And you don't treat each state as a stand-alone election. You nationalize it by crafting a common message of what the GOP will do in control of the Senate, and have each candidate talk about their role in delivering on that.
Each candidate must have a stump speech that begins with "If you send me to Washington, I will help Mitch McConnell to..." and ends with "Send me to Washington to help Mitch McConnell stop Harry Reid and President Obama."
They didn't do that in 2012, and they're not doing it now.
The common denominator in both campaigns is Mitch McConnell's Senate caucus leadership. If there really is such a thing as a National Republican Senate Committee, then what is it doing?
-PJ
You can’t run those kinds of ads because McConnell is damaged goods when it comes to Conservatives. The first time Tillis (or anyone) ran an ad like that FR alone would light up like a Chrismas tree with “Burn the RINO Shill at the Stake” threads.
The fact is that Tillis and Roberts now appear to be the only winnable-race Republicans who are in trouble. The others seem to get it, and are leading if not pulling away. And marginal GOP candidates (like in IA) are starting to as well.
That means Tillis is an outlier, which reflects upon how he is conducting his own campaign, alone.