Welcome to StephenCLE’s Senate & Governor Rankings for October 14:
The Senate picture has stabilized to a degree, but the prospects still look grim here for Team Blue. Team Red has a strong lead in many seats that are currently democratic. Because the democrats have improved in several races close to the borderline, it’s now going to be difficult for the Republicans to take over the Senate outright, but a tie at 50-50 is very feasible. I’ve heard the words “Pacific Firewall” used to describe the democrats’ last line of defense, and it is true, as Patty Murray and Barbara Boxer’s seats in Washington and California, either one of which could be the mystical 10th seat to flip control, are both clearly leaning democratic right now. The open seat in Connecticut now appears to be firmly out of reach.
First off, to the map:
Senate Math:
Current Senate – 59 Democrats, 41 Republicans
New Senate – 52 Democrats, 48 Republicans
Swing – Republicans +7
Pickups (listed in order of likelihood)
Dem pickups – none
Rep pickups – North Dakota, Arkansas, Indiana, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Colorado, West Virginia,
Ratings Commentary:
At this point, I think we can say that the democrats are unlikely to pick up any republican controlled seats. The two seats that appeared to be the best opportunities for most of the year, Ohio and Missouri, have drifted away from the democrats. New Hampshire is still somewhat competitive, as is Kentucky, and something tells me that North Carolina might not be totally out of the woods either because of Burr’s crappy favorables, but it’s a longshot that any seats go from red to blue right now. That means it’s simply a matter of counting up the seats that will go from blue to red. Here are those seats.
1.North Dakota – This one’s a lock.
2.Arkansas – This seat is virtually gone as well. Blanche had a poll showing her down just 9 about a week ago, but if your internals have you down almost double digits…
3.Indiana – I really thought this one would be more competitive by now, but Ellsworth has been a major disappointment and Coats is getting a pass because of the environment.
4.Wisconsin – This seat has leaped up to fourth on the list, as Feingold was caught totally napping, and Ron Johnson now appears likely to win this seat. There’s still time left, but virtually everybody has an opinion of Feingold, so it’s not going to be easy to turn around. His vote against Financial Regulation was a killer in my opinion.
5.Pennsylvania – This race is showing signs of tightening, as internal polling put Sestak ahead last week, and some other empirical evidence, such as the NRSC jumping in with an ad buy today, suggests that this race has tightened to under 5 points. Sestak still has work to do here, but as a newcomer with a track record of closing strong, this one could be interesting.
6.Colorado – This race is still close as well. Buck leads in most polls, but Bennet had several put him ahead last week. I still think Buck is going to win it barring any mistakes down the stretch, but Bennet has himself in decent position to survive.
7.West Virginia – Joe Manchin would be winning big in just about any other cycle, but hatred of Obama and the national democrats is running so high in WV that John Raese is either barely ahead or tied in most polling. This could go either way. I could see a hidden democratic vote coming out in the end a la the PA-12 special last year, or Raese gaining the support of conservative democrats and putting it away. Tough call here. Right now, this one’s barely red because of the partisan lean of WV in national elections
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8.Illinois – This begins the start of the blue column, and it’s a cliffhanger right now between Giannoulias and Kirk. What we’re seeing in IL right now is a gradual “coming home” of Democrats to the democratic candidates, and if this continues, Giannoulias should win this one because of IL’s partisan lean. It’s going to be a sloggy mess the rest of the way though.
9.Nevada – This one is almost interchangeable with Illinois. Polling shows a virtual toss-up here between Harry Reid and Sharron Angle. It’s a battle of the unfavorable, and while undecideds supposedly break for the challenger, polling has had a republican bias in Nevada the last few cycles. GOTV might decide this one, and because of that, my money is on Reid to survive.
10.Washington – This seat is basically the seat of Rassmussen driving a narrative. He’s really the only pollster that has ever had Rossi ahead of Murray, and now the polling average has Murray up by 6-7 points. It’s very hard for me to see Murray losing to an already 2-time statewide loser that hasn’t put up better than 48% in any poll I’ve seen this cycle.
11.California – California appears to be moving away from most republican candidates right now. Fiorina would really need a strong finish and probably a gaffe from Boxer to come back and win.
12.Connecticut – This is the last seat, theoretically, that Team Red has a shot at, but again, with McMahon’s favorables in the crapper, you’d need a gaffe or two from Blumenthal to put this race back into the competitive zone.
2010 Senate Big Board (as of October 13)
Solid Dem – 6 seats
Hawaii (Inouye)
Maryland (Mikulski)
New York (Schumer)
New York (Gillibrand)
Oregon (Wyden)
Vermont (Leahy)
Likely Dem – 2 seats
Connecticut (Blumenthal)
Delaware (Open)
Lean Dem – 2 seats
California (Boxer)
Washington (Murray)
Toss Up – 5 seats
Nevada (Reid)
Colorado (Open)
Illinois (Open)
Pennsylvania (Open)
West Virginia (Manchin)
Lean Rep – 5 seats
Kentucky (Open)
Missouri (Open)
New Hampshire (Open)
North Carolina (Burr)
Wisconsin (Feingold)
Likely Rep – 7 seats
Alaska (Open)
Georgia (Isakson)
Arkansas (Lincoln)
Florida (Open)
Indiana (Open)
Louisiana (Vitter)
Ohio (Open)
Solid Rep – 10 seats
Arizona (McCain)
Alabama (Shelby)
Idaho (Crapo)
Iowa (Grassley)
Kansas (Open)
North Dakota (Open)
Oklahoma (Coburn)
South Carolina (Demint)
South Dakota (Thune)
Utah (Open)
On the gubernatorial side of things, fortunes actually appear to be improving for Team Blue, and in several key states as far as redistricting is concerned. The overall picture appears to be that of the democrats taking over blue state governorships, republicans the red state governorships, and the GOP getting some of the swing state ones too.
Current Governors – 26 democrats, 24 republicans
New Governors – 21 democrats, 29 republicans
Swing – Republicans +5
Pickups (listed in order of likelihood)
Dem Pickups – Rhode Island, Connecticut, Minnesota, Hawaii, California, Florida, Vermont
Rep Pickups – Wyoming, Kansas, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Iowa, Alaska, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Illinois, Ohio
The Map:
Most of the governor races are clear-cut, with very few real toss-ups on the board. Probably the closest races overall are two races that lean slightly GOP, Illinois and Ohio. In Illinois, Pat Quinn has rallied and is trailing Bill Brady by only a few points, in a state in which it’s hard to imagine many undecideds going for the extremely conservative Brady. A victory for Quinn would give democrats control of the redistricting trifecta in Illinois, but because of how concentrated the democratic vote is there, I’m not sure how valuable that would be. It might be possible to eliminate Biggert & Roskam though. Ohio is another close race as Ted Strickland has closed to within a few points of John Kasich, and again here, it appears that most of the remaining undecideds are people that supported the democrats in 2006 and 2008. This race is big as a victory for Strickland (or a hold of the Ohio House) would undo the republican gerrymander of the state’s congressional seats.
One democratic-leaning seat that is somewhat in danger still is California, where Jerry Brown currently leads but is facing a bit of bad publicity at the moment. A victory would give the democrats the trifecta here, although that could be nullified by the passage of a fair districts initiative also on the ballot. Florida is another state in which the democrat is leading and a lot is on the line in terms of redistricting. Florida has a hideous republican gerrymander, and an Alex Sink victory would do away with that. There is a fair districts initiative on the ballot here too, but unlike in California, it looks likely to fail, making it imperative that Sink get the win over corrupt Rick Scott.
Pennsylvania and Texas are two other states in which big state gerrymandering looms large, but in both of these states it appears that the GOP is on their way to a victory. Pennsylvania could still be saved with a retention of the Pennsylvania House, while the democrats would have to take over the Texas House to stave off a gerrymander, which is much less likely than defeating Rick Perry is.
2010 Governors Big Board (as of October 13)
Solid Dem – 4 seats
Arkansas
New Hampshire
New York
Rhode Island
Likely Dem – 2 seats
Colorado
Connecticut
Lean Dem – 5 seats
California
Hawaii
Maryland
Massachusetts
Minnesota
Toss Up – 7 seats
Florida
Illinois
Maine
New Mexico
Ohio
Oregon
Vermont
Lean Rep – 5 seats
Georgia
Pennsylvania
South Carolina
Texas
Wisconsin
Likely Rep – 5 seats
Alaska
Arizona
Iowa
Michigan
Nevada
Solid Rep – 9 seats
Alabama
Idaho
Kansas
Nebraska
Oklahoma
South Dakota
Tennessee
Utah
Wyoming
I’m confident that is the case. The only other one I’m not sure on is VT-Gov. Not enough polling.
I think Alasaka Senate should be only Lean-Republican, not likely. Given the craziness of the race, I think we have a better shot at that than Missouri or Wisconsin at this point.
And, this is minor, but can we please put Richard Burr in likely Republican so we can focus on races we have a chance at winning? I know there’s a Elaine Marshall supporter who says otherwise, but there has been not a single independent poll that says she’s competitive at this point. Even PPP doesn’t describe her as such.
Disagree with Georgia on both accounts.
I’d move the Senate seat to “Solid R”. Thurmond just hasn’t put up the kind of race needed against Isakson.
Governor to “Toss-Up”. If you look at polling alone, yeah Deal has been leading. However, Barnes has a stronger ground game in Middle/South Georgia and there’s no telling what else will come out about Deal.
Most polls show Caprio up by mid-single digits. Ironically, this is the only race where I don’t want to be optimistic for Democrats.
I hope the democratic side can win some thing more 🙂
Still, pretty surprising we’re holding them to between 4 to 8 net pickups. Could have been a lot worse, but then again we’re favored to take 7 from them which is even more than we got in 2006 (when the GOP failed to flip a single governor and we got 6).
Open seats have certainly contributed to a lot of the turnover on both sides, but it’s amazing that Republican gubernatorial candidates have largely failed to benefit from whatever is driving their congressional candidates.
The final Nevada voter registration statistics. This is the 2010 voter pool we’re looking at, folks.
I’m waiting for the county and Congressional District breakdowns to be posted online later. But at first glance, this is quite good for us. Dems edged back up to just over a 60,000 vote advantage, and it looks like Dems added more voters than either GOPers or Indies. It’s making me feel even better about the operation in place here… But now, it’s all about GOTV and it will be all hands on deck to make it happen.
Wish me luck! 😉
This time, Reid goes for the jugular in hitting Angle on what may be her biggest Achilles’ Heel…
It’s hard for someone to rail against “government run health care” when one gets one’s health care and pension FROM the government.
I can’t make a fancy map. I’m jealous.
Safe Republican: North Dakota, Indiana, Arkansas, Florida, North Carolina, Louisiana
-Not even worth talking about anymore.
Likely Republican: Pennsylvania, Missouri, New Hampshire, Alaska
-I’m not shy about moving seats out of the lean/toss up category. Is it conceivable we could still win these seats? I suppose, particularly in Pennsylvania. But a lot of unlikely things would have to happen. If the races were held today they would all be locks to lose. Sorry.
Lean Republican: Wisconsin, Kentucky
-Ron Johnson has run what appears to be a great campaign, but this is a seat that Feigngold has won twice, and his popularity numbers aren’t that low relative to the rest of congress. Time is running out, and he just doesn’t seem to be gaining any ground, but there’s still some hope.
-Paul is really testing the limits of Kentucky conservatism. He’s just a bad sit for his state.
Toss Up: Colorado, Nevada, Illinois, West Virginia
-I’d rank these probably in that order. If the election were held today I think the Dems lose the first two and win the second two. Nevada and Illinois are just such hard races to predict because all four candidates are very unpopular.
Lean Democrat: California, Washington
-Both are really close to the safe category in my mind, but there are more scenarios where I could see Boxer losing than Sestak winning, for example. We’ll see, I’m honestly not very worried about either at the moment, but they could slip still.
Likely Democrat: None
Safe Democrat: Connecticut, Delaware, New York
-Turn off the lights folks, the Repubs aren’t winning these seats.
Safe Republican: Wyoming, Nevada, Kansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Iowa, Michigan
-Yeah……
Likely Republican: Arizona, South Carolina
-Why Arizona isn’t closer I just don’t know. Not just because of the immigration law, but because Brewer is clearly a moron. South Carolina is just such a tough seat for the Dems, good candidate or not.
Lean Republican: Georgia, Texas, Ohio, Maine, New Mexico, Wisconsin
-Georgia is a tough seat for the Dems in off year elections. Older white voters in Georgia are just stunningly conservative.
-A bit of a side note, but Rick Perry’s name has been picking up as a Presidential candidate. Which is stunning if you think about it. He’s having a tough election in Texas as a Republican this year. Shows the lack of good candidates in ’12.
-Ohio is real close to a toss up, but Strickland is still losing in almost all polls, if by a close margin most of the time.
-Libby Mitchell is such an awful candidate. Losing to a conservative Republican in Maine is gross.
Toss Up: Oregon, Vermont, Illinois, Florida
-Vermont is just lacking in good polling. I think the Dems win this.
-The other three look really close. I think Oregon is the closest race this year, by a margin of a few hundred votes maybe.
Leans Democrat: California, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maryland, Minnesota, Hawaii
California is probably the closest. Rhode Island is really a winwin for Dems. In a way I hope Chafee wins.Likely Democrat: New Hampshire, Arkansas
-It would take a lot.
Safe Democrat: Colorado
-Como se dice “rat fucking” en Espanol?