Good morning Daily Kos nation. We're two weeks away from Election Day now, and it's time to get an updated look at where I see things.
Before we begin, a shameless plug...for most of you on here October is election season, but for avid distance runners like me it is also marathon season. Two days ago, I ran a personal best, finishing the 2014 Baltimore marathon in 3:13:33. It was a very enjoyable jog through one of the finer cities on the east coast, in a very blue state, I might add. Last year I ran in Philadelphia...to date all of my marathons have either been in blue or purple states (Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Maryland), none in red.
But I digress...onto the analysis!
House of Representatives:
As of my last update in September, I had a net of Even for the entire House. Since then, there have been some positive individual district polls for Republicans, and they have inched slightly ahead in the pollster.com regression nationally, leading 44.6% to 43.5% as of this weekend. Ultimately since my last update, some districts have moved out of the blue column and into the red, giving the Republicans a gain of +5 nationally.
Total Democratic Pickups (4) - FL-2, AR-2, IA-3, NE-2
Total Republican Pickups (9) - NY-21, WV-3, NC-7, FL-26, MN-8, UT-4, AZ-1, AZ-2, CA-52
164 seats are safe for Democrats, 204 seats are safe for Republicans. Overall, there are 67 competitive seats on the board. I have 11 Likely D seats, 12 Lean D, 19 Toss Up, 8 Lean R, and 18 Likely R seats.
I've calculated my % predictions for these seats, and compared the average margin of victory with the average PVI of the battleground. Across the whole, you would expect these two numbers to be pretty darn close. Right now, the average margin of victory in the battleground is Republicans by .8%, and the PVI is R+1.2. That skews a little bit democratic, but the battleground is only 15% of all house seats, so I'm not completely convinced that the battleground will vote exactly in concert with the generic ballot and PVI. (It mostly did in 2012, but there were 91 districts in my battleground in 2012, a much larger sample size)
Ratings Map:
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Outcome Map:
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List of competitive races (in order of Dem winning/losing margin):
Likely Democratic
HI-1 - 57-42
CT-5 - 57-42
CA-31 - 57-43
IL-11 - 57-43
MA-9 - 56-43
WA-1 - 56-43
IA-2 - 56-44
CO-7 - 56-44
CA-3 - 55-44
IL-17 - 55-44
CA-36 - 55-44
Lean Democratic
NH-2 - 55-45
NY-18 - 55-45
NY-1 - 54-45
FL-18 - 54-45
IA-1 - 54-46
IL-10 - 53-46
GA-12 - 53-46
MN-7 - 53-46
NY-24 - 53-47
TX-23 - 53-47
AZ-9 - 53-47
ME-2 - 53-47
Toss Up / Tilt Democratic
IL-12 - 52-48
AR-2 - 52-48
CA-26 - 52-48
IA-3 - 51-48
CA-7 - 51-48
MA-6 - 51-49
NE-2 - 50-49
NH-1 - 50-49
FL-2 - 50-49
Toss Up/Tilt Republican - dem wins stop, rep wins start
NY-11 - 49-50
CO-6 - 49-50
CA-52 - 49-50
AZ-1 - 49-50
MN-8 - 49-50
----------------------------- current House by party (201 D, 234 R)
NJ-3 - 48-51
VA-10 - 48-51
FL-26 - 48-52
AZ-2 - 47-52
WV-3 - 47-52
Lean Republican
NY-21 - 47-53
MI-7 - 47-53
IL-13 - 46-53
MI-1 - 46-53
KS-3 - 46-54
ND-1 - 46-54
MI-11 - 45-54
MT-1 - 45-54
Likely Republican
NY-23 - 44-55
VA-2 - 44-55
CA-21 - 44-55
---------------------------- line of majority House control
KY-6 - 44-56
KS-2 - 44-56
MI-8 - 44-56
PA-6 - 43-56
UT-4 - 43-56
OH-14 - 43-56
IN-2 - 43-56
WV-2 - 43-57
IA-4 - 43-57
NY-19 - 43-57
PA-8 - 42-57
MI-6 - 42-57
WI-6 - 42-57
NJ-5 - 42-57
United States Senate:
The race for the Senate is still tight. I feel that the GOP has a small advantage in terms of likelihood of winning control of the chamber, but it's certainly not a done deal for Team Red. Here are the seats by rating:
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Safe Dem - MA, RI, NJ, DE, IL, NM, OR, HI
Likely Dem - VA, MI, MN
Lean Dem - NH, NC
Toss Up/Tilt D - CO
Toss Up/Tilt R - GA, AR, IA, KS
Lean Rep - KY, LA, SD, AK
Likely Rep -
Safe Rep - ME, WV, TN, AL, MS, TX, NE, WY, MT, ID, SCx2, OKx2
At the beginning of the night, the Democrats will start with 34 seats, Republicans with 30. If you eliminate safe and likely seats, the Democrats have 45 seats to the Republicans' 44. At that point, you have 11 seats that are truly competitive, and I list them in order of democratic victory likelihood.
NH - Jeanne Shaheen doesn't have a big lead on Scott Brown, but she's been winning all cycle, and I don't see that changing.
NC - You occasionally have some bogus pollsters (coughGraviscough) putting Tillis into the lead, but in most reputable surveys Hagan is winning, and usually by 2-4 points. This is on the edge between Tilt and Lean D, but I feel pretty strongly on this one.
CO - The totality of all polling shows Udall behind Gardner by a few points, but a lot of reputable surveys are putting Udall ahead. Plus, CO is a state that always underrates democratic performance in polls. That coupled with less restrictive voting laws in CO compared to other states has me convinced that Udall will pull through.
GA - Incredibly, if you just had this as a straight up race, right now I would take Nunn to beat Purdue here. But as of now I have her winning a small plurality in the November round and then losing the runoff in January by a slim margin. The voting laws in GA could well cost us this seat.
IA - Here's a race that is sitting on a knife edge just like CO and GA. I feel that this will go the opposite direction from CO through and turn red on election night. The trend is in Braley's favor though, so I might change my mind on this by next week unless Ernst continues to put up good polling numbers.
KS - This one is just straight up weird. Orman and Roberts are very close in the polls, but the overall trend seems to be in the republican direction in KS right now. Given this and the massive ad reservations for the final weeks, I have to believe Roberts will pull through.
AR - Pryor has been very resilient and continues to scratch and claw for every vote. The race is close. Ultimately I just think his state has moved too far right for him though, and that he'll go down very narrowly on election night.
KY - I can never seem to make up my mind if this is a toss up race or a lean R race. Grimes has really hung tough throughout the campaign, but she's had a much tougher time picking up the undecideds than I would've expected. I have to pick McConnell to hang on at this point.
SD - This one is very hard to handicap because it's even weirder than the race in KS. Rounds has been a much weaker candidate than I had anticipated, and Weiland's support is growing ever so slightly. Really the big question here is will Weiland or Pressler's voters swing to the other in the last weeks to deny Rounds. Right now I say no, but this one is very unpredictable.
LA - Landrieu will stay strong enough to deny Cassidy a majority in the jungle election, but this year the runoff will be her Senatorial swan song. A rotten shame.
AK - The same goes for Begich, who I think will lose to Sullivan by a bigger margin than polls are projecting. Alaska is sort of the reverse of CO or NV in terms of polling.
In the end, this result would leave the Republicans in control of the Senate for the first time in a nearly a decade, holding 52 seats to the Democrats' 48, for a net gain of 7 seats. The easiest path I see to a democratic majority in 2015-2016 is NH+NC+CO+IA+GA...with the likeliest alternatives being AR, KY, SD, and KS assuming Orman caucuses with the Democrats. The simple fact of the matter is this...even if Democrats win all Senate races in the Obama seats minus Maine, that only gives them 49 seats. They absolutely must win in Colorado, North Carolina, and Iowa to even get to that point. After that, getting the 50th seat is going to be hard. The next 5 most likely seats to flip (GA, AR, KY, SD, and KS) all have PVIs of R+6 or worse. If you thought Democrats holding the Senate in 2010 or 2012 was a great escape...that's nothing compared to what 2014 will be if Team Blue gets out of Election Night with the majority.
State Governors:
The race for the governors' mansions are proving to be quite interesting, though perhaps lacking the drama of the battle for the Senate majority. There are actually many more seats in the toss up column here in relation to the total number of seats than there is for the Senate or the House. Here are my ratings:
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Safe Dem - VT, NY, PA, CA
Likely Dem - NH, RI, MN, OR, HI
Lean Dem - ME, MD
Toss Up/Tilt Dem - MA, FL, IL, WI, KS, CO
Toss Up/Tilt Rep - CT, GA, MI, AZ
Lean Rep - AR, ID, AK
Likely Rep - SC, NM
Safe Rep - OH, TN, AL, IA, SD, NE, OK, TX, WY, NV
ME - This is a pretty crazy three way race, similar to the Senate race in South Dakota. Unlike that race though, it's pretty clear at this point that independent Cutler is nothing more than a potential spoiler. Assuming his numbers don't go up in the next week, I would assume that his support will drop as voters move toward democrat Michaud. Republican LePage has to hope that Michaud's share drops instead, since he can't really gain much on his own at this point. In the end I think Michaud wins by more than the polls expect.
MD - The polls are showing this race closer than expected, but in the end I can't see the republican winning even a plurality here.
MA - This race is pretty tight, possibly due to democratic fatigue and/or the fact that Baker is running a strong campaign. I still think that Coakley, who has a small lead in the polls, will hang on and win.
FL - Scott has thrown everything and the kitchen sink (and some fans) at Crist, but still can't pull into the lead. I have to believe that Crist will get those last few undecideds on board and win this one.
CO - The polls are showing some pretty strong results for Beauprez, but again, I think that polling skews way too far right here. Ultimately I think Hickenlooper prevails, and by more than we all expect.
KS - Unlike Orman in the Senate race, Davis has a really strong ground game and party infrastructure to fend off the attacks from Brownback down the stretch. I do believe that voters will take out their frustrations on Brownback and he will go down by a very slim margin.
IL - Can governor Quinn pull another rabbit out of the hat? For one, he's either leading or tied in polls this time, so his odds are much better than they were a year ago. I feel that his attacks on Rauner were successful, and that he will pull out a close victory on election night.
WI - This might be the closest race of the entire night. Wisconsin is so polarized with regard to governor Walker that nobody is changing their mind. This is going to come down to turnout, and in the end I think Burke will barely eke out a victory here.
CT - This race is going to be another barn burner. Unlike Quinn in IL, I feel that Malloy is up against a stronger opponent, and that he's simply made too many enemies to survive another election. This is where the republican wins start.
MI - Here's another race that is likely to go down to the wire. Snyder is definitely vulnerable but continues to hold a small lead in polls, and I think that Schauer comes close but doesn't do quite enough to get over the hump.
AZ - This is a race that honestly I know next to nothing about, and there has been very little polling on the race. I'm going to go with a republican hold right now but that could change if we see some trend in the polling numbers.
GA - Carter would have a very good chance to win here if he was going against Deal straight up in a first past the post contest. But that runoff just makes it all the more difficult for him. Unlike Nunn in the Senate race, I actually think Carter loses the first round narrowly. He then loses the runoff too and Deal gets re-elected.
AR - Ross has run a decent campaign and hasn't fallen far behind Hutchinson, but in the end this state is just too red.
AK - I'm quite skeptical of the polls here that show Parnell tied or losing. He's not exceptionally unpopular, and polls always underestimate republican performance. The independent and the democrat coming together on the other side makes this contest intriguing, but in the end I see Parnell holding on and winning.
At the end of the day, I see the democrats picking up a net of three governorships. Team Blue will pick up Pennsylvania, Maine, Florida, Wisconsin, and Kansas, while the Republicans pick up Connecticut and Arkansas.