And yet, this appears to be finished. There are just too many options for the Republicans to pick up the Senate. They currently lead in every tossup state except North Carolina, and Kay Hagan needs that election to happen immediately (her spot at the top has decreased continually for the past few weeks and she might not be able to make it another three weeks). The question, therefore, is what went wrong? What could the Democrats have done differently to make this seem less inevitable? After all, most pundits have admitted that people like Mark Begich and Mary Landrieu are running the better campaigns-what specific factors contributed to this loss? Here are five things that I think the Democrats could have done to make three weeks from now look less daunting.
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| Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) |
It's without a doubt this year that the retirements of Democratic Sens. Max Baucus (MT), Carl Levin (MI), Tim Johnson (SD), Tom Harkin (IA), and Jay Rockefeller (WV) hurt the Democrats in impossibly large ways. It's likely that Harkin and Levin would have rolled to the finish line without the Democrats having to spend much cash at all (this takes Iowa off the list of the possible pickups). I also feel like Max Baucus, considering the strength that Jon Tester brought to last year's election, may have deterred Steve Daines from running and he'd have had to take on a member of the legislature (let us never forget, it was likely Gov. Brian Schweitzer's insistence that he'd run a primary against Baucus that caused him to retire, and then Schweitzer didn't even run for the seat leaving us with an easy loss). Tim Johnson at the outset looked like he might have been a goner, but considering the terrible campaign that Gov. Mike Rounds is running in the Mount Rushmore State I am inclined to think that Johnson would have won. Rockefeller would have been in roughly the same spot that Pryor and Landrieu are in, admittedly, but we'd at least be competitive there, and that's better than right now.
Look at that math pretty quickly-you suddenly have Iowa, Montana, and South Dakota off the table, meaning that the Republicans are looking at having to pickup NC/AR/AK/CO/LA and West Virginia with a better challenger while not being able to lose Kansas or Georgia, a map that completely favors the Democrats. Hopefully Democrats see how crucial retiring at the right moment can be in these states. You might quibble ("but they wanted to retire"), but they should have seen that writing on the wall and retired six years ago then when it was clear the Democrats were going to have a terrific year, leaving the Democrats with incumbents rather than open seats.
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| HHS Sec. Kathleen Sebelius (D-KS) |
If you'll recall, once upon a time the election didn't look so lopsided. The Republicans were getting pummeled for causing the government shutdown, a stunt that cost them the Virginia governor's mansion. Then the "Obamacare" website had all of its glitches, and it was literally all the media had to talk about. As you can see, a year later, this issue is off the table but it completely changed the narrative of the race. It likely contributed to a number of House recruitment misses (look at someone like Pete Festersen, who would probably be winning NE-2 at this point (that's the House, but excitement is excitement is excitement)). And it was one of several arguments over the past year that has contributed to President Obama's low approval ratings, which are sinking Democrats like Mary Landrieu and Mark Pryor-it kicked off the "Obama is incompetent" narrative that has framed the debate so greatly over the past year.
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| Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) |
It made sense at the time. I'm sure that people like Kay Hagan and Mark Pryor were begging the administration privately to delay the executive action on immigration. However, it's become increasingly clear that Hispanic/Latino voters have lost interest in the Midterms this year, which is going to play a pivotal role in what might end up being the most important Senate election of the cycle: Colorado. If the Republicans need to pickup six seats, they have them in SD/WV/MT/AK/AR/LA. However, Kansas continues to cause problems, and at this point they probably need a seventh. North Carolina continues to give Kay Hagan a small lead. Bruce Braley has clearly gained slightly in the polls and has probably made Iowa a tossup again. Jeanne Shaheen and Gary Peters look pretty strong at this point. If it weren't for one pesky state, we'd be talking about this as a tossup race again.
That state and senator is Colorado's Mark Udall, who represents the state most dependent on Latino voters with a Democratic senator in a tight race, and a seat that has the Republicans best shot at holding the Senate. Udall's continued underperformance in the polls is almost surely a result of Hispanic anger at the Obama administration. With that executive action, Udall would have had a way to drive support in this pivotal community and possibly win the Democrats the Senate. It's hypothetical, but it's looking more and more likely that Mark Udall, and not as so many believed Mark Begich, was the senator Democrats most needed to win.
4. The Bannock Street Project Should Have Started in 2012
Democrats have long been touting their ability to get voters to the polls, which will be critical this year. If you go by the polls, the Democrats are set to lose eight seats in the Senate this year, so the Democrats would need to get eligible but either infrequent/first-time voters to the polls. This is particularly critical in states where they have an inherent disadvantage to begin with like Georgia. Groups that generally under-perform in terms of turnout in midterms (Hispanic/Latinos, African-Americans, single women, and young voters), but overwhelmingly vote Democratic in higher numbers in presidential years should have been targeted as part of a long game for the Senate-we knew heading into 2014 that this would be a tough election cycle, so why didn't we start to target voters earlier when they were more engaged in the process? This is particularly true for Louisiana, Arkansas, and Alaska, three states that we always knew were uphill battles, where we had incumbents who were vulnerable but certain to run for another term, and we knew would be critical to holding the Senate. This also brings me to my final point.
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| Former Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-NV) |
My biggest complaint from a partisan perspective about the president has been that he is not a team player in terms of getting people to the polls. This isn't the case this cycle, of course-the Democrats just don't want him because he's wildly unpopular. But look in 2012, and you'll see a different situation. Nevada in 2012 is, in particular, the case I'm thinking of when it comes to a textbook example of how the Obama campaign could have done more.
President Obama was winning the Silver State by a solid margin, but the Senate race there was insanely tight between appointed-Sen. Dean Heller (R) and Rep. Shelley Berkley (D). Berkley was not the better candidate in this case, it surely was Heller, but Obama had coattails in the state and had he taken some time to campaign for particularly vulnerable members of Congress in districts/states he was winning (Berkley being the perfect example), he would have certainly had a better chance of holding the Senate for the last two years of his administration. After all, only a fool could see that he wasn't winning the final month of the campaign (this was not a close election), and working in stops with vulnerable members of Congress or coordinating more efficiently with state efforts in swing states probably would have meant a few more seats, including pivotally the one in Nevada.
Look at it this way-if Shelley Berkley gets the additional 12,000 votes she needed to win the election (hardly a stretch considering at least 85,000 people voted for Obama that didn't vote for Berkley), the Republicans need to pickup seven seats in 2014 rather than six. This is certainly doable, but it means one more seat in a far more tossup race like Kansas or Iowa has to swing their way rather than something that is increasingly likely like Colorado or Alaska, and gives them less room for error. The key to understanding the Senate is that it's a long game-Berkley wouldn't have just been a vote for the Democrats in 2012, but in 2014 and 2016 as well, serving as a bit of an insurance policy for those cycles where the Democrats don't do as well.
These are my thoughts on why the Democrats are in the pickle they currently are in for 2014. What are yours? Why do you think the Democrats are in the rough shape that they are in?
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