StephenCLE’s Senate Rankings for September 17:
Outside of two races in Delaware, the math for the Senate got much more negative within the last month. 7 race ratings changed to the right, only one to the left. The funny thing is though, the overall pickup numbers haven’t changed at all, with the exception of Florida, which is now back in the republican column.
Basically, here’s the lay of the land:
Republicans are leading in all of their own seats, although some seats like New Hampshire, Missouri, and Kentucky are just outside of Toss Up range based on the last polling updates.
In Democratic seats, North Dakota and Arkansas are basically gone. Indiana looks bad, but not impossible. Pennsylvania isn’t looking great, but could be a late developer based on the way the race has gone. Then you have three races that are total, complete coin flips, Nevada, Illinois, and Colorado. At present, I have Team Blue prevailing in 2 of those. Really you could flip the call on any of those three, giving the GOP anywhere between 4-7 pickups. After that, you have California, a race that is barely in the toss up column with Boxer generally leading by 3-4 points. Wisconsin is a weird one, we haven’t had a non-Rassmussen poll there since July 12th, so my intuition is actually that Feingold is leading, and that those early Rass polls are propping Johnson up. The last two races on the fringe of what the Republicans can get are Washington and Connecticut, where Team Blue is clearly leading by a bunch.
The Map:
Senate Math:
Current Senate – 59 Democrats, 41 Republicans
New Senate – 54 Democrats, 46 Republicans
Swing – Republicans +5
Pickups (listed in order of likelihood)
Dem pickups – none
Rep pickups – North Dakota, Arkansas, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Colorado
GOP best case scenario – lose none, pickup ND, AR, IN, PA, CO, NV, IL, CA, WI, CT, WA – 52 republicans, 48 democrats assuming no post-election switches
DEM best case scenario – lose ND, AR, IN, pickup NH, KY, MO, FL, AK – 62 democrats, 38 republicans assuming Crist caucuses with the Democrats
Ratings Changes for August 16-September 16:
1.Pennsylvania – Toss Up to Lean Rep – This is not the way I thought this race would go, at all. But Pat Toomey has taken the lead on Joe Sestak, actually he took the lead about 2-3 weeks ago. Sestak appears to be using the same rope-a-dope strategy that he used against Arlen Specter in the primary and unleash a late onslaught. Given how many races have broken in the final 1-2 weeks throughout the primary season, that’s not a bad idea, but given the implosion of the whole democratic ticket in Pennsylvania, it’s going to be tough to pull off. Sestak is a good candidate though, he’s proved it already.
2.Ohio – Toss Up to Lean Rep – I considered moving this one straight through to Likely, but the polls don’t quite get that far yet. Bottom line, the Democrats nominated the wrong candidate here. Fisher hasn’t done anything, he’s running a horrible campaign, and he’s not doing anything that will drive base turnout here in the Buckeye State. Again, Rob Portman is on the air, but he’s not flooding the zone by any means. The way things are going right now, it looks like he’s going to win easily. The breaking of the Cuyahoga County corruption case is coming at a bad time for Fisher as well.
3.Connecticut – Likely Dem to Lean Dem – Richard Blumenthal’s lead here has fallen a bit thanks to a major ad blitz from Linda McMahon. Ultimately though, Blumenthal is still over 50 and is going up against a very unpopular challenger in a blue state. I’m not nearly as concerned about this one as many.
4.Kentucky – Toss Up to Lean Rep – I have to move this race into the Lean R column as well, as Rand Paul has been able to STFU, to be quite frank. Conway has run a pretty good campaign and might have a shot to pull this one out late, but for now Paul inches ahead.
5.Delaware – Likely Rep to Likely Dem – FAIL. The republicans in Delaware just cost themselves a Senate seat by nominating Christine Odonnell over Mike Castle. Best idea since boner in sweatpants.
6.Florida – Lean Ind to Lean Rep – What many thought would eventually happen here has happened. Kendrick Meek got a major bounce following the Democratic primary, while Marco Rubio has shored up republican support as their base is generally in lockstep this cycle. That has put Rubio into the lead and made things much more difficult for Charlie Crist, who is now getting squeezed on both sides.
7.North Carolina – Lean Rep to Likely Rep – We’ve seen a lot of really positive numbers lately for republican Richard Burr in his race against Elaine Marshall. A lot of that is because of the successful ad campaign that Burr is running, involving similar messaging that the DCCC used in 2008. Sadly, this one seems to be slipping away a bit as well.
8.California – Lean Dem to Toss Up – This is another race that just shocks me. No way did I think that Carly Failorina would be running so strongly against Barbara Boxer. Honestly, despite what the polls say, I hardly see a path to victory for Fiorina. She would have to run a perfect campaign the rest of the way as pretty much all remaining undecideds are either democrats or democratic-leaning independents. Fiorina’s in a similar situation as Mark Kirk in Illinois, in that she needs to hope for really low democratic turnout to carry her over the finish line. Boxer’s always had a good GOTV operation, and the presence of Prop 19 on the ballot should help provide coattails for Boxer too.
9.Alaska – Safe Rep to Likely Rep – This is a race to keep an eye on. Incumbent Lisa Murkowski was knee-capped unexpectedly by Alaska Republicans, giving Joe Miller the nomination. Immediate post-primary polling shows that democrat Scott McAdams might have an outside shot at turning this seat blue. We’ll have to watch this one as Miller is running against spending and pork, an issue that he is surely not on the right side of public opinion on in AK.
2010 Senate Big Board (as of September 17)
Solid Dem – 6 seats
New York (Schumer)
Vermont (Leahy)
Maryland (Mikulski)
Oregon (Wyden)
Hawaii (Inouye)
New York (Gillibrand)
Likely Dem – 2 seats
West Virginia (Manchin)
Delaware (Open)
Lean Dem – 3 seats
Connecticut (Blumenthal)
Washington (Murray)
Wisconsin (Feingold)
Toss Up – 4 seats
California (Boxer)
Nevada (Reid)
Colorado (Open)
Illinois (Open)
Lean Rep – 7 seats
Florida (Open)
Indiana (Open)
Kentucky (Open)
Missouri (Open)
New Hampshire (Open)
Ohio (Open)
Pennsylvania (Open)
Likely Rep – 6 seats
Alaska (Open)
Georgia (Isakson)
Arkansas (Lincoln)
Iowa (Grassley)
Louisiana (Vitter)
North Carolina (Burr)
Solid Rep – 9 seats
Arizona (McCain)
South Carolina (Demint)
Alabama (Shelby)
North Dakota (Open)
South Dakota (Thune)
Kansas (Open)
Oklahoma (Coburn)
Utah (Open)
Idaho (Crapo)
Even discounting today’s Rasmussen poll, Feingold doesn’t have the minority voters to fall back on the way Boxer does. He had a tough race in ’98, when it looked like he was going to lose to Mark Neuman, only to pull it out in the end. Let’s hope he can do it again.
There, I said it. I own it. And let me explain it:
Here in Nevada, Reid has plenty to work with. Angle is batsh*t crazy, the NV Dems have a far superior field operation to the NV GOP, and the big establishment players (aka gaming & mining) are betting on Reid. Sure, it may be super close, but as of now I think he’s still in a much better position than Angle… And Ralston confirmed that this morning.
And in my former home state of California, Boxer will probably squeak it out again like she did in ’92. Fiorina is just severely flawed, and she has major baggage both with her HP record and with running so far to the right in the primary to curry the teabaggers’ favor. One just can NOT win statewide in California by veering so far to the right, not even in a midterm. And Boxer is just getting started on going for the jugular…
Even though some polls show both races super close, I’m personally keeping both as “Leans D” just because I think at the end of the day the dynamics don’t help the GOP in either state.
I think Buck and Feingold will lose, which is contrary to conventional wisdom. I also think Murray is in better shape than most.
OH should be moved to Likely GOP, while I expect Toomey to win, I think the Dems will close the gap in PA, as they do almost every year, they always seem to do better than the polls in that state.
Holding Dem losses to 4 (ND, AR, IN, and PA) is very doable. Although Buck is a very narrow favorite in CO, Bennet can certainly still win. And although I right now expect us to probably lose at least one between WI and IL, both could be holds. Beyond that, I suspect that CA, NV and WA will all be holds, as will WV which may still tighten.
Can Dems limit it to +3? Maybe, but despite several theoretically good pickup opportunities – NH, MO, KY, and FL – I doubt we’ll pick up any of them, though we’ll probably come reasonably close in one or two. High-profile statewide races in MO, for example, tend to be quite tight.
The weird thing is that in some ways I can see a +2 Republican pickup as ithan limiting it to +3. The reason is that PA, MO, OH, KY, and FL all are posting similar numbers on issues like Obama approval, voter sentiment, etc. If Sestak can somehow pull out a win, that would seem to indicate a change in the national mood strong enough to allow us to pick up a Republican seat or two. The point is that after the three major Republican gimmes (ND, AR, and IN), many of the other races all seem somewhat correlated and are in swing states that in the past couple of cycles swung heavily Democratic.
You probably have to put WV in the best scenario Republican column now.