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| Mayor Henry Hays (D-AR) |
Republicans have, by-and-large, seen a large amount of movement their direction in the past couple of weeks, both in the Senate, and to a lesser extent, the House. However, there have been a bizarre handful of races where they haven't been able to shut down the Democrats, and this is one of them. The race between White House aide French Hill (R) and North Little Rock Mayor Henry Hays (D) has been a bizarre conundrum in Arkansas. By all accounts Hill should be winning this race-this is a Republican-held seat, and Tom Cotton and Asa Hutchinson are both performing quite well statewide. However, it's worth noting that coattails aren't always super clear, and in this specific district, a high turnout by Pryor/Ross voters could help Hays. This is the most liberal district in the state, and if Pryor in particular is going to be remotely close statewide, he's going to have to win this district, meaning that Hays could benefit from his coattails (even if the senator ultimately falls short). I'm very reluctant, however, to predict a Democrat winning in Arkansas after the sharp right turn of the state in recent years, making this one of the oddest tossups on the map.
California-26
Two years ago, State Rep. Julia Brownley (D) seemed to have everything going for her-strong Hispanic turnout in a district that favored her, a seat that President Obama was sure to win, and an opponent that seemed way too conservative to win such a seat. And yet, after an underwhelming primary performance, she only won the seat by six points. This year, she only hit 45.5% in the primary (PS-they need to have something like Louisiana where if you hit 50% you just win the seat in California, in my humbled opinion), and has sort of proven herself to be a poor candidate. The Republicans have nominated State Rep. Jeff Gorell, and the national committees, while not as actively as in the 7th and 52nd, have definitely started to play here. The big question for me is how big is the drop in Hispanic turnout nationwide. If it's pretty significant, Brownley will be an unexpected casualty. If it stays fairly on-par, she'll probably have yet another middling victory.
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| State Rep. Mike Bost (R-IL) |
By all accounts, Rep. Bill Enyart (D) should be toast this cycle. Without Illinois' favorite son to help him, he won't have coattails, and in fact will probably be hurt by Gov. Pat Quinn's lackluster performance at the top of the ticket. However, he may have lucked out with a bombastic (seriously-google him) opponent in State Rep. Mike Bost (R). The man nicknamed Meltdown Mike has run an unusual campaign (his latest dust-up involves him joking about killing a dog), and this may cost him. On paper this district should go Republican (President Obama only won the district by 1.5%), but the district swing voters may decide they could do better in 2016 and vote for Enyart again.
Kansas Governor
If there is a race that national Democrats should be looking at that they probably aren't looking at enough, it's in Kansas. Never before have I thought that I would be waiting with baited breath over a race in the Sunflower State, and this year I'm completely stumped by two. It says something about Sam Brownback when you have received calls that you are "too conservative" for Kansas, and House Minority Leader Paul Davis has run a decent campaign, but this is entirely based on whether moderate Republicans hold their nose and vote Democratic. This wouldn't be the first time they did this (Dennis Moore made a career out of it), but it's been six years since they've been able to pull the coalition together-can the Kansas Democrats do it in two races in one night?
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| Greg Orman (I-KS) |
Perhaps the only Senate race where whomever is in the lead in a given poll is not really a surprise, but we're just looking at the margin, this is easily the biggest coin toss in the battle for the Senate, and not just because we don't know whom Greg Orman will side with (though, honestly, how does he not side with the Democrats at this point considering the Republicans have eviscerated him with the press?). Either way, this is clearly a case of do I hate a party or a politician more? Kansas is a Republican state, and there may be enough Republicans in the state that vote straight ticket to drag Sen. Pat Roberts over the finish line. However, Orman has a slight but present lead in the polls, and we could be in for one of the great shockers of the cycle. Win or lose, national Republicans should be fuming at Roberts for making what should have been a slam dunk one of the cycle's most fascinating nailbiters.
Maine Governor
This is, in my opinion, the hardest race of the cycle to call. On paper, it should be simple. Gov. Paul LePage (R) doesn't have the approval ratings that would warrant an incumbent winning reelection: clear and simple. If either just Eliot Cutler (I) or Rep. Mike Michaud (D) were only in this race, LePage's career would be finished. However, Cutler and Michaud are both running, splitting the progressive vote and potentially duplicating the disaster that befell them four years ago, when Cutler and Democrat Libby Mitchell got well over 50% of the vote, but split the vote enough to allow LePage to win. That year it was clearly Cutler whom the progressives should have rallied behind in the end (he came extremely close to beating LePage), this year polls illustrate that it should be Michaud. Will enough progressives in the state realize this, however?
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| Rep. Rick Nolan (D-MN) |
One of the less discussed aspects about political prognosticating is that it's much harder for armchair analysts like myself to take an objective look at their home states. We come in with too much knowledge about the actual voters and their personalities, and frequently overanalyze that when you should just look at the raw data like you would in any other race. That being said, the raw data in Minnesota's sprawling eighth is almost impossible to find a pattern in, and so we are left with one of the biggest tossups of the cycle. In 2010, the long-time solid blue eighth district delivered arguably the biggest upset of that midterm, with legendary Rep. Jim Oberstar being ousted after 18 terms in office. The seat returned to the Democrats in 2012, but newly-elected Rep. Rick Nolan, a largely forgotten former congressman from the 1970's, has not adapted to modern campaign tactics, and was slow to go after the swift negative campaigning of Republican Stewart Mills. On paper, this appears to favor Mills, as he's run the stronger campaign and has the national headwinds, but this district has an extremely long tradition of electing Democratic congressmen despite its marginal presidential results, and both Mark Dayton and Al Franken are likely to win the district, helping Nolan. Unlike a couple of other races, this is one of the few states where the Democrat is counting on coattails rather than the Republican. Minnesota-even in a relatively calm cycle, it continues to defy political convention.
North Carolina Senate
I was torn between the odd insurgency of Scott Brown and this race, but I'm going to go with Hagan's race because I still light a candle for Jeanne Shaheen every night and think she's got that (extremely close) race under wraps. Sen. Kay Hagan (D) and Speaker Thom Tillis (R) have run arguably the race of the cycle (give or take McConnell/Grimes in Kentucky) and the money here has proven it-by the end of the race, it's very likely that over $100 million will have been spent on which of these two individuals will hold the seat for the next six years (I still find it fascinating that these are probably the two most generic sets of candidates that I have ever seen run such a close race-months and months in, and there's still little actual personality in this race, just attack ads and seemingly unlimited amounts of money). Tillis has clearly gained ground in the past few weeks, and this race is a dead heat, but if there's a lead in a poll, it's almost always Hagan, which gives her the slightest of edges. The best question in the Tar Heel State is this-will the national mood, frequently stating that the Democrats have lost the Senate, hurt Hagan in turnout? The big push by Democrats in early voting has to be encouraging to Hagan, but this is a race that will likely be decided by a percentage point, and I cannot tell whether Tillis's momentum or Hagan's nominal lead is where I should place my bet.
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| Rep. Michael Grimm (R-NY) |
Any rational person would look at this race and assume Rep. Mike Grimm (R) was toast. Facing a 20-count indictment that he'll go to trial for after the election, and caught on camera stating that he'll throw a reporter off the roof, it's hard to imagine anyone wanting to actually vote for Grimm. However, geography plays a part here, and Grimm is from Staten Island (where the majority of the voters in this district also hale from), while his Democratic opponent Domenic Recchia is from Brooklyn. Additionally, Recchia is hampered by a Green Party opponent, as well as a blistering Daily Show video that showed Recchia has the intellectual heft of mayonnaise (seriously-check out that video and be thankful for the district you get to vote in...unless your congressman is Louie Gohmert, in which case you have all of our sympathies). This race could go down to the wire, but probably the easiest prediction to make is that neither of these men will be winning this seat in 2016.
Wisconsin Governor
Two years ago, I would have laughed in your face if you said that Wisconsin's gubernatorial race was going to be competitive. After getting shellacked during the recall election, I assumed that the Wisconsin Democrats would lick their wounds, nominate a random local office-holder, and then wait until 2018 to try and take back this seat. While I was right about the seemingly random candidate they nominated, I was completely wrong about the lack of a contest. Mary Burke has run one of the sharpest campaigns of the cycle, frequently scoring points on Walker on his jobs record, and this seat is basically a tie in the polls. Common sense in this environment would favor Walker, but Democrats have defied national trends before in the Midwest (see Mark Dayton's victory across the border in 2010 when the national mood favored the Republican). This could have major implications on the 2016 presidential race, which Scott Walker clearly was hoping to partake in, but won't be able to if he's just lost his seat.
Those are the ten races that have me stumped-how about you? Which races are you baffled by? Share in the comments!
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