Statistikhengst
Diamond Member
- Banned
- #1
Lots of helpful information for y'all.
Here is the current primary calendar:
2014 Primary and Runoff Elections Chronologically
Here are the 33 Senate seats up for election in 2014:
United States Senate elections, 2014 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Here is the general concensus about seats that are expected to be highly competitive:
Alaska - incumbent election (Begich - D)
Arkansas - incumbent election (Pryor - D)
Colorado - incumbent election (Udall - D)
Georgia - open election (R - retirement)
Iowa - open election (D - retirement)
Kentucky - incumbent election, possible open election (McConnell -R)
Louisiana - incumbent election (Landrieu)
Montana - open election (D - retiring)
N. Carolina - incumbent election (Hagan - D)
S. Dakota - open election (D - retiring)
W. Virginia - open election (D - retiring)
There are also some races that could become extremely interesting due to a major Tea Party challenge to a Republican incument:
Mississippi - incumbent Cochran has two challengers
Tennessee - incumbent Alexander has one challenger
South Carolina - incumbent Graham has one challenger
There are more safe (R) seats than safe (D) seats, about this everyone is in agreement.
Now, there may be other seats where Conservatives or Liberals here would like to say that they are competitive or not. My answer to this is easy: polling in the next months will help us to get a much better picture of this.
Here, a helpful map:
However, the main purpose of this thread is to simply show where the majority of polling is likely to happen.
In a nutshell:
March: TX, IL, FL (FL-13)
April: DC
May: IN, NC, OH, NE, WV, AR, GA, ID, KY, OR, PA, TX (runoff)
June: AL, CA, IA, MS, MT, NJ, NM, SD, AR, ME, ND, NV, SC, VA, CA, MD, MS (runoffs), OK, NY, SC, UT
July: AL (runoff), NC (CD-12), GA (runoff)
August: TN, HI, Virgin Islands, CT, MN, WI, SD, AK, WY, AZ, FL, OK (runoff), VT, Guam
September: DE, MA, RI, NH
We can assume that at least 8 weeks before these primaries that there will be some intensive polling of these states, which also means that more than likely, there will also be 2016 presidential match-ups polled at the same time: Hillary Clinton vs. prospective GOP field.
I will be maintaining another thread about the Senate races themselves, but even so, for now, just a cursory look at the many Democratic retirements in already Republican-leaning or Republican-dominant states makes it clear that maintaining a Democratic majority in the US Senate is going to be a heavy lift for the DEMS. And for the GOP, a majority is mathematically within reach.
The GOP, assuming that it loses no seats, needs 6 seats to take control of the Senate. There is only one race where the Republican is retiring (Nebraska) and that seat is a safe (R) seat. The DEMS are pretty much expecting to lose South Dakota and West Virginia. That leaves four seats left for the GOP to pick-up. Those four pick-ups could easily become 8 or 9 in a wave.
Democrats are currently seeing Georgia and Kentucky as the most likely pick-up possibilities, but that may even become a heavy-lift, depending on the candidates nominated.
Statistically, it looks very, very good for the GOP at this time.
This is also absolutely in-line with electoral history of mid-terms, esp. mid-terms within the 2nd term of a two-term president or two-term party administration. See: 1938, 1950, 1958, 1966, 1974, 1986, 2006. So, none of this is a surprise to me. Too many Democratic incumbents are skating on very thin ice at this time. This has happened ALOT with the Senate Class that came in with an incumbent President in his first term.
But back to the purpose of THIS thread:
PPP (D) has been churning out 1-2 polls a week in 2013, that will likely go to 2-3 polls a week in 2014.
Quinnipiac has put out at least 2 state polls per month, and one national poll. I expect that the number and frequency from Qpiac will also increase.
A new polling outfit, Harper (R), has started polling, and I am looking forward to establishing a baseline for the company.
ABC/WAPO put out some polls in 2013, but they were irregular. Ditto for Marist/NBC.
Rasmussen did very few polls of this nature in 2013. Scott Rasmussen no longer runs the firm, and a number of Conservatives are jestingly calling Rasmussen "no-Rasmussen". But the firm is still there, along with it's subsidiary: Pulse. Actually, in 2010, Rasmussen did more polling for 2010 mid-terms than PPP.
SUSA is probably going to kick-in as well.
WE ASK AMERICA (WAA), a Conservative firm, is also likely to contribute to polling.
And YouGov, a firm out of Britain, is likely to poll some as well.
So, logic dictates that for marquee races, we are likely to see more polling than for other states, and with it, lots of D-R matchups for 2016 as well.
Why?
Well, I think that the main reason is money. Polling companies save money when they poll both of these things at once. And they often entice clientele in this way.
The added benefit of this is that some states that are hardly polled for presidential match-ups, like Mississippi, Alaska or Arkansas, for instance, may see a heavy amount of polling.
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Just for reference, if you want to see how these pollsters did in 2012, here is a complete analysis of ALL polling for 2012, with emphasis on the end-polling, as compared to the actual results:
Statistikhengst's ELECTORAL POLITICS - 2013 and beyond: The moment of truth: how did the pollsters do?
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I will be adding a great deal to this thread as the year progresses.
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[MENTION=36528]cereal_killer[/MENTION] -
