Moonglow
Diamond Member
Real Clear Politics does a pretty good compilation of polling (aggregate).
Here is their Senate website:
RealClearPolitics - 2014 Election Maps - Battle for the Senate
(the graphic is interactive - clickable, and pretty much everything is hyperlinked)
This is how RCP sees the battle for the Senate right now:
It sees nine seats in play. The GOP needs 4 of those nine seats. It needs 6 seats in order to win the Senate, but 2 of them are already clearly strongly R right now, and pretty much ceded to the GOP: Montana and South Dakota. Both are show on the graphic as "Likely R", and I concur.
Let's take a look at the safe D seats:
The Northeast: Delaware, Massachusetts, Rhode Island
The Midwest: Illinois
The Southwest: New Mexico
5 seats
No one is expecting these seats to flip, even in the case of a massive GOP wave in the Fall.
Let's take a look as the safe R seats:
The South: Alabama, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oklahoma (special) South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas
The breadbasket: Kansas, Nebraska
Big Sky: Idaho, Wyoming
The Northeast: Maine
12 seats.
No one is expecting these seats to flip, even in the case that a GOP wave does not materialize in the Fall.
Already, the GOP has a massive SAFE seat advantage over the Dems of more than 2:1
Let's take a look at the likely D seats:
The West: Hawaii, Oregon
The Midwest: Minnesota
The Northeast: New Jersey
The South: Virginia
These are the five states where the GOP is not really investing. Mark Warner is likely to win the biggest for the DEMS in this cycle, making him a future presidential candidate as well. Another important story here is the story of the power of the incumbency. Al Franken (D) barely won his Senate seat in 2008, but right now, his average over challenger Mike McFadden (R) is +10.4, which is a landslide aggregate margin. Of these states, the one state that could end up being a surprise on the senatorial level could be Hawaii.
And let's take a look at the likely GOP seats:
The South: Mississippi
The Big Sky/Breadbasket: Montana, South Dakota (O)
Here are already two pretty much guaranteed pick-ups for the Republicans in the Fall (MT, SD).
Now the next is where RCP and I don't completely agree about the level, but we do agree about the direction.
Under the leaning D states:
The Northeast: New Hampshire
The only problem I have with that is that Jean Shahean (D), according to RCP polling averages, is leading Republican Scott Brown by +10.4, which is exactly the same landslide margin that was shown for Al Franken (D) in Minnesota, so why one state should be considered likely D, but the other state is listed as leaning D is a mystery to me. Of course, the NH primary is first on September 9th, so right now the assumption is that Scott Brown, the former Republican Senator from Massachusetts, will become the Republican Senatorial nominee. Perhaps this is why RCP is classifying the two races in two different ways. Wait and see.
And under the leaning R states:
The South: West Virginia (O)
Again, I wonder why RCP is classifying this as leaning R, because right now, Republican Shelly Capito is leading Democrat Natalie Tennent by +9.3, which is a near-landslide margin.
Maybe RCP is just trying to be overly careful, but it sure seems to me that in both cases, those states are more "likely" for either D or R than "leaning", which means that most likely, the GOP already has 3 pick-ups in the bag: MT, SD and WV. Which means it only needs 3 of the statistical tossup states in order to outright have 51 Senate seats and therefore, the majority:
That leaves us with nine statistical tossups:
The South: Arkansas, Georgia (O), Kentucky, Louisiana, North Carolina
The Midwest: Iowa (O) , Michigan (O )
The Southeast / Mountain States: Colorado
The Pacific: Alaska
This is where the strategema looks extremely grim for the Democrats. Of those nine statistical tossups, five of those races are with Democratic incumbents who are all locked in tight races. There is only one race where a Republican incumbent is locked in a tight race (Kentucky - Mitch McConnell), and of the open races, two of the three are currently Democratic seats.
Here are the averages:
Alaska: AK has not had it's primary yet, but the values range from Begich (D) +0.4 over Treadwell (R) to Begich +12.0 over Miller. However, it looks as if Miller has no chance of winning the GOP primary (he beat Murkowski in 2010 and then lost to her as a write-in candidate in the Fall of that year).
Arkansas: Cotton (R) +3, and incumbent Mark Pryor has not won in a poll since April.
Colorado: Udall (D) +1.5
Georgia: Perdue (R) +3.2
Iowa: Ernst (R) +0.8
Kentucky: McConnell (R) +2.5
Louisiana: Cassidy (R) +1
Michigan: Peters (D) +4
North Carolina: Tillis +1.3
Please remember that the aggregate values I am quoting are from today, 11 August 2014, and could already change again in the next days.
Now, 8 of those 9 margins (aggregates) are well within the MoE and the Michigan margin is just outside the standard MoE, but right now, the GOP is a nose ahead in 6 of those 9 races. And remember, the GOP only needs to win 3, assuming that MT, SD and WV all go as pretty much everyone expects them to go.
Almost eight months ago, I put out this thread:
Congressional Elections compared to Presidential Terms 1855-present US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum
Quote at the end:
So, what can we learn from this information?
1.) We have had divided government a lot more than most people realize.
2.) The statistical probability that the President's party suffers major losses in a mid-term election, especially in a 2nd term mid-term, is extremely high.
3.) Divided government is not necessarily a bad thing. See: Eisenhower, Clinton. Likewise, unified government is not necessarily good. See: Hoover, Carter.
So, before the pundits go blabbing their mouths off about the 2014 elections, know that history is on the side of the GOP in this election.
And indeed, what we are seeing right now is exactly in line with electoral history.
And then there is Angus King (I - ME), who, should the GOP only win 5 seats for some reason, could play kingmaker and decide to caucus with the GOP. So, in reality, the GOP only needs to win 5 seats, but 6-8 are very likely.
Now, there are two seats that the Democrats really COULD win:
Georgia - and - Kentucky.
But even that is dicey.
And for this reason, the mention of Angus King. Should the GOP win 7 seats, but lose 2, it could still control the Senate, with Angus King (I) switching sides.
When the last primaries are over with and the polling for the key races comes in, then I will be following the numbers quite closely, but the aggregates, from pollsters from all over the spectrum, are pointing to a very, very good outcome for the GOP in November.
What's the absolute top-line?
Well, I will take RCP's take, which currently shows 45 DEM seats in the basket, and were Angus King to switch sides, then the Senate could move from 54 (D) - 45 (R) 1 (I) to 54 (R) - 45 (D) - 1 (I). It could go from D+9 to R+9, which would then be a partisan shift of R+18.
Please notice that I included the geography when listing the states. This is because the South is playing an enormous role in this: there are four southern states where the Dems could easily lose seats: WV, AR, NC, LA.
My gut tells me that the GOP is going to do better than +6 in the fall, maybe +7 or +8, but could definitely lose one seat. This is also not uncommon in electoral history. Even in historic wave mid-terms, the "other side" has often picked up at least one seat. So, that's also not a big surprise.
The next step in all of this is to see where the GOP places it's money in advertising and the sending in heavy hitters from other areas to help.
I will be updating this thread again in late August.
Oh, and [MENTION=21821]Samson[/MENTION], what was that again about "partisan hack"?
You need like an introduction song or music presentation...not to mention power point...laser pointer..
