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| State Sen. Cal Cunningham (D-NC) |
Below I have outlined from the past ten races for the US Senate, which contest was the "tipping point race"-the contest that the minority party would have had to win (and every contest that they lost that was closer) in order to take the majority. As you'll see, while every cycle is "important" and every cycle has the capability to transfer the majority, not all cycles are created equally. Where 2020 lands depend on candidates like Cunningham-will they live up to the hype, or fall short? Let's take a look at ten past contests to gage what Cunningham's fate might be.
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| Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK) |
Party Out of Power (Post-Election): Republicans
Actual Net for the Cycle: Democrats +8
Number of Seats to Take Majority: 10
Tipping Point Seat/Percentage: No race illustrates for either party "you had no chance" better than 2008. Mitch McConnell has an encyclopedic knowledge of Senate politics, and I bet he'd even struggle to name who Tom Harkin's opponent was in 2008. And yet Christopher Reed, who lost by 25.4 points to the longtime Iowa senator, was the tipping point candidate that year.
Candidates Who Would (Also) Have to Win: There's honestly no redeeming factor here-it isn't like Iowa was a big drop-off point or something. In addition to having to take down Tom Harkin in the easiest election of his career (this was the only election where the Iowa senator ever had a clear reelection battle in his long Senate career), they would have had to best Tim Johnson, Frank Lautenberg, and Mark Udall (all of whom were winning by double digits), in addition to the single digit victories for Mark Begich, Mary Landrieu, Jeanne Shaheen, Kay Hagen, Jeff Merkley, and Al Franken. The Republicans surely could have done better this cycle, but the majority was never an option. In fact, it could have been worse for them-Saxby Chambliss & Mitch McConnell both won by only single digits.
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| Carly Fiorina (R-CA) |
Party Out of Power (Post-Election): Republicans
Actual Net for the Cycle: Republicans +6
Number of Seats to Take Majority: 4
Tipping Point Seat/Percentage: 2010 was obviously a fabulous year for Senate Republicans, netting six seats (most of which they still claim-they held all but Illinois of their 2010 pickups when 2016 rolled around). However, it was always a lost cause to assume that the Republicans would gain another four seats, particularly California where Sen. Barbara Boxer bested Carly Fiorina by 10.0 points in one of three major fumbles Fiorina's political career has taken. Boxer had had closer calls before, but still retired six years later, having had enough of politics.
Candidates Who Would (Also) Have to Win: If Republicans have regrets about 2010, it surely would be how states like Colorado, Nevada, and Delaware slipped through their hands because of Tea Party challenges. All three states went away from more palatable primary challengers (Jane Norton, Sue Lowden, & Mike Castle) for gadfly challengers (Ken Buck, Sharron Angle, & Christine O'Donnell), which allowed Dem incumbents to win (true to form for the GOP, the only one of these candidates to get a second act was the conservative male Ken Buck, who is now a congressman). Still, Colorado (1.8) and Nevada (5.6) were two of their closer seats, along with Washington's Dino Rossi (4.8), the poster child for losing close elections.
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| Education Commissioner Betty Castor (D-FL) |
Party Out of Power (Post-Election): Democrats
Actual Net for the Cycle: Republicans +4
Number of Seats to Take Majority: 6
Tipping Point Seat/Percentage: There are few Senate cycles that haunt Democrats quite like 2004 (2014 is the one that I remember most fervently with depression, but 2004 is a close second). The races were actually relatively close up until the tipping point, but South Carolina's loss for State Superintendent Inez Tenenbaum was really not that close (9.6 point loss for Tenenbaum). It felt closer at the time, though, as Tenenbaum was relatively popular in ruby-red South Carolina and this was still an era where Democrats could win the state, so it came as a bitter disappointment to Democrats when she ultimately lost...by an admittedly large margin.
Candidates Who Would (Also) Have to Win: Like I said, the other contests were relatively close this cycle. Alaska's Tony Knowles, Florida's Betty Castor, Kentucky's Dan Mongiardo, North Carolina's Ersinke Bowles, and South Dakota's Tom Daschle all lost by less than five points. It's worth noting that Tenenbaum might not actually be the tipping point if you count Rep. Chris John of Louisiana here. John lost in Louisiana by 24-points, but this was under the assumption at the time that Louisiana would go to a runoff. Louisiana had never elected a Democrat to the Senate since the passage of the 17th Amendment, and many assumed John would continue that streak via a runoff, but Rep. David Vitter won 51%, making a runoff unnecessary. If this counts (John lost by well more than Tenenbaum, but in a runoff it's probable he would have kept it closer than she did as Democrats in total only lost to Vitter by 3.35 points), the tipping point state becomes Erskine Bowles in North Carolina, and this year moves to fifth...justifying why Democrats had more hope than they probably should have on Election Day.
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| Michelle Nunn (D-GA) |
Party Out of Power (Post-Election): Democrats
Actual Net for the Cycle: Republicans +9
Number of Seats to Take Majority: 4
Tipping Point Seat/Percentage: Like 2004, this looks a lot more attainable in retrospect than it did at the time, as the Republicans clobbered on Election Night. I think most Democrats assumed they'd get beaten, just not this badly. Weirdly, it wasn't some of the longer-shot incumbents like Mark Pryor or Mary Landrieu who was the tipping point senator, but instead Georgia's Michelle Nunn, who lost by 7.7 points. This is the cycle that we're on now, of course, so we'll see how many of the close races here get a sequel.
Candidates Who Would (Also) Have to Win: Interesting fact-I called every single race right for the Senate in 2014, one of my crowning achievements as a predictor (though little comfort as a Democrat). I figured that North Carolina would be supremely close (Kay Hagen lost by 1.5), and while I didn't anticipate the close races for Virginia or New Hampshire (Warner & Shaheen losing could have made this night a true bloodbath for the Democrats, and that was definitely possible), I also didn't realize that Alaska & Colorado would be so close, with Mark Begich & Mark Udall losing by roughly two points. As a result, while Nunn's loss shows the Democrats had little shot of holding the Senate, they came a lot closer to 51-49 than anyone could have guessed.
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| Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) |
Party Out of Power (Post-Election): Republicans
Actual Net for the Cycle: Democrats +2
Number of Seats to Take Majority: 6
Tipping Point Seat/Percentage: It feels weird to think of this race as close, as well, it really wasn't. Though it was closer than 2014 with Nunn's tipping point state being a bigger gap, this has four contests that were won by over five points that the GOP would have to flip in order to take the majority. The largest of these was Virginia (5.9), which Tim Kaine won in an ill-begotten rematch by George Allen, who for some reason doesn't get grouped with Phil Bredesen & Evan Bayh as a former glory boy governor who returned to another round of defeat...but surely should be.
Candidates Who Would (Also) Have to Win: While North Dakota's Heidi Heitkamp won by less than a point, and Montana's Jon Tester was losing in the RCP average right before the election (both very winnable races), the other four might have been closer than anyone anticipated, but not exactly close. Open seats in Indiana, New Mexico, and Wisconsin, gave opportunity to Richard Mourdock, Heather Wilson, and Tommy Thompson, respectively, but all lost by more than five points. Again, this can't be a "year that got away in Mitch McConnell's eyes."
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| Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-TX) |
Party Out of Power (Post-Election): Democrats
Actual Net for the Cycle: Republicans +2
Number of Seats to Take Majority: 4
Tipping Point Seat/Percentage: 2018 will sort of hang together as potentially the final nail in the coffin of ticket-splitting, as while the Democrats were cruising to big gains in the House, Donald Trump took solace in the Senate actually feeling redder with a net gain of two seats. The most recent tipping point state would be Indiana, where Sen. Joe Donnelly, despite strong polling up until the end, lost by a pretty large 5.89 (at least for an incumbent)
Candidates Who Would (Also) Have to Win: Democrats needed three more seats, and at least two of them feel achievable in hindsight. Beto O'Rourke kept Ted Cruz under 3-points, which was nearly the shock of the election night (and led to his ill-advised presidential campaign), while Sen. Bill Nelson lost by a twelfth of a percentage point to Rick Scott, yet another heartbreaking nailbiter for Florida Democrats. The third race was Claire McCaskill in Missouri, who lost by just slightly less than Donnelly.
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| EPA Secretary Katie McGinty (D-PA) |
Party Out of Power (Post-Election): Democrats
Actual Net for the Cycle: Democrats +2
Number of Seats to Take Majority: 3
Tipping Point Seat/Percentage: The top four all have tipping point elections decided by less than four points, so here we're talking races that genuinely were close and a little more turnout probably would have tilted the scales to the losing party. In 2016, Wisconsin's Russ Feingold led in virtually every poll right up until the last few weeks of the campaign, when a surge in the Midwest (that should have caused alarm for the soon to be losing Clinton campaign) gave wind to Ron Johnson. Feingold lost by 3.4 points in a rematch that (in retrospect) the Democrats probably should have tried to recruit a fresher candidate to counter against Ron Johnson.
Candidates Who Would (Also) Have to Win: Democrats had their closest races in Pennsylvania (1.4 points) and Missouri (2.8 points), where Katie McGinty & Jason Kander nearly won. Kander's margin is particularly heartbreaking as he overcame the drubbing that Clinton was taking at the top of the ticket and nearly bested Roy Blunt. Considering the rightward shift of a state like Missouri, these sorts of pickup opportunities are rare and may come around only once every couple of decades (something for Democrats in Kansas this year to keep in mind).
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| Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) |
Party Out of Power (Post-Election): Democrats
Actual Net for the Cycle: Democrats +4
Number of Seats to Take Majority: 1
Tipping Point Seat/Percentage: In a year with a number of progressive challengers, the Democrats nearly won the Senate against almost all odds in 2000. They netted four pickups, including picking off incumbents in Minnesota, Michigan, Washington, Missouri, and Delaware, and had they made in six in Montana, they would have had the majority going into the first year of George W. Bush's presidency. That said, Brian Schweitzer, who lost here by 3.2 points, became governor four years later and in terms of regrets Democrats have about 2000, the Senate is a pretty distant silver to other contests on the ballot.
Candidates Who Would (Also) Have to Win: They didn't need a single seat, as this would have gotten them to 51. Weirdly, it's worth noting that Democrats still lost an incumbent in 2000, in the state of Virginia (Chuck Robb) by 4.6 points. Had Robb pulled that victory off, it's possible that the Democrats' eventual transformation of Virginia may have looked a bit different (since it was kicked off by the surprise election in 2006 of Jim Webb).
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| Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) |
Party Out of Power (Post-Election): Democrats
Actual Net for the Cycle: Republicans +2 (technically +1, but Bob Smith is a story for a different day)
Number of Seats to Take Majority: 2
Tipping Point Seat/Percentage: While the worst case scenario for Democrats in 2020 will be it looking suspiciously like 2004 (an election that looked close until people actually voted), it may be more regrettable if it ends up like 2002. 2002 was a year where they lost the majority, but almost certainly didn't have to do so if they'd turned two seats around, one of which was Minnesota. It's probable that had Paul Wellstone not died just days before the election the Democrats would have won this seat, but a short and bumpy campaign by Walter Mondale wasn't enough to win this seat, and Minnesota elected Norm Coleman by 2.2 points, the last time (to date) the Democrats lost a Senate election in the Gopher State.
Candidates Who Would (Also) Have to Win: We've talked about this race a lot, but suffice it to say Sen. Jean Carnahan losing by just 1.1 points was a tough loss for the Democrats, particularly considering after-the-fact that Carnahan got closer than she was expected against Jim Talent (many assumed she'd lose at the time, including me). Wellstone surviving and a little more TLC into St. Louis & Kansas City, and the Democrats control the Senate during the next two years of the Bush administration, staving off the judicial fights that Harry Reid would wage during this time, perhaps even creating a world where Merrick Garland would have gotten confirmed in 2016 thanks to a lack of a slippery slope.
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| Sen. George Allen (R-VA) |
Party Out of Power (Post-Election): Republicans
Actual Net for the Cycle: Democrats +6 (technically +5, but Joe Lieberman was the Democrats' Bob Smith in the earlier part of the century)
Number of Seats to Take Majority: 1
Tipping Point Seat/Percentage: While 2004 is the nightmare for the Democrats, and 2002 perhaps the more likely regret, 2006 is what every Democrat is hoping for and the Republicans' worst nightmare. Headed into Election Night, the Democrats led in enough seats in the polls to actually win the Senate, but most people assumed it couldn't be done. Polls showed tight races in Missouri & Maryland, and Conrad Burns was closing fast in Montana. Worst of all for the Democrats was that the sting of George Allen's "Macaca" incident was wearing off, and the state's reddish hue was showing again. Still, though, every Democrat kept water from flooding the ship long enough to win 51 seats on Election Night (though it wasn't called for them until Wednesday), and Republicans lost the Senate by just 0.4 points in Virginia, where Jim Webb won his sole term in the Senate (interesting fact-this means that Allen has twice been the tipping point senator).
Candidates Who Would (Also) Have to Win: Zero-the Democrats had almost no margin of error, and yet they still won. It's likely had the election taken place even a week later, they would have lost it with strength in Montana & Virginia fading at the time, but they pulled it off. We'll have to wait for November to see if we have an equally close 2020.
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