurdly claiming a 24-point lead in his internals), it’s hard to make a very informed decision on what is truly going on. This could be a very surprising race on Election Night, and if either Pressler or Weiland make it, Democrats should thank their lucky stars.
Score: 50D – 3I – 47R
What happens with the independents? They all caucus with the Democrats; including Orman. While Orman will be representing Kansas, he’s got to be able to read the tea leaves and know that 2016 will be extremely favorable to Democrats – especially in a presidential year – and sitting in the minority, even if it potentially helps him in Kansas, is pointless. That said, he will probably cast his vote for majority leader pointlessly in protest so he doesn’t have to ever say he voted for Harry Reid.
53-47 – not bad for a year that we figured was going to be an absolute bloodbath. And with an advantageous map in 2016, and potentially Hillary Clinton on top of the ticket, we can look to attack the 60-vote threshold for breaking every filibuster (if it still exists by then) once again.
The only one of those I can really predict is Louisiana.
I’ve lived here all my life (except for a 7 year stretch in DFW thx to Katrina, but I don’t got those year ;-). I can say that I’m as great at reading polls and prognosticating as some of you more seasoned people, but I think just anecdotally, that Mary Landrieu is a hard-core campaigner she knows how to get out into Louisiana into the areas where she needs to win big and get those people motivated.
I mean, Mary Landrieu not only attending an HBCU home game in Baton Rouge, she actually participated in a tailgating party before the game and I heard from people at the game, that she stayed at least 75% of the game and worked the people.
I think she’s def gonna pull this out.
We are mind to mind. Exactly how I’ve got things.
I’ll second seabe’s endorsement of your projections.
Would add that to get there, I also had to look at the gubernatorial elections. You correctly point out that Brownback and Roberts fall together and the fusion AK ticket pulls Begich over the finish line. Pryor is in the unfortunate position of running for re-election when the apparently resurrected Asa Hutchinson is slaughtering his opponent. Doesn’t help Braley that the IA GOP governor will be re-elected, but he’s not wildly popular and Harkin is.
While still a bit of a climb, Peters(MI) and Nunn might have some coattails in the gubernatorial elections. Schauer has begun to show some life against the odious Snyder and and Carter is now neck and neck with Deal.
Still ticks me off that the DSCC gave Lieberman’s old buddy Collins another pass. Bellows is a very good candidate that has had almost no funding. Bellows showed well in the first of her five debates with Collins.
We’ll have to wait and see if the late DSCC money in SD shakes things up. Weiland has worked really hard running an extremely low-budget retail campaign.
I can’t compete with the expert handicappers here, so the only prediction I can make is that Durbin will flatten Oberweis. They debated last night and ABC-TV reports that Oberweis said at one point that in a surprising turnaround he favors a federal gay marriage law! While I think he really meant to say another DOMA, this will gain him nothing from Progressives and will undoubtedly lose him votes from Teabaggers (there is a Libertarian on the ballot). He is roundly hated by Republicans and Democrats alike. He only made the ballot because his primary opponent melted down partly because of persistent rumors that he (Rutherford) is gay (a death sentence in the Illinois Republican Party).
Between a fairly competent but gay experienced politician and a fat cat neophyte, IL Republicans will take the fat cat blowhard every time.