The conventional wisdom is that the Democrats have a strong shot at the House, though I'll cover that in the next week or so in more detail. However, the question I get from most people, particularly in light of the Kavanaugh revelations (I haven't covered that on the blog yet mostly because it's quite clear that under normal circumstances the Republicans would have scuttled Kavanaugh's nomination by now for someone who seems qualified and wasn't a potential rapist, but the fact that they aren't makes me think that McConnell knows his majority could be in jeopardy). The reality is, though, that the Democrats have faced long odds most of the year to win back the Senate; they are defending 24 seats, including ten seats in states where President Trump won in 2018. Most of the year the question regarding the Senate is how well can the Democrats do in such an environment. After all, the Senate is a game of chess, and 2020 is arguably the best map they've faced in a while, with only one clearly vulnerable incumbent (Alabama's Doug Jones) and lots of potential pickup opportunities in Colorado, Maine, North Carolina, Iowa, Arizona, and Georgia all on the map.
But in the past few weeks, conventional wisdom has started to shift, and it's become apparent that while the Democrats are not the favorites to take the Senate, their odds are increasing. This is in large part due to the generic ballot for "whom people want to control Congress" swinging pretty ferociously in their direction, but it's also due to a number of micro factors. Since we recently did a "State of the Senate," I figured I'd spell this out in a different way this morning, listing the five reasons that the Democrats should feel hopeful, alongside the five reasons that the Democrats shouldn't start popping champagne anytime soon. Considering we're so close to the election, this could change at any moment, as scandals, new economic numbers, or simply people finally noticing there's an election going on around them could dramatically change an individual race, and with the Senate, one race might be all it takes to dash the Democrats' dreams.
The Five Reasons the Democrats' Odds Are Improving
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| Sens. Joe Manchin (left) and Jon Tester are all smiles these days |
I have said for months that if the Democrats are going to win, they need to start taking races off of the dais and putting them in the "safe" column. You're going to see me reference 2006 a few times in this article, and the reason for that is because 2018 looks a lot like 2006. That year the Democrats had a really strong national tide and it was clear that they'd win the House, but around Labor Day they probably weren't going to actually win the Senate. The Democrats, however, basically ran the boards on competitive races that year, losing only one in Tennessee, and were able to get a six-seat pickup to take back the Senate in the wee hours of the morning. One of the ways they did that was by taking competitive races off the grid for the Republicans, meaning that "running the table" meant fewer seats than it had in the summer.
Democrats seem to be doing that in Montana and are certainly doing it in West Virginia. Both of these states have Democratic incumbents (Tester & Manchin, respectively) who seem to be personally popular despite being in a state that Donald Trump won, and are consistently leading in polls, frequently for Manchin by double digits. These were states that were highly-targeted by Republicans earlier this cycle, but it's difficult to see them trying for these states in October if it's clear that it's a waste of money that would be better spent in other races. This happened in 2006, when polling showed that "competitive" states like New Jersey, Ohio, and Pennsylvania were lost causes, and the table of "tossup" races wasn't in fact nine seats deep, but only six. The Democrats copying that playbook in 2018 would be wise, and Tester/Manchin are helping them out.
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| Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-IN) |
There's no way that the Democrats can go into Election Night with confidence they'll win the Senate-even if they held the majority right now, that'd still be in doubt; there are too many things going well for Republicans with this map to make this anything better than a nailbiter. That being said, the Democrats have to be happy that Claire McCaskill, Bill Nelson, and Joe Donnelly are all doing well enough to be at a tie, and in the case of the latter two particularly, the race's fundamentals seem to be leaning their direction. Donnelly has, in particular, been the weird conundrum of the race for the majority. A mild-mannered senator who rarely makes headlines (an issue that, say, his fellow red-state senators Joe Manchin & Claire McCaskill do not have), I initially thought he'd be the Democrats' toughest sell for 2018, considering he won at least partially due to a weak Republican opponent and he seemed to have no personal brand in the Hoosier State. Coming two years after Evan Bayh got crushed here, it felt like Donnelly would be the toughest runner to get across-the-finish line.
That's clearly not the case. While he's not as consistently leading in the polls as Tester & Manchin, it has to be said he's done very well in polling, sometimes even approaching double digits and even when he's behind, it's by a pittance. Donnelly may simply have more personal popularity in Indiana than I'd given him credit for having, and that goes a long way for the Democrats. No one's giving up on this race, and considering how notoriously stingy Indiana is with polling, I doubt that'll change before November, but Donnelly has to be considered something of a favorite by now, a crucial piece of the Democratic puzzle for November.
The other two states seem closer-on-paper, but Bill Nelson got what may be the luckiest break the Democrats will win this November when Andrew Gillum surprised and won the Democratic nomination in Florida. Up until Gillum's victory, it seemed like Bill Nelson was running a losing campaign. Never the most spirited campaigner, he was facing off against Gov. Rick Scott, easily the cycle's best recruit for the GOP, and it looked like a rough go for him as he was being outspent and outflanked. But Gillum's entry into the race gives Nelson a real opportunity, because it brings out voters who might have otherwise have been apathetic about Nelson: African-Americans and Millennials. Gillum's strength with these voters, combined with his solid polling numbers, will mean that he could well get coattails as those voters will vote for Nelson (albeit less enthusiastically), shoring up his support with harder-to-reach-demographics. That spells out a scenario where Nelson skates to 50%.
The final race is McCaskill's, and here we have a senator who is famous with her constituents, beloved in some circles and loathed in others. My (hot) take is that Claire McCaskill would have won in 2012 even without Todd Akin's "legitimate rape" comment, and I think we're about to see that race play out. Josh Hawley and McCaskill are tied in virtually every poll that comes across my Twitter feed, and while that's not great news for McCaskill, a tied race combined with the national mood is probably better for her than Hawley. My assumption is that most genuinely tied races end up going to the Democrats on Election Day as a result of turnout as we've seen more voter engagement in primaries for Democrats than Republicans. As a result, I'd still bet on McCaskill.
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| Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) |
Holding the incumbents are important, but if the Democrats actually want to win the Senate, they need to pick up two seats, and it's been clear all season that Arizona and Nevada are their best bets, with the Democrats banking on Reps. Kyrsten Sinema and Jacky Rosen, respectively. So far, this has been a smart play. Sinema, in particular, seems to have become the prohibitive favorite for the Democrats and while this race is clearly tough, this is another race that I think might be teetering away from Republicans in a way they couldn't have anticipated. After a rough primary where she had to swing hard-right to win, Rep. Martha McSally is going extremely negative to try to take down Sinema's strength with voters, and while it might be working (she finally led in a poll recently for the first time in months), Sinema's still keeping a pretty consistent 3-5 point lead in most polls. While that's "within the margin of error," it's pretty rare to go into Election Day losing in most polls and still win, particularly if the national environment isn't helping you out. While I don't foresee either party pulling out of this race (the visuals, if nothing else, of the Republicans abandoning McSally will probably keep that from happening), it's entirely possible that Sinema's already got this flipped, or is darn close to doing so.
Rosen is in a tougher spot, but has also shown a thin lead in the polls. Sen. Dean Heller is an incumbent and a better campaigner than most would give him credit for, but this state's dynamics are pretty hard for a Republican to overcome in the age of Trump (Nevada is the only Clinton-state that has an incumbent Republican running for reelection). It's worth noting that if Rosen is essentially tied heading into Election Day (most averages have her ahead by 1-2 points), she's also probably going to win, as pollsters almost always under-poll Democrats in Nevada for some reason. While the races are too close for Democrats to be comfortable, it seems like if the Democrats lose the Senate this fall by 1 seat, it will probably be because they couldn't carry an incumbent across the finish line, not because they couldn't score their two extra seats.
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| Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-TX) |
No one anticipated the Democrats having more than two seats in play, which is a big reason why no one expected the Democrats to win the Senate. After all, while it was mathematically easiest to go the Incumbents Win/AZ/NV route after Doug Jones surprise victory last December, politics doesn't really allow for such a clean sweep-there's almost always one race that underwhelms or where an incumbent gets into a rougher-than-expected race. Even in 2006, that was the case where Harold Ford Jr. just couldn't overcome Bob Corker, giving the Senate Democrats their only swing state loss that year. This year, though, two Democrats have started to emerge as plausible threats in unexpected (and very red) states, and that could provide Democrats something of an insurance policy.
The most important of these races is (sorry Beto fans) Tennessee. Gov. Phil Bredesen (D) is running a strong, frequently nostalgia-tinged campaign for the Senate against Rep. Marsha Blackburn. Trump and the GOP are popular here, but so is Bredesen, whose personal popularity numbers, combined with lower numbers for Blackburn (who also has smaller name recognition), has a real shot as a result of his two terms as governor. Most Democrats have been jaded by formerly popular governors making comebacks in red states (see Evan Bayh for a good example of how this goes horribly wrong), but Bredesen has led in most polls and doesn't have a presidential election to deal with like Bayh (or the personal baggage). There's been a lot written in the past ten years about how straight-ticket voting has made the path for people like Bredesen impossible, but it's hard to look exclusively at the polls and conclude that he doesn't have something of an edge. If he's still up 2-3 in the aggregate come Election Day, I wonder if the blue wave even hits Tennessee, which would afford Democrats some wiggle room with their incumbents.
Texas is a much longer shot, though don't tell the left that, as they've all fallen in love with Rep. Beto O'Rourke. If this race were being fought in, say, Michigan, we'd already be writing Ted Cruz's political eulogy, but this is still Texas, and while Cruz is underperforming in the polls, he still leads by single digits on Election Day, and no one gives a rip how much you win by the day after the election, just that you have a check next to your name. That said, O'Rourke is an unusual enough candidate and there are enough signs that he is over-performing Hillary Clinton that it's worth paying attention here. He led in his first poll of the cycle yesterday, and there's clearly momentum for him amongst even Republicans, and it's not like Ted Cruz is a good retail politician. The question isn't whether or not O'Rourke will out-perform your average Democrat in Texas (he will), but whether the basement for Ted Cruz is already above 50%. If it isn't, this could be a race, but if Democrats are holding out hope for a surprise on Election Night, look to Nashville, not Dallas, for that miracle.
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| Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) |
Perhaps the Democrats' biggest advantage that no one is talking about? How quickly they locked up all of the Obama (2012)-Trump Great Lakes states. Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan all have Democratic incumbents that are running for reelection this cycle, and at the beginning of the cycle, many pundits started to wonder if the battle for the Senate might be shifting to their home courts, but at this point it seems clear that they are all the heavy favorites. Bob Casey & Debbie Stabenow are assured victory, frequently leading in polls by 20-points. Sherrod Brown and Tammy Baldwin don't post those kinds of numbers (they're in redder states to begin with), but are oftentimes leading by high-single digit/low-double digit numbers, and even Mitch McConnell is trying to deter big Republican donors from these races (a lack of engagement on the Senate side may well give the Democrats the governorships in these states as polls are indicating, but that's an article for a different day). The closest Great Lakes State outside of Joe Donnelly is probably Tina Smith, running her first solo campaign in Minnesota, but that's a Hillary state that has a long history of giving Democrats close-but-consistent victories, and she appears fine even if she won't win by 15-points. It shouldn't be underestimated how important it is that the Republicans couldn't nab breakouts here. Were one of these races still on the map, the Democrats would probably have to start packing up in Tennessee or Texas to pursue surer ground. With these five senators looking solid, they can go for longer shots.
The Five Reasons the Democrats Aren't the Favorites
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| Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) |
The biggest problem with the Democrats winning the Senate stands in the area between Fargo and Williston: North Dakota. For all of the good news the Democrats have been getting in the race for the Senate, it's quite clear that their toughest-to-win incumbent is going to be first-term Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, who won a surprise race six years ago in North Dakota and is going to need a similar result to keep the Senate in Democratic hands come November. Heitkamp has struggled in polling, frequently down by low single digits, and the lack of internal poll numbers indicate she's probably seeing the same thing on the campaign trail against Rep. Kevin Cramer. Part of Heitkamp's brand is "North Dakota Nice" making a negative campaign seem risky, but it's her best shot as she continues, as it seems people like her, but they like Trump more (six years ago, a sly negative campaign against Rick Berg was enough to win the race for, and is her best path against Cramer). Heitkamp has not reached the point where Democrats will abandon her, and she's still close enough where the national wave could carry her if she's only down by 1-2 points come Election Day, but Cramer is very similar to Rosen at this point for me-he's a marginal favorite, but a favorite nonetheless.
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| Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) |
Taking Heitkamp out of the picture for a second, it's still worth noting that the Democrats have to win a lot of close races to even have a chance if she wins the contest. McCaskill, Nelson, and Donnelly, as I mentioned above, have dynamics working in their favor, but they're still in tight races, as are Sinema and Rosen. These five races are all essential to the Democrats-I see basically no way where they lose one of these races and keep the Senate. That's a lot of pressure to put onto Senate contests that are so close and where in a couple of races (Heller, Scott), you could argue the Republicans have the stronger retail politician. In 2006, the Democrats ran the table, winning all but Tennessee, but that's a hard sell and it was a time when people crossed party lines more. It's hard to say in the era of Donald Trump if people will do that again, particularly in a midterm where the Democrats have historically struggled to get the same kind of turnout. Tuesday night in Texas, the Democrats lost a winnable race due to low turnout, and it was a reminder that the Democrats need better turnout numbers with their core than Republicans in all five of these races, not equal. If St. Louis voters aren't as inspired for McCaskill this year because she's too moderate or Miami voters split their votes between Gillum & Scott, then this entire endeavor falls apart. Like I said, the best the Democrats can do is go into November with a shot-there's going to be no confidence in a Senate win until at least the Rocky Mountain states close on Election Night, but it has to be said that the Democrats need all the strength in these five races that they can muster.
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| Gov. Phil Bredesen (D-TN) |
But that's not the biggest reason the Democrats head into Election Night as underdogs. Because even if McCaskill, Donnelly, Sinema, Nelson & Rosen all win (achievable, but by no means easy), they still need one more swing seat. Essentially the question for a few weeks has been: do you think that Phil Bredesen, Heidi Heitkamp, or Beto O'Rourke is the favorite in their race? Because if you don't, then the Democrats have no chance of winning the Senate. They need to take at least one of these seats in order to win.
As I detailed up above, this isn't impossible-Bredesen actually leads by a small margin in a number of polls, O'Rourke is gaining on Cruz, and Heitkamp is still a well-regarded incumbent. But it'd hard for me to call any of them the favorite, or even the even-odds candidate in November. Arguably Bredesen, because he continues to out-perform at the polls, is the Democrats' best hope and might well deserve to be in a tossup race, but I'm not there yet. If I do get there, I'll say that the Democrats are a tossup for the Senate, but (at least) one of these three candidates must win for the Democrats to have the majority.
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| Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) |
Nathan Gonzales hinted about a week ago that there was a story coming about Menendez that might hurt his reelection campaigns. I tweeted him Tuesday asking if this ended up being nothing, and he said that what "he knows" has not yet been revealed. Regardless of this enigmatic statement from a leading political commentator, Menendez is running a race that Democrats aren't happy about; while almost every other Democratic incumbent is running as best they can in their race, Menendez's ethics problems and recent court trial, coupled with a self-funding opponent and lousy poll numbers, is clearly a problem for the Democrats. In a more neutral cycle, we'd be seeing a clear loser here as Menendez is not well-liked and certainly benefiting from straight-ticket voters in New Jersey holding their nose, but if another chapter in his scandal breaking could lead to this being a tossup race no Democrat saw coming, and perhaps even having Chuck Schumer force a "Torricelli," getting Menendez out of the race entirely for another Democrat, as almost certainly any other first-tier Democrat could hold this seat without issue.
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| Rep. Mike Espy (D-MS) |
This last one is worth noting mostly because it's become increasingly plausible that the Democrats end up with 50 seats on Election Night while the GOP grabs 49. That's because the special election in Mississippi is decided by runoff, not by general election, and as a result the majority for the Senate may take weeks to figure out due to a campaign between appointed-Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (D) and former Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy. The third main candidate in the race, arch-conservative State Sen. Chris McDaniel, seems certain to take the bronze but will likely grab enough votes to keep anyone from getting 50% of the vote on Election Day, which ensures the runoff. Espy would be a profound underdog if he were to be in this situation considering the dynamics of the state (it was heavily for Trump), but this would prolong the battle for the Senate and leave an opening for either side if their candidate were to be involved in a scandal of sorts. It should be noted that while we've had two recent runoffs in close Senate races, neither of them were deciding the majority, and both behaved differently than the national environment. In 2002, Sen. Mary Landrieu seemed likely to lose after the Democrats did quite poorly in the midterms that year, but she outlanked Suzie Haik Terrell after accusing Terrell of being friendly to outsourcing of sugar, a key crop in Louisiana. On the flip side, Sen. Saxby Chambliss saw a huge swing from a 3-point lead in the November race (just barely ensuring a runoff against State Sen. Jim Martin) to a 15-point win in the runoff, despite Chambliss being a Republican in a year where Democrats dominated. All this is to say, that if the majority for the Senate hinges on Mississippi (and it might), the Republicans would be the heavy (though not unbeatable) favorites in a runoff. It's also worth saying, considering as I pointed above "winning the Senate is a game of chess" if this race doesn't control the majority for the Senate post-November (say the Democrats are only at 49 seats or they already hit 51),it might make the difference in 2020. After all, who is to say that 2020 or some future race won't be decided by one vote, and that that vote might not be Hyde-Smith or Espy.
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