State of the Race: The Senate

It’s been a few months since we last checked in on the 2014 Midterms, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to see where everything is.  First off, let’s look at the Senate.

The Lost Causes

Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD)

To begin with, it’s important to note that the Senate is currently 55-45, with the Republicans needing to win six Senate seats in order to take back the body.  This is also, for the record, why you should always vote-a few thousand votes in Nevada in 2012 or Minnesota in 2008, and this race gets a lot more complicated.

This is because six seats is right at the sweet spot between “just out of reach” and “very much in play.”  It’s pretty difficult to see the Republicans picking up seven seats, for example, and it’s relatively easy to see them picking up five.  Six, on the other hand, is hard to say, because without a crystal ball into the future to know if certain candidates sink, we don’t know what will happen with tried-and-true incumbents.

What we do know with relative certainty is that the Democrats have already lost three of their seats.  Sens. Tim Johnson (SD), Jay Rockefeller (WV), and Max Baucus (MT) all three retired, and none of the Democrats recruits in these deeply red states seem to be getting anywhere.  Yes, there’s a chance that John Walsh, the Democratic candidate in Montana, could be an incumbent once Max Baucus becomes Ambassador to China, but he hasn’t run a campaign so far that indicates he can take advantage of a closing gap in the polls.  Barring some miracle, consider all three of these seats to be lost causes.

The Wall

Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC)

North Carolina, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Alaska.  We’ve known for months that these were the four seats to watch in this election.  And you see now what I meant about the every vote counts.  Say the Democrats had defeated Dean Heller in 2012-the Republicans would either need to expand the map or pick up all four of these seats.  This would be a tall task, as Democrats are notoriously good at holding incumbents.  The last time the Republicans defeated four or more incumbent Democrats in one cycle was 1980.  For comparisons sake, the Democrats have pulled off that feat four times since then (1986, 2000, 2006, and 2008).

But with only three pickups needed, the math gets considerably easier.  I have frequently said that three women will hold the key to the Democrats maintaining the majority here, and I stand by it: Kay Hagan and Mary Landrieu are both incumbents running in red states with very high African-American populations, and if both lose, it’s almost impossible to see the Democrats maintaining the Senate (conversely, if both win, it’s impossible to picture the Republicans winning).  The dynamics of both races remain relatively the same-Hagan has less experience in running elections (she’s only won once statewide), but her state is far closer to the middle than Landrieu’s and her opponent has more baggage (he comes from the unpopular state legislature).  Landrieu may have the more conservative state, but she’s also won statewide in the Bayou four times, and is one of the most battle-tested members of the Senate.  Though neither woman is in a particularly great position right now, neither are in dire straits-if you’re looking to give money to a specific campaign, these would be the two.

Mark Begich continues to have the biggest question mark of the cycle, at least amongst the “Wall” senators, since we have no idea who his opponent will be.  With Lt. Governor Mead Treadwell and former State Attorney General Dan Sullivan both running, the establishment is splitting their vote and this could lead the way for Tea Party challenger Joe Miller, who is wildly unpopular in the state, to take the nomination.  While there are few absolutes this early in an election, it’s extremely difficult to see Miller picking up the seat if he wins the primary, so Democrats are clearly hoping that he makes it to the general, as that is the surest way to get Begich a second term.  However, Alaskan voters are a lot more independent than most red state voters, though in the sense that they frequently support third party candidates rather than a two-party system.  This means that there’s room for Begich, who doesn’t have terrible approval ratings in the state, to win this election regardless of his opponent.  I’d also like to point out that his fellow senator seems to get along rather well with him, and will almost certainly support him (at least privately) over Miller if he wins the Republican nomination.

Finally, there’s Mark Pryor.  Pryor is in a tenuous position, with the Democrats crunching numbers and no matter how much they raise, knowing that they have a finite amount of resources.  While his race is close enough today to keep pouring money into, if he can’t start bridging the gap a bit, this may end up being a lost cause.  Pryor has won statewide three times, so he knows the state well, and I suspect we’re going to see the Clintons go full force in the state to help Pryor, as well as the gubernatorial and House races (Hillary will want to prove that she can expand the map from 2012 to impress donors, and Arkansas is probably her best bet at doing just that).  However, he’s going to need to find some wedge issues that work, as President Obama’s popularity is an overwhelming factor here, and not in a good way.  Never count out an incumbent, but Pryor is easily the most vulnerable.

The “On-Alerts”

Rep. Bruce Braley (D-IA)

The next round of seats I would say roughly include Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, and New Hampshire.  Right now, all of these races lean toward the Democrats, at least on-paper, though polls show them in varying levels of closeness.  Colorado and New Hampshire have first-term incumbents running (Mark Udall and Jeanne Shaheen, respectively), while the open seats in Iowa and Michigan are currently held by the Democrats but are open due to retirement, allowing two ambitious House members to try for a promotion (Bruce Braley and Gary Peters, respectively).

These races are all four on paper better for the Democrats, not only because the Republican recruits aren’t quite as strong (though Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land of Michigan is certainly doing quite well, all things considered), but because they are all states that President Obama won.  Twice.  The Democrats hold seven of the eight Senate seats in these states, and half of the governor’s mansions (and are making strong plays in the other two states).  There are clear blueprints for all four candidates to win from, and in particular Colorado hasn’t had a Republican successfully win a federal race since 2004.

If the national environment is toxic, however, these are the four states to start looking into, since all of the Wall will have disappeared.  While the Wall losing will basically guarantee Mitch McConnell the majority, that doesn’t mean that these seats aren’t vital.  The Senate isn’t won or lost just in one cycle (I mean, it technically is, but not completely).  The 2016 elections, for example, are a smorgasbord of potential pickups for the Democrats; seven GOP senators up in 2016 are running in states that Barack Obama won twice.  If the Republicans win a 51-49 majority, it’s very difficult to see them holding onto enough seats to keep that majority heading into 2017.  However, if they can win some of these On-Alert seats, that will position them strongly heading into the 2016 elections.  On the inverse, if the Democrats can hold even a 50-50 or 51-49 majority coming out of November, they will likely have the Senate for the next decade thanks to plum opportunities in 2016.

The Rebels

Michelle Nunn (D-GA)

While there’s little-to-no good news to report for the Democrats in 2014 at this juncture (at least in the Senate), if there’s something worth noting, it’s here.  As I mentioned, the Republicans need to pickup three of the four Wall seats in order to win the majority, a doable but hardly easy task.  However, that’s assuming they hold all of their seats.  Earlier I said that there are three women that could control the majority of the Senate come November-I feel that Michelle Nunn, the Democratic candidate in Georgia, could be the third candidate.

Nunn performs well in almost every poll that I’ve seen, and the Republicans (amongst which are three Republican House members-Jack Kingston, Paul Broun, and Phil Gingrey) have ran underwhelming and divisive campaigns.  Georgia is not an Obama state, but it’s definitely a state he did fine in both times (the margin was less than ten in each race), and this is a state that many Democrats see as trending toward them in 2016 or 2020.  I would imagine that the Clintons in particular are going to be helping in this race in hopes of getting a game plan on how to win the seat, and Michelle Nunn seems like a very capable candidate with solid name recognition.  I wouldn’t say she’s the frontrunner or she’s even running even, but the GOP ignores this race at their peril.

No one is ignoring the Kentucky Senate race, where the Democrats landed top recruit Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes to take on the Republican Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell.  McConnell is going to be near impossible to beat, as he has taken down his share of tough challengers and is brutally effective at negative campaigning, but his approval ratings are in the toilet and the Democrats in the country loathe him.  It’s become a bit quid pro quo for the leaders to go after each other (ever since Tom Daschle’s surprise loss in 2004), and you have to bet that Harry Reid will be supporting Grimes strongly.  After all, what better way to cement your majority then by taking out your opposition’s leader  (and also, can you imagine the free-for-all that the Republicans will go through to replace McConnell)?  It’s not likely, but it’s more likely, in my opinion, than something like Mark Warner losing in Virginia, so I’ll at least mention it.

That’s our check-in for right now.  We’ll hit the House, governor’s races, and White House in the next few days, but what are your thoughts?  Where do you see these races going?