Final Election 2014 Projections for Senate, House, Governors: Settle In, it's Going to be a Long Night...Actually a Long Few Months...

Yogi had it right:  it ain’t over until it’s over.  And Election Night 2014 might not be over until, well, January.  Mitch McConnell may not know until then, for sure, if he will hold the Senate Majority Leader’s gavel in the next Congress.

This will be a good night for the GOP, but not a great night.  By my forecasts, they will not be able to declare the Senate their own by dawn.  They will emerge in the wee hours, maybe even Wednesday or Thursday, with 49 seats, two short of the required 51 to take the Senate.  But that’s because two races will head to a run-off in the coming months.  More on that below.  The GOP will pick up 10 seats in the House, a good amount on top of a strong base, but probably not enough to be a “wave.”  And they will actually lose a couple of state houses in a year of many tightly contested Governor races.

Here is the summary chart of how the evening will end if I am absolutely spot on….and this is a terribly difficult year to be 100%, with so many races still toss-ups.  At this stage, so many races are at the mercy of the weather, the ground game, the turnout, that they become all the more difficult to predict.

	Senate	House	Governors
Democrats Total	49	191	23
Dem Not Up	34	-	7
Dem Solid	11	166	10
Dem Lean	0	19	0
Dem Toss-up	4	6	6
Runoff	2	-	-
Rep Toss-up	2	11	5
Rep Lean	0	12	0
Rep Solid	17	221	15
Rep Not Up	30	-	7
Republicans Total	49	244	27
Change from current	R+4 (so far)	R+10	D+2

Before getting into each set of races, a word on the Born To Run The Numbers track record, summarized below since 2008.  Not bad, virtually even with Nate Silver!

	2008	2008	2010	2010	2012	2012	2012
	Pres.	Senate	Senate	House	Pres.	Senate	House
Total States/Races	50	35	36	435	50	33	435
# Correct	48	35	33	420	49	31	416
% Correct	96%	100%	92%	97%	98%	94%	96%

SENATE

The Senate is a mighty complex story.  This is not your normal Super Bowl, in which even an overtime game (and there has never been an overtime in a Super Bowl) would conclude within an hour after regulation time, at most.  An extra hour won’t do it here.  Not even an extra month.

I have lobbed Kentucky and Arkansas into the “solid” Republican column leaving only eight battleground states.  The GOP thus has 30 Senators not up for reelection and another 17 races over but for the counting; thus they need four of the eight to take control of the Senate with 51 seats.  Among the eight in play, I see them winning in Iowa and Colorado, but losing by a nose in New Hampshire, North Carolina, Alaska and Kansas.

That would give them 49 seats pending the outcomes of Louisiana and Georgia.  And that is where it gets tricky.  Both states require the winner to take 50%+ of the total to claim victory, otherwise there is a runoff among the top two votegetters, in December for Louisiana and in January for Georgia.  Democrat Mary Landrieu has a decent lead over Bill Cassidy in Louisiana, but the problem is that it is really an open primary, and a second Republican is on the ticket.  Landrieu will not get to 50%, and once the second Republican drops off in the runoff, as of now Cassidy would be favored in the runoff.

Georgia is slightly different.  It is not an open primary, but there is a Libertarian candidate on the ballot who will take 3% or so, just enough to deny the leader the 50%.  At this point, Democrat Michelle Nunn is slightly behind David Perdue.  And in the runoff, Perdue is likely to gain the Libertarian vote.

But…the runoffs are months away and anything can happen.  Skeletons can emerge, the world scene can change, the money and volunteers will flow in.  If the GOP does not get to 51 on election night, it’s a whole new ball game.

And there is one other complicating factor.  There are two Independents in the mix, Senator Angus King of Maine (who is not up for reelection), and potential winner Greg Orman in Kansas.  King caucuses with the Democrats now, but who is to say what he will do, or Orman?  So Senate control may ultimately be up to them.

And the final oddity…the Georgia runoff race actually occurs after the Senate begins its next session.  Could Harry Reid hold on as Leader for a few days and then be forced to yield to Mitch McConnell after Georgia comes in?

Whew!

Here is how the races will break down:

	SENATE BATTLEGROUND STATES (8)
	Incumb.	Dem	Rep	Poll	BTRTN
State	Party	Candidate	Candidate	Margin	Projection
New Hamp.	D	Shaheen	Brown	D + 3	Dem
N. Carolina	D	Hagan	Tillis	D + 2	Dem
Alaska	D	Begich	Sullivan	D + 1	Dem
Kansas	R	Orman (I)	Roberts	I + 1	Ind (Dem?)
Louisiana	D	Landrieu	Cassidy	D + 6	Runoff
Georgia	R	Nunn	Perdue	R + 1	Runoff
Iowa	D	Braley	Ernst	R + 2	Rep
Colorado	D	Udall	Gardner	R + 3	Rep
Solid Democrat:  Del, Haw, Ill, Mass, Mich, Minn, NJ, NM, Ore, RI, Va
Solid Republican: Ark, Ala, Id, Ky, Me, Mississippi, Mon, Neb, Okl (2), SC (2), SD, Tn, Tx, WV, Wy

GOVERNORS

The GOP currently holds 29 state houses and this will drop to 27 after election night.  Well, that is my brave prediction, but how solid can one feel when there are no fewer than 11 toss-up races, where the candidates are within a few points of one another?  But here is how I see them going:

		TIGHTEST GOVERNOR RACES (11)
	Incumb.	Dem	Rep	Poll	BTRTN
State	Party	Candidate	Candidate	Margin	Projection
Kansas	R	P. Davis	Brownback	D + 2	Dem
Illinois	D	Quinn	Rauner	D + 2	Dem
Connecticut	D	Malloy	Foley	D + 1	Dem
Florida	R	Crist	Scott	D + 1	Dem
Alaska	R	Walker (I)	Parnell	I + 1	Dem
Maine	R	Michaud	LePage	Even	Dem
Colorado	D	Hickenlooper	Beauprez	Even	Rep
Michigan	R	Schauer	Snyder	R + 1	Rep
Wisconsin	R	Burke	Walker	R +  2	Rep
Georgia	R	Carter	Deal	R + 3	Rep
Mass.	D	Coakley	Baker	R - 3	Rep

Solid Democrat:	Cal, Haw, Md, Minn, NH, NY, Ore, Pa, RI, Vt
Solid Republican:	Ala, Az, Ark, Id, Ia, Nb, Nv, NM, Ohio, Ok, SC, SD, Tn, Tx, Wy

HOUSE

It will be a strong night for the GOP in the House, adding 10 more seats to the majority.  Due to the wonders of gerrymandering, only 48 races are really in play, a mere 11% of the 435 total.  Instead of relying on polls, which are limited in these races (and often wrong), I have aggregated the ratings of five services: RealClearPolitics, Crystal Ball, Rothenburg Roll Call, Daily Kos and Cook Reports, by assigning values for their various ratings. 

If each service saw a race as “Solid Democrat,” I gave it a 1 for each.  If they rated a race as Solid for the GOP, I gave it an 8 for each.  And then I assigned values along the scale in between for Likely, Leaning, Toss-up.  If a race scored between 2.0 and 7.0 on average I saw it as competitive.  I have ranked these races according to that score, so the most likely Democrat wins (among the 48 battleground races) are at the top and the most likely GOP wins at the bottom.

	HOUSE BATTLEGROUND RACES (48)
	Incumb.	Dem	Rep	Experts Avg.	BTRTN
State	Party	Cand.	Cand.	D = 1, R = 8	Projection
Cal 24	D	Capps	Mitchum	2.0	Dem
Ill 11	D	Foster	Senger	2.0	Dem
Mass 9	D	Keating	Chapman	2.2	Dem
Ariz 9	D	Sinema	Rogers	2.4	Dem
Fla 18	D	Murphy	Domino	2.4	Dem
Ill 17	D	Bustos	Schilling	2.6	Dem
Cal 31	R	Aguilar	Chabot	2.9	Dem
Cal 36	D	Ruiz	Nestande	2.9	Dem
Nev 4	D	Horsford	Hardy	2.9	Dem
Iowa 2	D	Loebsack	Miller-Meeks	3.1	Dem
Minn 7	D	Peterson	Westrom	3.1	Dem
Tex 23	D	Gallego	Canseco	3.1	Dem
Mass 6	D	Moulton	Tisei	3.3	Dem
Haw 1	D	Takai	Djou	3.4	Dem
Maine 2	D	Cain	Polinquin	3.4	Dem
NH 2	D	Kuster	Garcia	3.4	Dem
NY 18	D	Maloney	Heyworth	3.5	Dem
Ga 12	D	Barrow	Allen	3.6	Dem
Cal 26	D	Brownley	Gorell	3.9	Dem
NY 24	D	Maffei	Maffei	4.1	Dem
Cal 52	D	Peters	DeMaio	4.2	Dem
Iowa 1	D	Murphy	Blum	4.2	Dem
Ariz 2	D	Barber	McSally	4.3	Dem
Neb 2	R	Ashford	Terry	4.3	Dem
Fla 2	R	TBD	Southerland	4.4	Dem
Ariz 1	D	Kirkpatrick	Tobin	4.6	Rep
Cal 7	D	Bera	Ose	4.6	Rep
Ill 10	D	Schneider	Dold	4.6	Rep
Minn 8	D	Nolan	Mills	4.6	Rep
NH 1	D	Shea-Porter	Guinta	4.6	Rep
NY 1	D	Bishop	Zeldin	4.6	Rep
WV 3	D	Rahall	Jenkins	4.6	Rep
Fla 26	D	Garcia	Curbilo	4.7	Rep
Ill 12	D	Enyart	Bost	4.7	Rep
Iowa 3	R	Appel	Young	4.8	Rep
Ark 2	R	Hays	Hill	4.9	Rep
NY 11	R	Recchia	Grimm	4.9	Rep
Col 6	R	Romanoff	Coffman	5.1	Rep
WV 2	R	Casey	Mooney	5.2	Rep
NJ 3	R	Belgard	MacArthur	5.6	Rep
Va 10	R	Foust	Comstock	5.6	Rep
Cal 21	R	Renteria	Valadao	6.4	Rep
Mich 1	R	Cannon	Benishek	6.6	Rep
Ark 4	4	Witt	Westerman	6.7	Rep
Ariz 4	4	Weisser	Gosar	6.8	Rep
Ill 13	R	Callis	Davis	6.8	Rep
NY 21	D	Woolf	Stefanik	6.8	Rep
NY 19	R	Eldridge	Gibson	7.0	Rep

I’ll be up all night keeping score.  And when the night is over…remember Yogi.  Because it won’t be over yet.