Posted on 07/09/2013 7:07:28 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
What’s the outlook for the 2014 Senate elections? As in 2010 and 2012, the Republicans once again have a chance to overturn the Democrats’ majority.
Much attention has been focused on whether Republicans this time will nominate candidates capable of winning key races, which they failed to do in the two previous election cycles. But another interesting question is how Democrats will try to hold onto seats in Republican-leaning states even as Barack Obama maintains his strong tilt to the political left.
The lineup is certainly favorable to Republicans. Assuming the New Jersey seat now held by Republican appointee Jeff Chiesa goes Democratic in the October special election, only 14 Republican seats will be up in 2014, but 21 Democratic seats. Only one of those Republican seats is in a state carried by Barack Obama, Maine (56 percent Obama), and three-term incumbent Susan Collins looks unbeatable. In contrast, Democrats have to defend seats in seven states carried by Mitt Romney and in four states that were target states in the 2012 presidential election.
Republicans seem sure to win open seats in South Dakota (58 percent Romney) and West Virginia (62 percent Romney). Well-known Democrats are avoiding both races, and they look like certain Republican pickups. The scene is a bit different in Montana (55 percent Romney), where Senate Finance chairman Max Baucus is retiring after 36 years. The strongest possible Democrat is folksy former governor Brian Schweitzer, who takes populist stands on economics and has backed the Keystone pipeline, which Barack Obama has so far refused to approve.
Two seats in the Deep South held by Democrats with locally famous names are in peril, and the two incumbents seem to have different strategies.
In Louisiana (58 percent Romney), Mary Landrieu, daughter and sister of New Orleans mayors, seems to be running as a proud Obama Democrat. Her state has the second-largest black percentage in the union, and evidently she’s hoping for high black turnout and just enough white votes to give her a fourth narrow majority.
In Arkansas (61 percent Romney), Mark Pryor — son of David Pryor, the representative, governor, and senator whose election wins date back to 1966 — seems to be running as a moderate in tune with local values. He was reelected unopposed in 2008, but Republicans have since captured all the state’s U.S. House seats and majorities in the state legislature. And Arkansas has a much lower black percentage than Louisiana.
Both Landrieu and Pryor have run under 50 percent in recent polls against Representatives John Fleming and Tom Cotton, with Pryor a statistically insignificant 1 percent ahead of the Republican.
In North Carolina (50 percent Romney), Democrat Kay Hagan faces a different battleground. The Obama campaign vastly increased turnout in 2008 and won the state with high black turnout and support from high-education whites. But that coalition failed to prevail in 2012, when Romney narrowly carried the state, and Republicans captured the governorship and won large majorities in the state legislature. Incumbent Hagan won the seat in 2008 largely because of slip-ups by Republican Elizabeth Dole. She has come out for same-sex marriage and isn’t denouncing Obamacare. Evidently she’s hoping to reassemble the 2008 Obama majority.
Another Democratic surprise winner in 2008 was Mark Begich of Alaska (55 percent Romney). He won by 1 percent after incumbent Ted Stevens was convicted on federal charges in October. That conviction was reversed in 2009, but Begich was positioned to cast what can legitimately be called the deciding vote for Obamacare that year.
If Democrats lose all seven of these seats in Romney states, and if Republicans avoid nominating candidates who manage to lose seats that currently seem unlosable, Republicans will have at least a 52-48 Senate majority.
And they have at least an outside chance of winning seats in 2012 target states Colorado, Iowa, and New Hampshire, plus Michigan.
Well, you might ask, isn’t it unusual for one party to sweep all the close races? Actually, sometimes it does. Republicans did in 1980 and Democrats did in 1986 — and those were the same seats.
Republicans won the bulk of close races in 2002, and Democrats won the bulk of close races in 2008 — the same seats again and the ones up next year.
A sweep is by no means certain this time. But if the Obamacare rollout is a “train wreck,” as Baucus feared, the odds get better.
— Michael Barone, senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner, is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Fox News Channel contributor, and a co-author of The Almanac of American Politics.
He can have all the theories and calculations he likes. A Republican Senate is worthless unless it is a conservative Republican Senate. That isn’t going to happen Period. Not a chance.
The traitorous pubbies could hold 70 seats and we still couldn’t override a veto. Probably couldn’t even get a consistent simple majority vote.
Face it, most of the Republican party at that level is closet, big government liberals. Vichy-like collaborators.
Good luck with that. Here’s my take on it.
When Kennedy/McCain tried it, they could have passed it. McCain wanted to run for president, so he let the thing die.
We had a majority of Democrats at the time. Tell me they couldn’t have passed that sucker.
They will do what they want when they want, and there isn’t a darned thing we can do about it.
When NAFTA was being considered, there were so many phone calls and faxes, they actually turned off phones. Did NAFTA pass?
I know folks mean well, and more power to them. If the powers that be think this is the time, you could have 316 million against, and 1 person phone in to support, and it would still pass.
That’s my take on it.
You may be right, but I've not given up. When Ted Cruz says the pressure works, I perk up and listen. If we all give up and watch the Zimmerman trial as a substitute for actively trying to sway our government, it's not a good thing.
The House is not the Senate. Yet.
I don't want any more RINOs!
McLame, Lindsey, Chambliss, Isaksonofabitch, Rubio all call themselves Republican, but they are mere dims taking GOP campaign money. When was the LAST time they stood for ANY Conservative ideals?
You are about to get angry posts from ideologues who believe that the sole qualification for a good GOP/conservative candidate is that he/she claim that they are the ‘most conservative” candidate in the primary, regardless of whatever nonsense they spout about rape or other issues.
They will defend those bad candidates beyond all logic, including the fact that the candidates lost in otherwise Red States because of those peculiar views.
All they want to do is shout ‘RINO” at anyone, candidate or not, who might argue that rape is not pre-ordained by the God of their particular religious vision or other peculiar and minority beliefs.
“I don’t need a Senate run by John McCain. A Senate run by Ted Cruz or Rand Paul, however, would be a breathtaking site to see.”
You raise the 64,000 dollar question. Who would run a Republican Senate? Mr. No Chin Mc Connell? It’s no different than “the Boner Leadership” in the House.
For those phone lines to have made a difference, you would have to believe that enough Democrats were convinced to change their mind, that the majority party couldn’t pass the bill on their own.
Can’t convince me of that. Something else was in play, and I believe it was stealth Democrat McCain and what it would mean to Democrats if he was elected with Ddmocrat majorities in Congress.
Then they’d get immigration and much more.
If Lamar! wins the nomination in TN, I think I will vote for the democrat with the D after his name instead of the democrat with the R after it. It would be worth it to get rid of one of the piece of crap senators we currently have.
I would tend to disagree. I'm somewhat familiar with Barone through his "Almanac of American Politics" and an occasional TV or radio interview. Unlike other political analysts, he seems to be a straight shooter.
Of course, I'd say it's a little too early to project Senate races for next November. And it's too early to tell how much cheating and fraud the 'Rats will be able to get away with..
Remember that some pundits were predicting a swing of anywhere from five to ten Senate seats to the GOP only weeks before last years elections. Turned out, IIRC, the 'Rats actually had a net gain of three or so, according to the reported numbers, which is one more reason to suspect that the 'Rat fraud machine was a key factor in the competitive Senate races as well as in the presidential vote. That makes sense because just about all of the unprecedented amount of illegal votes would have been straight 'Rat from top to bottom.
I’m calling in to these whores, because it is all I can do. We need a 2 or 3 million man march on D.C. Maybe it will happen, if people get mad enough. If they do, I’m going to D.C.
Better than sitting here reading this life-long useless idiot Barone, who worries about 2014, when our country is at stake RIGHT NOW.
GOP Dog: Chases car. Catches it. Doesn’t know what to do with it after that! *SMIRK*
I couldn’t go right now, but I think it’s were tens of millions of us should be.
This government needs to be put on notice.
I know that you would if you could.
Not if they jam "comprehensive immigration reform" down our throats.
I feel good about our chances in West Virginia and South Dakota. I’m cautiously hopeful about Arkansas, Louisiana, and North Carolina. It’s too soon to comment on Montana. Kentucky is kind of iffy, but Obama is toxically unpopular there.
Alaska as well.
Michigan open seat, we have a blue chip candidate in Terry Lynn Land. Not so much in Iowa where we lack that candidate.
Hagan looks quite weak, tied with the State House Speaker and some Tea Party doctor.
Need candidates in Colorado and NH. I’m not optimistic. Doesn’t seem like McDonnell is gonna run in VA.
I’m not concerned about losing Kentucky, Kentucky Senate races are always fairly close though so our “leader” needs to stay on his toes. Not really worried about any GOP seat except our “rental” in NJ or Maine if RINO Sue Collins follows her sister into surprise retirement.
Barone is a Republican I think and a very good analyst.
Now that guy Sabato is an a-hole.
Yeah, Sabato is a dirtbag. He wanted us to lose in 2012.
It’s a done deal in SD and WV. They’re in the bag. I’d be more than cautiously hopeful on Arkansas. Louisiana is going to depend a lot upon how many dead people Mary can drag to the polls.
He also wrote a book outlining a bunch of largely queer changes to the constitution he wants including depriving the states of equal suffrage in the Senate by giving large states extra Senators, instituting Obama’s forced “national service” aka slavery and some unworkable scheme to change to Presidency to a 6 year term with an “optional” extra 2 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_More_Perfect_Constitution#Sabato.27s_proposals
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