Senate 2014 State-By-State Update: Race for Senate Control Could Not Be Much Tighter (March 23, 2014)

The Senate races are starting to take form as we head into the primary season.  A few preliminaries have turned out to be less interesting than hoped.  Liz Chaney dropped her bid to take on Republican incumbent Mike Enzi in Wyoming, clearing the way for an easy re-election path for him.  And Republican incumbent John Cornyn of Texas crushed a Tea Party threat by a 59-19 margin in the primary.  In an election year in which we will be seeking signs of diminished Tea Party influence, this was quite a marker.  Perhaps Mitch McConnell and Karl Rove will be successful in ensuring that “electable” (read: non-Tea Party, a.k.a., sane) candidates head GOP tickets.  More to come on that.

But let’s get down to the state of play at the moment.  The bottom line:  the race for Senate control is getting even tighter.  Here is how the scorecard looks, compared to my last major assessment in October.  Six months later, the Democrats’ odds of holding on have weakened close to the breaking point.  Their insurance policy is Veep Joe Biden, who would break a 50-50 tie with his vote.  Right now, I have the Democrats holding on by a 51-49 margin, a downgrade from October. 

	Oct 17,	Mar. 23,
	2013	2014
Democrats Total	52	51
Dem Not Up	34	34
Dem Solid	11	10
Dem Lean	4	2
Dem Tossup	3	5
Rep Tossup	2	3
Rep Lean	3	3
Rep Solid	12	13
Rep Not Up	31	30
Republicans Total	48	49

The Democrats have 34 incumbents not up for election, and 10 more races that will almost surely stay blue in 2014, for a total of 44 “in the bag.”  The Republicans have 30 holdovers and 13 certain red wins, adding up to 43 solid red.  So the real battle for control of the Senate will come among 13 “battleground” contests out of the 36 elections.  Republicans have to win 8 of these 13 to take the Senate…and they certainly could.

And of those 13 battleground races, seven of them have margins of two points or less.  Close enough for you?

A few notes on the changes since October.  Republican Tom Coburn of Oklahoma resigned effective January, 2015, and a special election has been set for Election Day 2014.  Essentially, this is a shift within the “solid red,” since Coburn’s Republican successor will almost surely hold the seat within GOP ranks.  One race that I had deemed solid for the Dems last fall – Colorado – is now a battleground state, though I still have it in the Dems column.  Within the other 12 states in play, Louisiana has moved into the Republican column, albeit by a tiny margin.  And some Democratic margins have slipped from “leaning” to “tossup.”  So the ice continues to melt under the Dems’ current 55-45 majority.

Here is the full chart of every race, and the latest polling in the battleground states, and then follows a brief profile of each battleground race as it stands now.  A number of organizations are doing battleground state polling now, and the polls I have aggregated below cover the time period from January 1 up through yesterday.  The blue rows are the solid Democratic races, the white are the 13 battlegrounds, and the red rows are solid Republican.

	Inc.		Retiring/	Dem	Rep	Poll	Current
State	Party	Incumbent	Running	Candidate	Candidate	Margin	Status
Delaware	D	Coons	Running	Coons			Solid Dem
Hawaii	D	Schatz	Running	Schatz			Solid Dem
Illinois	D	Durbin	Running	Durbin			Solid Dem
Massachusetts	D	Markey	Running	Markey			Solid Dem
Minnesota	D	Franken	Running	Franken			Solid Dem
New Mexico	D	Udall	Running	Udall			Solid Dem
Oregon	D	Merkley	Running	Merkley			Solid Dem
Rhode Island	D	Reed	Running	Reed			Solid Dem
Virginia	D	Warner	Running	Warner			Solid Dem
New Jersey	D	Booker	Running	Booker			Solid Dem
New Hampshire	D	Shaheen	Running	Shaheen	Brown	Dem +8	Lean Dem
Iowa	D	Harkin	Retiring	Braley	Jacobs	Dem +8	Lean Dem
Colorado	D	Udall	Running	Udall	Gardner	Dem + 2	Tossup Dem
Georgia	R	Chambliss	Retiring	Nunn	Braun	Dem +1	Tossup Dem
Alaska	D	Begich	Running	Begich	Treadwell/Sullivan	Even	Tossup Dem
North Carolina	D	Hagan	Running	Hagan	Tillis	Even	Tossup Dem
Michigan	D	Levin	Retiring	Peters	Land	Rep +2	Tossup Dem
Kentucky	R	McConnell	Running	Grimes	McConnell	Rep +1	Tossup Rep
Louisiana	D	Landrieu	Running	Landrieu	Cassidy	Rep +2	Tossup Rep
Arkansas	D	Pryor	Running	Pryor	Cotton	Rep +4	Tossup Rep
West Virginia	D	Rockefeller	Retiring	Tennant	Capito	Rep + 10	Lean Rep
Montana	D	Baucus	Retiring	Walsh	Daines	Rep +14	Lean Rep
South Dakota	D	Johnson	Retiring	Weiland	Rounds	Rep + 20	Lean Rep
Alabama	R	Sessions	Running		Sessions		Solid Rep
Idaho	R	Risch	Running		Risch		Solid Rep
Kansas	R	Roberts	Running		Roberts		Solid Rep
Maine	R	Collins	Running		Collins		Solid Rep
Mississippi	R	Cochran	Running		Cochran		Solid Rep
Nebraska	R	Johanns	Retiring		Osborn		Solid Rep
Oklahoma	R	Inhofe	Running		Inhofe		Solid Rep
Oklahoma	R	Coburn	Retiring		Lankford		Solid Rep
South Carolina	R	Graham	Running		Graham		Solid Rep
South Carolina	R	Scott	Running		Scott		Solid Rep
Tennessee	R	Alexander	Running		Alexander		Solid Rep
Texas	R	Cornyn	Running		Cornyn		Solid Rep
Wyoming	R	Enzi	Running		Enzi		Solid Rep

You will note that most of the battleground states are now held by Democrats, 11 of them, versus only two by Republicans.  And five Democrats are retiring, versus only one Republican.

There are five states that can barely be considered “battleground,” where polls show leads of 8 or more points.  Republicans have large leads in West Virginia, Montana and South Dakota, three red states (in the 2012 presidential election) where three long-serving Democrats are retiring, Jay Rockefeller, Max Baucus and Tim Johnson.  Democrats have solid leads in Iowa and New Hampshire; the former where Bruce Braley is doing well in his quest to succeed Tom Harkin, and the latter where Jeanne Shaheen has a strong lead over likely challenger Scott Brown.  (Yes, the same Scott Brown who won Massachusetts’ special election to replace Ted Kennedy but then lost to Elizabeth Warren.  Turns out he has a house over the border in New Hampshire.)  While these races look solid for the leaders, it’s a bit early to pull them out of the battleground column yet, but absent unlikely major shifts, that will eventually happen.

And that leaves those breathtaking seven races where the margin is two points or less. 

The macro forces at work are captured in two measures:  President Obama’s net approval rating, and the so-called “generic ballot,” when pollsters ask voters whether they would vote for a nameless Democrat or Republican in a congressional election.  Obama’s stock dropped with the disastrous start to Obamacare but between the fixes to the website and increasing enrollment numbers (along with a steadily improving economy) he is nearly back to October levels – no great shakes, either, at 45% approval and a net -7%.

Obama Approval Rating	5-Oct	8-Nov	8-Dec	10-Jan	11-Feb	10-Mar
Approve	45.3	45.5	39.9	42.6	43.8	44.6
Disapprove	51.5	52.5	51.8	52.6	51.4	51.7
Net	-6.2	-6.9	-11.9	-10.0	-7.6	-7.0

And the Democrats have similarly (and not coincidentally) ridden the roller coaster down and up, but have not recovered October levels as yet.

Generic Congressional Ballot	5-Oct	8-Nov	8-Dec	10-Jan	11-Feb	10-Mar
Democrat	41.9	45.2	40.7	41.4	39.9	41.0
Republican	38.4	39.5	41.9	41.9	40.7	39.2
Net	3.4	5.7	-1.1	-0.5	-0.8	1.8

Thus the macro environment tells the tale.  Those razor thin margins in these Senate elections will be heavily influenced by these measures, to be sure. And while the past six months have not been kind to Democrats, they are on the upswing.

BATTLEGROUND STATES

Here is a brief review of the 13 battleground Senate elections in 2014:

·        Alaska:  Democratic incumbent Mark Begish will likely face either Lieutenant Governor Mead Treadwell or former Attorney General Daniel S. Sullivan.  The polling is a bit all over the map, and at this point looks to be a tossup.  For me, a tie at this stage goes to the incumbent, since incumbents have actually proven they can win (and thus have organizations, proven fundraising capability, Senate campaign experience, etc.).  Tossup Democrat.

·        Arkansas:  Democratic incumbent Mark Pryor is now behind in a red state the GOP would love to swipe.  Representative Tom Cotton is the likely Republican candidate in a race that has Cotton ahead in most polls except the most recent one which was a dead heat.  I have this in the GOP column.  Tossup Republican.

·        Colorado. Incumbent Democrat Mark Udall was once considered quite solid, but Republican Representative Cory Gardner has thrown his hat into the ring, providing a formidable opponent for Udall, with Udall up only an insignificant one point. Tossup Democrat.

·        Georgia:  A fascinating race to replace the retiring Republican Saxby Chambliss features Democrat Michelle Nunn, daughter of Sam, a political neophyte (she runs a “Points of Light” volunteer organization) who will be the Democrat nominee, but the Republicans have been unable to coalesce around a candidate and the field is crowded to say the least:  seven different candidates have achieved at least 10% of the vote in primary polls.  Nunn is more or less neck-and-neck with Representative Paul Broun, one of the leading contenders, and she leads all the others by a wider margin at this point.  Tossup Democrat.

·        Iowa:  Democratic Representative Bruce Braley is on solid footing to retain the seat currently held by retiring Democrat Tom Harkin.  Businessman Mark Jacobs leads the GOP field at this point, but he trails Braley by 8 in recent polling.  Leaning Democrat.

·        Kentucky:  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, at this juncture, is still in a dogfight.  He will likely crush his own party’s challenger from the right, businessman Matt Bevin.  And I still have been him beating Secretary of State Alison Lunderman, though their polling is as close as can be.  Mitch has been there before, and he keeps smiling.  (For those who miss this reference, the notoriously dour McConnell had some “happy” footage shot of him for use in PAC ads, and this footage has become a bonafide YouTube sensation; check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6x_pjKkYBAk).  Tossup Republican.

·        Louisiana:  Democratic incumbent Mary Landrieu has weakened considerably in a tight race with Republican Representative Bill Cassidy, and I’ve got this one with the GOP as of now.  Tossup Republican.

·        Michigan:  Democratic Representative Gary Peters’s has a slim lead over former Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land in the race to replace retiring Democratic incumbent, Carl Levin.  Land led in most of the polling in January and February but Peters is ahead in the two latest polls, by 3 and 6 points.  I give the nod to incumbent Peters at this point.  Tossup Democrat.

·        Montana:  Longtime Democratic Senator Max Baucus resigned in January to become Ambassador to China, an event that delighted the Dems as it gave his replacement, John Walsh, a running start in his attempt to keep this red state in the Democrats camp in the Senate.  But it ain’t working so far: Walsh trails Republican Representative Steve Daines badly in the polls…by 14 points.  Leaning Republican.

·        New Hampshire:  “Downtown” Scott Brown (so-named for his shot-making abilities as a Tufts University hoopster; I was an eyewitness back in the day, from my seat on the Williams College bench) made it all-but-official, jumping into the fray for the GOP nomination.  But the polls indicate that hard-to-impress New Hampshirites barely shrugged; they had Democratic incumbent Jeanne Shaheen up handily over Brown before he declared, and the latest poll, which came after his announcement, now shows Shaheen’s lead is in double-digits.  Plus   Leaning Democrat.

·        North Carolina:  Democratic incumbent Kay Hagan is locked in a doozie of a race with a broad field of Republicans.  Thom Tillis, Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, appears to be the top candidate.  The average of 8 polls over the last three months shows a 0.1 margin, as close as it gets.  Hagan, as the incumbent, gets the nod here.  Tossup Democrat.

·        South Dakota:  Former Governor Mike Rounds has a huge lead over former Tom Daschle staffer Rick Weiland in this red state that is currently represented by retiring Democrat Tim Johnson.  But Rounds’s life is being complicated by former Republican Senator Larry Pressler, who is running as an independent.  That is the only reason why this race is not “solid red.”  It should be the easiest switch for the Republicans.  Leaning Republican.

·        West Virginia:  Republican representative Shirley Moore Capito has a 10-point lead over state Democratic Secretary of State Natalie Tennant in a race to replace retiring Democrat Jay Rockefeller.  Another easy switch for the Republicans in this red state.  Leaning Republican.

The Democratic path to maintain control of the Senate is fraught with peril, to say the least.  But with those seven 0-2 point margin races still eight months away, Senate control can still go either way.