The stories keep coming…..
Here’s a question to ponder: Who would you rather be right now — Republican Josh Hawley in Missouri’s Senate race or Democrat Phil Bredesen in Tennessee? If your answer is Bredesen (who has a slight lead in the polls) over Hawley (who’s essentially tied as Missouri looks to impeach the state’s GOP governor), then it’s not all that hard to see how Democrats could gain the net of two seats they need to win the Senate in November.
Here’s our latest Top 10 Senate takeover list ranked in order of most likely to flip parties (the number in parentheses is the rank from our last list in March):
- Nevada – R (1)
- Arizona – R (3)
- North Dakota – D (2)
- Tennessee – R (9)
- Missouri – D (4)
- Indiana – D (6)
- West Virginia – D (5)
- Florida – D (8)
- Wisconsin – D (7)
- Montana – D (unranked in March)
So if the first two Senate races on our list flip parties (Nevada and Arizona) and nothing else does, then Democrats net their two-seat pickup. Ditto if just the first four seats (Nevada, Arizona, North Dakota, Tennessee) switch hands.
The problem for Democrats is if Republicans can win in Missouri, Indiana and West Virginia, which would then ensure the GOP keeping control of the Senate….
Possible,but the Democrats are literally going to have to draw an inside straight to pull it off.
Actually ,retaining the current numerical lineup would be a victory with a map very favorable to the Republicans.
An inside straight often happens in politics. So for example if Trump’s favorability changes by 5 points either way, it will likely move all Senate races in the same direction.
Yeah the competitive Senate races often almost all fall in the same direction in a certain cycle.
Republicans won just about all of them in 2014 and 2010 and Democrats in 2006.
In 2006 Bob Corker winning Tennessee was about the only race Dems targeted for takeover that didn’t flip. And it was a much taller order than flipping PA, OH or MO
The chances of Schumer becoming Majority Leader are less than 50%
But right now
The chances are better than they where 6 months ago
The map is favourable to the Republicans because the Democrats couldn’t ride Obama’s re-election victory in 2012 (though Obama lost Indiana and N. Carolina from 2008), and the GOP regained control of the Senate after losing it in 2006.
I honestly don’t remember the details, so I don’t know how much was Obama-Biden’12’s inability or unwillingness to help down-ballot (cf. Clinton-Kaine’s sucking resources from the down ballot in 2016), and how much was a failure of the DSCC and DNC.
Republicans did not take control of the Senate until 2014.
Republicans were severely disappointed by the 2012 Senate elections, after blowing Indiana and Missouri especially, and seeing Heitkamp run a near perfect campaign to win in ND.
In Montana, Tester only won because the Libertarian played spoiler, and Manchin hung on in WV against a somewhat weak opponent.
so in other words, Democrats won just about everything they could have hoped for in 2012.
and that is why the map is so favorable to Republicans in 2018, because the Democrats won in all those states six years earlier, and now have to defend them.
Democrats *gained* two net seats in 2012.
Looking down the list, the only reasonably competitive seats the GOP won were Arizona and Nevada (and Nebraska which was solidly Republican by then.)
It was a very bad cycle for Republicans. Romney ran ahead of the Senate candidates in most states, unlike 2016 when most Republican Senate candidates ran ahead of Trump.
And I know I am filibustering here, but this leads to perhaps the most important factor of 2018.
Turnout. We have seen in recent cycles that Democrat turnout in midterms is pretty bad, especially compared to turnout in Presidential cycles.
Is that a function of the party in the White House just being completely outmotivated by opponents, or are key components of the Democrat base just uninterested in midterm elections and still find it tough to come out in 2018?
We know that Democrat turnout in the Texas primary this year was said to be below what was expected, while Democrats easily outvoted Republicans in the Illinois primary, which likely has a lot more to do with the makeup of the state.
Find more people to take part here!
It’s hard for me to have to be stuck talking to myself and figuring out how I can outclever myself…
He, he, he…..
Out clever yourself?
I SHOUT OUT TO ALL WHO COME HERE INVITE YOUR FRIENDS, YOUR POLITICAL ENEMIES TO COME SEE CG OUT CLEVER HIM SELF EVERYDAY!
The appeal also goes out those who have left this place ….
Hey CG?
You can’t russle up RepubiCAN and NYCmike for retuen appearances?
Nobody has a lead on Ill Brandon?
All I know is that NYCMike did not like the registration concept. He might lurk here though.
He’d have no problem now….
Of course turnout is always the big imponderable.
All indications are the Democratic turnout will be above normal.
Really though,who can say?
There’s simply no way to know until Election Day.
Sometimes early voting gives some indication but that is inexact in the extreme.
I agree on Democratic turnout concerns…
The push will be to get people out and actually voting
Speaking of Mr Lincoln’s state,
Anyone ever hear from or about Evan (¿)Falchuk, Kyle Rice’s co-conspirator across the aisle at Politics1 ?
Thanks very much for the correction; of course you guys are right.
In fact, if you look at the particular Senate Class, 2012 was building on two previous successful Democratic elections: 2006 (when the Democrats took back the Senate) and 2000, which differed from 2012 and 2016 in the little-noticed fact that the Democratic Senate campaign kept pace with, and perhaps outpaced, Al Gore’s campaign for President. The Democrats won back six seats from the setback of 1994 (when they’d lost their majority) to achieve an exact parity of 50-50 with the Senate Republican caucus (or Conference, a tie only broken by the Vice-Presidential vote (Al Gore for two weeks and then Dick Cheney), and later by Jim Jeffords (R-Vt) crossing the aisle to shift the balance to 51 D/Ind.-49 R.
I can’t remember the details of 1988, 1982, 1976 or 1970 (except that if my memory serves correctly, the Democrats did well in 1970, Nixon’s first mid-term). But the cycles before them are also interesting:
1964 — the LBJ landslide, when Democrats kept over 60 seats, enabling them to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Fair Housing Act of 1966, Medicare and several other Great Society programmes.
1958 — a legendary Democratic tide, swinging back from the Eisenhower-Nixon tide of 1952. The 1958 sweep was slowed only by a few Republican victories such as Nelson Rockefeller’s defeat of incumbent New York Gov. Averell Harriman (D) and Christopher Del Sesto’s defeat of Rhode Island Gov. Dennis J. Roberts (D).
1952 — the Eisenhower-Nixon landslide over Stevenson and Sparkman, when the GOP regained control of both Houses of Congress, and put Joe Martin (R-Mass.) back in the Speaker’s chair, but only for two years until losing control again in 1954.
1946 — the legendary “Do-Nothing” 80th Congress, when the GOP also gained a two-year lease on both Houses, and Joe Martin first enjoyed becoming Speaker.
Just FYI…..
David Byler
@@databyler
New Missouri Senate poll has McCaskill up 4 http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/poll-shows-slight-mccaskill-lead-over-hawley-greitens-tanking/article_487c9021-abe2-57c5-9320-e47a32014f7e.html …
Candidates who have had
* an average lead of 2 to 4 points
* 174 days before the election
have won their race about 58-59% of the time
Given all the shortcuts taken w/this sort of math –> still a toss-up imo
…from US Senate GOP Majority leader himself….
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told the Washington Post that control of the Senate is “absolutely” in play in the midterm elections, identifying the nine battleground states he believes will decide the outcome in November.
Said McConnell: “I always think it’s better to be candid and not try to spin people into thinking this isn’t going to be a challenging election. I think the safest place to be is just to say that this is going to be a very challenging election, and I don’t think we know in May … whether it’s Category 3, 4 or 5.”
The nine battlegrounds: Arizona, Nevada, Tennessee, Montana, North Dakota, Missouri, Indiana, West Virginia and Florida…..
Politicalwire…
It’s a very realistic possibility that after Election Day, we are discussing that the Democrats won a majority in the House and lost ground in the Senate.
That would be an incredibly mixed result.
One thing is for certain though, considering historic midterm trends, that if the Democrats do not *win* the House at this point, it’s a complete failure for them.
Not complete…
But yea…
The media would be spanking them ……
You don’t want the Democrats to win the House Majority ,Do you?
The Dog will say what he always says after every election, good or bad, for the Democrats that he is “happy” with the result, and if they got spanked, he is glad they got spanked (after he will be predicting for months they will do the spanking.)
In this particular case though, if a Democrat believed that 2020 and only the 2020 Presidential race mattered most, they would actually want the Democrats to fall a bit short of taking over Congress, so that everything could continue to just be blamed on Trump and the Republicans headed into the Presidential election.
My view that i was ‘happy’ with the Democrat loses was based on the view that in losing they would try to work harder for their salvation….
They have….
Losing is NEVER pleasant ….
Since the time that their losing made you happy (2014), they only had an even worse loss.
Over at HHR, NYC is saying that Democrat scandals may be coming home to roost and that 58 Republican seats in the Senate might be in reach.
People have so much in common, when they don’t even realize it..
He said THAT???
Damn!
That sounds like something SE would have said….
Yea…
He needs to keep hanging out over there….
He would surely get a beatdown for typing THAT here….
No, it sounds like something the Democrats here would say about their chances (with the exception of jack who tends to be more circumspect).
NYC also does not know why “beaner” is a racially offensive term, which reminds me of the time that Zreebs said he did not know that “Oriental” is now considered offensive.
I went to an interactive Senate map and 57 is as high as I can get for Republicans and it would take a lot going right.
(this means they will probably have 54-55 seats)
2020 it gets REALLY worst for Senate GOPer’s…
Schumer WILL get the Majority job no matter what by Jan 2021….