Election 2014 Dashboard: One Week to Go, And Some Hope for the Dems in the Senate

One week to go…and though I gaze at the sea quite often, there is no sign of a Republican wave approaching.  And I think I would have seen a tsunami by now, so that is out of the question.  The odds are strong that the GOP will be celebrating on Election Night, but there is still a chance the Democrats could spoil the Senate party.  Here is the latest scorecard, showing the GOP taking the Senate at 51/49 (down from 52/48 last week), picking up a measly three House seats, and the Democrats actually flipping a few statehouses.  After the chart is a look at all of the battleground races.

	Senate	House	Governors
Democrats Total	49	198	23
Dem Not Up	34	-	7
Dem Solid	11	167	9
Dem Lean	0	21	1
Dem Toss-up	4	10	6
Rep Toss-up	3	6	5
Rep Lean	3	11	2
Rep Solid	15	220	13
Rep Not Up	30	-	7
Republicans Total	51	237	27
Change from current	R+6	R+3	D+2

SENATE

I have taken Michigan out of the “battleground” column and put it as a “Solid Democrat” as Gary Peters is just under a double-digit lead over Terry Lynn Land.  So there are 10 races still in play,  and the GOP need to win six of them to get to 51 seats and control of the Senate.  And that is where I have them right now.  Seven races are toss-ups, so anything can happen.

I put these 10 battleground races into three buckets from the Dems’ perspective:

·        “Leading By a Nose”:  New Hampshire, North Carolina, Kansas and now Alaska are all toss-ups that are tilting toward the Dems.  Alaska is the only race to flip in the last week, as two new polls have shown Mark Begich ahead.

·        “Almost Gone”:  Kentucky, Arkansas and Louisiana are not lost causes yet, but they are close.

·        “Gotta Turn One”:  That leaves the Democrats needing to win one from Georgia, Iowa or Colorado, assuming they can hold the first group.  Georgia is problematic because even though Michelle Nunn is ahead (barely), Georgia is one of two states that require the leader to get 50%+ of the vote to avoid a runoff (the other is Louisiana).  With a Libertarian in the race, Nunn may win but not achieve the 50%.  And a runoff, with even lower Democrat turnout than a mid-term election, would favor Perdue.  That leaves Iowa, where Bruce Braley cannot break through against borderline nutcase Joanie Ernst, and Colorado, where Mark Udall has struggled against Corey Gardner.  All uphill battles, but not out of reach….best bet is Iowa.

	SENATE BATTLEGROUND STATES (10)
	Incumb.	Dem	Rep	Poll	BTRTN	Change From
State	Party	Candidate	Candidate	Margin	Projection	Last Update
New Hamp.	D	Shaheen	Brown	D + 2	D Toss-up	n/c
N. Carolina	D	Hagan	Tillis	D + 1	D Toss-up	n/c
Alaska	D	Begich	Sullivan	D + 1	D Toss-up	From R Lean
Kansas	R	Orman (I)	Roberts	I + 1	I Toss-up	n/c
Georgia	R	Nunn	Perdue	Even	R Toss-up	n/c
Iowa	D	Braley	Ernst	R + 1	R Toss-up	n/c
Colorado	D	Udall	Gardner	R + 3	R  Toss-up	From R Lean
Kentucky	R	Grimes	McConnell	R + 5	R Lean	From R TU
Arkansas	D	Pryor	Cotton	R + 5	R Lean	n/c
Louisiana	D	Landrieu	Cassidy	R + 6	R Lean	From R TU

GOVERNORS

There are 14 battleground states and fully 11 of them are toss-ups at this point.  Massachusetts is a fascinating race as Martha Coakley now trails Charlie Baker by a few points.

		TIGHT GOVERNOR RACES (14)
	Incumb.	Dem	Rep	Poll	BTRTN	Change From
State	Party	Candidate	Candidate	Margin	Projection	Last Update
Rhode Island	D	Raimando	Fung	D + 7	D Lean	n/c
Kansas	R	P. Davis	Brownback	D + 2	D Toss-up	n/c
Maine	R	Michaud	LePage	D + 2	D Toss-up	n/c
Florida	R	Crist	Scott	D + 1	D Toss-up	n/c
Colorado	D	Hickenlooper	Beauprez	D + 1	D Toss-up	From R TU
Alaska	R	Walker (I)	Parnell	I + 1	D Toss-up	n/c
Connecticut	D	Malloy	Foley	Even	D Toss-up	n/c
Illinois	D	Quinn	Rauner	Even	R Toss-up	From D TU
Wisconsin	R	Burke	Walker	R + 1	R Toss-up	n/c
Georgia	R	Carter	Deal	R + 1	R Toss-up	n/c
Mass.	D	Coakley	Baker	R - 2	R Toss-up	From D TU
Michigan	R	Schauer	Snyder	R + 2	R Toss-up	n/c
Arkansas	D	Ross	Hutchinson	R + 6	R Lean	n/c
Arizona	R	DuVal	Ducey	R + 7	R Lean	n/c

HOUSE

Not much has changed on the House front, with the GOP still on track to pick up a few seats, but not the 7+ they are targeting.  The most interesting race is New York 18, where Sean Patrick Maloney is trying to hold off Nan Heyworth, whom he defeated two years ago to win his first term.

	HOUSE BATTLEGROUND RACES (48)
	Incumb.	Dem	Rep	Experts Avg.	BTRTN	Change From
State	Party	Cand.	Cand.	D = 1, R = 8	Projection	Last Update
Mass 9	D	Keating	Chapman	2.0	D Lean	n/c
Ill 11	D	Foster	Senger	2.0	D Lean	n/c
Ariz 9	D	Sinema	Rogers	2.4	D Lean	n/c
Fla 18	D	Murphy	Domino	2.4	D Lean	n/c
Iowa 2	D	Loebsack	Miller-Meeks	2.4	D Lean	n/c
Nev 4	D	Horsford	Hardy	2.4	D Lean	From D Solid
Cal 36	D	Ruiz	Nestande	2.6	D Lean	n/c
Cal 31	R	Aguilar	Chabot	2.8	D Lean	n/c
Ill 17	D	Bustos	Schilling	2.8	D Lean	n/c
Haw 1	D	Takai	Djou	2.9	D Lean	n/c
Minn 7	D	Peterson	Westrom	3.0	D Lean	n/c
NY 18	D	Maloney	Heyworth	3.0	D Lean	n/c
Tex 23	D	Gallego	Canseco	3.0	D Lean	n/c
Iowa 1	D	Murphy	Blum	3.1	D Lean	n/c
Mass 6	D	Tierney	Tisei	3.2	D Lean	n/c
NH 2	D	Kuster	Garcia	3.3	D Lean	n/c
NY 24	D	Maffei	Maffei	3.3	D Lean	n/c
Ga 12	D	Barrow	Allen	3.5	D Lean	n/c
Maine 2	D	Cain	Polinquin	3.5	D Lean	n/c
NY 1	D	Bishop	Zeldin	3.5	D Lean	n/c
Cal 26	D	Brownley	Gorell	3.8	D Lean	n/c
Minn 8	D	Nolan	Mills	4.2	D Lean	From D TU
Ariz 1	D	Kirkpatrick	Tobin	4.3	D Toss-up	n/c
Cal 52	D	Peters	DeMaio	4.3	D Toss-up	n/c
Cal 7	D	Bera	Ose	4.3	D Lean	From D TU
Fla 26	D	Garcia	Curbilo	4.3	D Toss-up	n/c
Ill 10	D	Schneider	Dold	4.3	D Toss-up	n/c
NH 1	D	Shea-Porter	Guinta	4.3	D Toss-up	n/c
Ariz 2	D	Barber	McSally	4.4	D Toss-up	n/c
Ill 12	D	Enyart	Bost	4.4	D Toss-up	n/c
NY 11	R	Recchia	Grimm	4.3	D Toss-up	From D TU
Fla 2	R	TBD	Southerland	4.7	R Toss-up	n/c
Iowa 3	R	Appel	Young	4.7	R Toss-up	n/c
Neb 2	R	Ashford	Terry	4.7	R Toss-up	From R Lean
WV 3	D	Rahall	Jenkins	4.7	R Toss-up	From D TU
Ark 2	R	Hays	Hill	4.8	R Toss-up	From R Lean
Col 6	R	Romanoff	Coffman	5.2	R Toss-up	n/c
NJ 3	R	Belgard	MacArthur	5.5	R Lean	n/c
WV 2	R	Casey	Mooney	5.5	R Lean	n/c
Va 10	R	Foust	Comstock	5.7	R Lean	n/c
NY 21	D	Woolf	Stefanik	6.4	R Lean	n/c
Cal 21	R	Renteria	Valadao	6.6	R Lean	n/c
Ill 13	R	Callis	Davis	6.6	R Lean	n/c
Mich 1	R	Cannon	Benishek	6.6	R Lean	n/c
Mon AL	R	Lewis	Zynke	7.0	R Lean	n/c
NY 19	R	Eldridge	Gibson	7.0	R Lean	n/c
NY 23	R	Robertson	Reed	7.0	R Lean	n/c

Final predictions next Monday!