Currently, the Senate has 54 Republicans and 44 Democrats, and two independents who caucus with the Democrats. 34 seats are up this year, of which 24 are GOP and 10 are Democratic. The math says…we need five.
Let’s play.
Here are the seats. For those of you who are new to this, they are ranked from Bright Blue – Safe Democratic, Medium Blue – Likely Democratic, Pale Blue – Lean Democratic, Yellow- Toss-up, Pale Red – Lean Republican, Medium Red – Likely Republican, and Bright Red – Safe Republican.
I’m sometimes asked the difference between “Lean” and “Likely”, and it’s an issue of degree for pollsters and statisticians. This far out, there’s a lot of play. As we get into September, we’ll see more Bright colors.
Matt will be posting a table, that we’ll keep updated, compiling the different rankings from various professional outlets. We’ve done this a couple times before, and when I post my rankings, they often disagree but often the other folks come around to my thinking a week before election day. Yes, I was wrong about both Maine and Georgia in 2008, but I was swept up: normally, I’ve got a good track record. Every Sunday, I’ll be posting details about an individual race, or other Senate happenings. For those of you who remember “Sunday with the Senators”, we’re back!
There are eight Safe Democratic states:
- California: Barbara Boxer is retiring, and thanks to the jungle primary system, the two candidates are both Democratic: Kamala Harris, current Attorney General , and Loretta Sanchez, a Congresswoman from the LA area.
- Connecticut: Richard Blumenthal will have an easy race.
- Hawaii: Brian Schatz will walk away with the win.
- Maryland: Barbara Mikulski is retiring after 30 years of service. She will be followed by Chris Van Hollen, who won a heated primary with Donna Edwards.
- New York: Chuck Schumer will be taking Harry Reid’s place either as Senate Majority Leader, or, if I’m wrong, Senate Minority Leader.
- Oregon: Ron Wyden! Winner!
- Vermont: Patrick Leahy! Yay! In office since 1975.
- Washington: Patty Murray was elected in 1992 as the state’s first female Senator, and she’ll be returning.
Likely Democratic:
- Colorado: Michael Bennet. I’ll probably be moving this over to “Safe” by the end of August. Right now, Bennet is polling an average of 12 points ahead of Darryl Glenn. In addition, he’s got about $6 million cash on hand to Glenn’s reported $50,000. HOWEVER, it looks like Ted Cruz is going to mount an effort to move the seat, so we’ll look at this more closely later in August.
- Wisonsin: Yes, I know this state is currently held by Ron Johnson who is a Republican, but I see it as a likely Democratic pick-up by OH! HOW WE’VE MISSED YOU RUSS FEINGOLD. Remember, Russ was the single Senator who voted against the Patriot Act.
Leans Democratic:
Yes, I know. Most people list these as toss-ups. They’ll come around.
- Illinois: Mark Kirk vs. Tammy Duckworth. There is no polling out yet, and he’s been about as “moderate” as Republican can be in these times, but she’s going to get a bump from being a woman in this year of the woman.
- Indiana: This open seat is due to Dan Coat’s retirement. While it looked like Todd Young would coast, Evan Bayh entered the race a week ago. He’s got name recognition, and only one barrier: honestly telling Indianans why he left.
- New Hampshire: Kelly Ayotte (R-Incumbent) is running against Maggie Hassan, the incumbent Governor are competing for this seat. While the polls bounce back and forth, and there is no gender advantage, I see Hassan getting just a little bump from the Clinton voters who will turn out to stop Donald Trump.
- Nevada: Harry Reid is retiring after a lifetime of public service in many offices. He’s 76. His hand-picked successor is former state Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, running against Congressman Joe Heck. She will have the benefit of the Reid machine, and the bump from running on the Clinton down-ticket. Remember, this is both a union state, and in part a Mormon state.
- Pennsylvania: Incumbent Pat Toomey (R) is running against Katie McGinty. I see her winning, and this will be next Sunday’s article.
Toss-Up:
- Florida: The primary is August 30th and we’ll know a lot more then. I’ll frame the race before then.
- Ohio: This is a really close call between Rob Portman and Ted Strickland.
- Arizona: You’d think John McCain would be on the way to his sixth term in the Senate. And I want to say I respect him for his incredible bravery in Vietnam. He’s never had a worthy opponent, which he does in Ann Kirkpatrick.
Lean/Likely Republican:
Missouri, North Carolina, Iowa, and Louisiana. Things look good for the incumbents, I can’t see David Vitter losing the primary to David Duke, but that would generate an incredible snark post, and possibly a Democratic victory. However, these guys could lose in a wave election.
Safe Republican:
Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Georgia, Kansas, Rand Paul, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah. For any of these guys to lose, Hillary Clinton would need to beat Donald Trump by 8 points nationwide. If anything changes, I’ll let you know.
As always, please feel free to use to comments to tell me why I’m wrong.
In Louisiana, Vitter is not running. Louisiana will have the equivalent of an open primary on November 8. Besides David Duke, there are four other major Republican candidates — two congressmen, a former congressman, and the State Treasurer. There are two or three significant Democratic candidates. With this many credible candidates running, it is unlikely that anybody will get a majority. This seat will be decided by a run-off on December 10. Maybe three clear candidates will emerge by November. If not, it might only take something in the upper teens/lower 20s to make the run-off (see New Hampshire Republican primary where second place was 15.7%). While, in a traditional primary system, the Republicans would be favored to win Louisiana, the large number of viable candidates could result in a weird outcome — two “mainstream” Republicans or two Democrats or David Duke and either a Republican or a Democrat making the run-off. Now that the candidate list is final, perhaps there will be some polling that will tell us how the candidates stand. Until then, I can easily see a situation in which Duke and the top Democrat are both above 20% while the “mainstream” Republicans are deadlocked in the low teens.