Ranking U.S. Senate races by “closeness”

Americans have an obsession with lists.  Especially lists that rank things.  Whether it’s sports, or politics, or cell-phone plans, or sushi restaurants, it seems that the best way to provoke a debate is to rank a bunch of something.

Which is why political pundits love to rank U.S. Senate races.  But the problem is, most of them use the wrong criteria.

Most Senate race rankings are ranked with the seats “most likely to change parties” at the top.  But that’s neither interesting or useful.  

The Virginia seat is the most likely to flip this year; Mark Warner’s going to crush Jim Gilmore.  We get it.  But at this point in the cycle, who cares?

Unless you’re a D.C. corporate lobbyist trying to figure out where to invest your client’s money, the “most likely to flip” ranking doesn’t matter.

Instead, if you’re an activist donor – a member of the netroots – the question before you is this:  Where will my money make the most difference?  Which race is at a tipping point?  Which race needs “all hands on deck”?

Over at Pollster.com, they’ve done an amazing job of compiling all the available polls – and assembling a combined trend analysis.

Here’s a table that ranks all the U.S. Senate races by closeness:

Rank	Sept 22	State	Democrat	%	Republican	%	margin
1	1	OR	Merkley	42.3	Smith	42.2	+0.10
2	2	NC	Hagan	43.1	Dole	42.3	+0.80
3	3	AK	Begich	48.3	Stevens	45.5	+2.80
4	4	MN	Franken	41.3	Coleman	45.1	-3.80
5	5	CO	M. Udall	44.7	Schaeffer	39.2	+5.50
5	8	NH	Shaheen	49.4	Sununu	43.9	+5.50
7	6	MS-B	Musgrove	42.4	Wicker	49.6	-7.20
8	7	NJ	Lautenberg	47.6	Zimmer	39.1	+8.50
9	11	KY	Lunsford	38.8	McConnell	50.1	-11.30
10	9	TX	Noriega	38.1	Cornyn	51.8	-13.70
11	10	NM	T. Udall	55.1	Pearce	41.4	+13.70
12	15	SC	Conley	37.8	Graham	52.8	-15.00
13	12	LA	Landrieu	56.0	Kennedy	40.8	+15.20
14	14	GA	Martin	36.6	Chambliss	52.3	-15.70
15	13	ME	Allen	39.6	Collins	55.7	-16.10
16	16	IA	Harkin	56.8	C. Reed	38.4	+18.40
17	17	OK	Rice	36.3	Inhofe	55.2	-18.90
18	24	KS	Slattery	36.2	Roberts	56.8	-20.60
19	18	ID	LaRocco	31.8	Risch	52.5	-20.70
20	19	IL	Durbin	57.6	Sauerberg	35.3	+22.30
21	20	NE	Kleeb	35.4	Johanns	58.5	-23.10
22	21	MI	Levin	56.2	Hoogendyk	32.8	+23.40
23	23	MS-A	Fleming	33.5	Cochran	58.5	-25.00
24	22	VA	Warner	57.9	Gilmore	32.3	+25.60
25	25	MA	Kerry	57.0	Beatty	29.3	+27.70
26	26	SD	Johnson	61.3	Dykstra	32.4	+28.90
27	27	TN	Tuke	29.2	Alexander	59.3	-30.10
28	28	AL	Figures	30.7	Sessions	60.9	-30.20
29	29	MT	Baucus	64.0	Kelleher	31.0	+33.00
30	30	RI	J. Reed	72.0	Tingle	20.0	+52.00