Skip links

2014 Senate

Sabato's Crystal Ball

Nationalization of Senate Elections Poses Challenge to Democrats in 2014

Democrats face several challenges in trying to maintain their majority in the U.S. Senate in the 2014 midterm election. In addition to the normal tendency of the president’s party to lose seats in midterm elections, Democrats are defending 21 of the 36 seats that are up this year including seven seats in states that were carried by Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election. Moreover, six of those seats are in states that Romney carried by a double-digit margin. Given this math, Republicans are almost certain to make at least some gains in this year’s Senate elections, and the six seats they need to regain control of the upper chamber appear to be within reach. The Crystal Ball’s most recent Senate ratings predict a GOP pickup of between four and eight seats in November, and several statistical forecasting models, including my own, have given Republicans at least a 50-50 chance of gaining six or more seats this year. Despite the difficult task that they face in defending so many Senate seats in Red states this year, Democrats have some hope of offsetting expected losses by taking back two seats currently held by Republicans — the Kentucky seat held by Senate

Alan I. Abramowitz

Notes on the State of Politics: Primary Edition

National Republicans get their men (and women) The key takeaway from Tuesday night’s primaries, and the primary season in general so far, is that national Republican leaders are getting the general election nominees they want in key races. What they do with those nominees in the fall remains to be seen. In Tuesday’s marquee event, the Republican Senate primary in Georgia, businessman David Perdue (R) — the cousin of former Gov. Sonny Perdue (R)  — and Rep. Jack Kingston (R, GA-1) finished first and second. They will advance to a runoff election nine weeks from now. While of course both candidates could be damaged by the ongoing primary campaign, they are the two preferred candidates of D.C. Republican Senate strategists. Karen Handel (R), the former Georgia secretary of state who finished third, might also have been a decent general election candidate, but she disappointed many Republicans with her lack of fundraising. Bringing up the rear among the top candidates were Reps. Phil Gingrey (R, GA-11) and Paul Broun (R, GA-10), who performed so poorly that their combined vote total didn’t even match third-place finisher Handel. Broun and Gingrey have made controversial social issues comments in the past, the kind that

Kyle Kondik

NOTES ON THE STATE OF POLITICS

Arkansas now a Toss-up It’s become clear over the past few months that Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR), despite the increasing Republican lean of his state, has been holding his own, or better, against Rep. Tom Cotton (R, AR-4). Several positive polls for the incumbent, including a too-optimistic 11-point lead from NBC/Marist earlier this week, moved the HuffPost Pollster average in the race to 45.2% Pryor, 42.7% Cotton. Democrats are defending seven Senate seats in states that Mitt Romney won in 2012. In three of these races — Montana, South Dakota and West Virginia — we perceive a clear Republican edge, and have for months. Meanwhile, there are three others — Alaska, Louisiana and North Carolina — that we have seen as Toss-ups for months, and close polls in all three states confirm that view. With a Leans Republican rating, we had Arkansas lumped in with the first group, but it really belongs with the second group. Table 1: Senate ratings change Our most recent Senate ratings are shown in Map 1 below. Map 1: Crystal Ball Senate ratings In his Politico Magazine column earlier this week, U.Va. Center for Politics Director Larry J. Sabato gave a full overview of the

Kyle Kondik

Are Republicans Really Doomed Demographically?

Much of the debate about elections today revolves around the “Emerging Democratic Majority” thesis, taken from the 2002 book of the same name. The thesis is pretty straightforward: Because of demographic changes, the GOP is on a path toward irrelevance unless it can remake itself and appeal to the rising electorate. The theory has congealed into something of conventional wisdom among those who follow politics, at least as it relates to presidential elections. I’ve long been a skeptic of the argument. It’s not that I believe that it is impossible or necessarily wrong. I just think there is insufficient evidence to support a conclusion that we’re drifting toward a situation where Republicans are locked out of the White House except in the worst of circumstances. I’ve written extensively about this elsewhere, and touched on it here. Because the issue will probably come up repeatedly, especially as we march toward 2016, it seemed like a good chance to lay out some basic arguments in response to the thesis for the Crystal Ball’s audience. I’ll be using this column, “The GOP’s Political Reconstruction Project,” published by Pete Wehner in Commentary last month, as an interlocutor. To be clear, I do this not

Sean Trende

HOW BIG A WAVE?

U.Va. Center for Politics Director Larry J. Sabato is contributing a regular column to Politico Magazine. This week he takes a look at the many Senate scenarios in 2014 and the most vulnerable Democratic seats. — The Editors Last week, Republican primary voters passed their first Senate test, producing a North Carolina nominee, Thom Tillis, who is merely imperfect, not catastrophic. After the disasters of recent years, national Republicans will happily take it. The North Carolina result did nothing to change the expectation among most observers that the Republicans have a 50-50 or better shot at taking the Senate majority. It might even have enhanced those odds. The conventional wisdom is reasonable: We know that the president is unpopular, the president’s party typically performs poorly in midterms and the Democrats are overextended on this year’s Senate map. One of the ways the Republicans could hurt their chances is by running bad candidates in some of these races. Tillis might turn out to be that kind of candidate, but he was clearly the most credible nominee in the primary field. So where is the Senate right now? Hypothetically, there’s still a wide range of potential outcomes — and all the likeliest

Larry J. Sabato

The surprisingly unrepresentative 2014 Senate map

Crystal Ball Managing Editor Kyle Kondik recently wrote a piece for Politico Magazine about 10 maps that explain the 2014 election. We wanted to highlight one of the maps, which shows how this year’s Senate contests are being contested on very Republican turf — and that a very small number of voters in some fairly conservative states could flip control of the Senate this year. This excerpt features the Political Map of the United States, which readers might remember from past editions of the Crystal Ball. — The Editors The Political Map of the United States and the 2014 Senate class This map shows the 2014 Senate races in blue and red, with the states sized according to their population and colored based on their current occupant. (The gray states are those with no regular Senate election this year.) Senate Class 2, the one contested this year, is far less representative of the nation as a whole than the two other classes. Its 33 states contain slightly more than half (51.8%) of the nation’s population. Class 1 (the 2012 class) also features 33 states, but those states host three-quarters (75.2%) of the population; Class 3, coming in 2016 with 34

Kyle Kondik

PRIMARY ROUNDUP: NORTH CAROLINA REPUBLICANS VOTE FOR ELECTABILITY

Backed by an onslaught of advertising from outside establishment Republican groups and assisted by the lack of a top-tier opponent, North Carolina state House Speaker Thom Tillis (R) won his party’s Senate nomination on Tuesday night, capturing about 46% of the vote. He needed 40% to avoid a runoff against the second-place finisher, Tea Party darling Greg Brannon (R). It’s impossible to quantify, given that we are just at the start of the primary season nationally, but it’s reasonable to wonder whether the GOP primary electorate is learning from its primary mistakes of the past two cycles, when poor Senate nominees lost winnable general elections. At the same time, the 40% rule undoubtedly aided Tillis as well. Whereas most runoff states require winning a majority in the primary to avoid a second round of balloting, North Carolina has a lower hurdle. As Washington Monthly’s Ed Kilgore pointed out Tuesday night, Tillis’ vote percentage was similar to Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst’s (R-TX) in the Lone Star State’s 2012 GOP Senate primary, but in that case Dewhurst was forced into a runoff that he lost to now-Sen. Ted Cruz (R). Either way, the end result is the more electable candidate won the

Kyle Kondik

The Minimal Class Divide in American Politics

How deep is the class divide in American politics today? According to some scholars and pundits, it is very deep indeed. In a recent post on the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog, Larry Bartels of Vanderbilt University, the author of Unequal Democracy and a highly regarded public opinion scholar, presented evidence from a multi-nation public opinion survey that showed the relationship between income and support for cuts in government spending was considerably stronger in the U.S. than in other industrial democracies. Because of the disproportionate political influence wielded by upper-income citizens in the U.S., Bartels argued that their strong support for spending cuts has had a powerful influence on elite attitudes and ultimately on government policies. Bartels’ findings were cited by Paul Krugman of the New York Times, one of the nation’s most influential liberal pundits, as evidence that the United States has become a “class-ridden” society in which income has a powerful influence on political attitudes and behavior. But is this really true? Before accepting results from one study as authoritative, we should examine evidence from other recent national surveys on the impact of social class on political attitudes and behavior in the U.S. to see if they show

Alan I. Abramowitz

Notes on the State of Politics

April quiet brings May excitement After two states, Texas and Illinois, held the first primary contests of the 2014 election calendar in March, April featured exactly zero. But a month and a half of inactivity will give way to a busy May primary season with 11 scheduled elections, as seen below in Table 1. Table 1: Upcoming primaries in May Note: Texas held its primary on March 4, with some races advancing to the state’s May 27 runoff. The first Tuesday of the month, May 6, features primaries in Indiana, North Carolina and Ohio. The Tar Heel State features the marquee contest, the Senate primary on the Republican side. There, the millions-of-dollars question is whether or not state House Speaker Thom Tillis (R) can win at least 40% of the primary vote to avoid an expensive runoff against one of the other seven Republican candidates in the field. Recent polls and our sources suggest Tillis may accomplish this task, which would allow him to save resources for the general election matchup against Sen. Kay Hagan (D). A week later, Nebraska and West Virginia will have their turns. Neither state has an incumbent running in a statewide contest, which is particularly notable in the very conservative

UVA Center for Politics

HELP! I’M DROWNING IN TV ADS!

U.Va. Center for Politics Director Larry J. Sabato is contributing a regular column to Politico Magazine. This week he takes a look at the first batch of campaign ads this cycle. — The Editors Remember when someone could publish a book about TV commercials entitled The Best Thing on TV? It wouldn’t sell today in any election year. With upwards of $2.6 billion estimated to be spent on political TV spots in 2014 — an increase of 10 percent or more from the last midterm election in 2010 — you’d best get ready for the assault on your senses. Only two states have held a primary, and yet federal and gubernatorial candidates have already spent more than $100 million just on television advertising since the start of the fourth quarter in 2014. Even at this early point in the cycle, political advertising is widespread: Based on records maintained by the Sunlight Foundation, only eight of the nation’s 50 biggest TV markets had no political ad purchases in the first three months of the year. To read the rest of the column, please click here.

Larry J. Sabato

Big and little nothings

Yes, we know reporters have to react to news and find ways to make it relevant, but pardon us if we didn’t gag a little bit seeing headlines about the potential impact of Chelsea Clinton’s pregnancy on her mother’s potential presidential campaign. Some said the baby was timed for the campaign — because everyone knows a grandkid on the knee is a guaranteed vote-getter. (That’s why Mitt Romney won in a 2012 landslide.) Others suggested the opposite: Hillary Clinton was all ready to run until this news broke: Now she and Bill will want to babysit instead of barnstorming in Iowa (puh-leeze). The minor media blip got us thinking about some campaign news from 2014: negative stories or gaffes that have at times popped up about this candidate or the other. Do these developments matter? In most cases, no. Clearly, some things that happen during campaigns change the game. Impolitic remarks on social issues by Todd Akin (R-MO) and Richard Mourdock (R-IN) probably cost them Senate seats in 2012. It’s harder to prove, but ethics problems might have fatally harmed Shelley Berkley (D-NV) in her narrow loss the same year. In all three cases, a more generic and less flawed

Kyle Kondik

How Veterans Vote

In Arkansas’ Senate contest, Rep. Tom Cotton (R) has a new ad that goes after Sen. Mark Pryor (D) for his comment that Cotton feels a “sense of entitlement” because of his military service. Cotton humorously utilizes his Army drill sergeant to talk about how his time in the military taught him “accountability, humility and putting the unit before yourself,” all qualities that voters might desire in a senator. Cotton’s military background and Pryor’s ill-considered remark about it could conceivably matter more in Arkansas than in some other places (though there’s little evidence it has mattered so far). Based on 2013 estimates of adult and veteran populations, the Razorback State has the 13th-largest percentage of veterans as a proportion of its adult population (11.1%). That means there are a fair number of potential veteran voters in Arkansas: about 250,000, although the actual number who will turn out in a midterm will be far less. Hypothetically, these voters might be more receptive to Cotton’s candidacy because of his military background. Examining Arkansas’ veteran population naturally led us to look at the country as a whole. Below is a map of states colored by what portion of their adult populations are veterans.

Geoffrey Skelley

Eleven Days to November

U.Va. Center for Politics Director Larry J. Sabato is contributing a regular column to Politico Magazine. This week he provides an overview of the key primary election dates that will preface the November midterm elections. — The Editors For political junkies desperate for clues to the hottest House, Senate and governors’ races around the country, April is the cruelest month. While Illinois and Texas primaries were held last month, the 48 remaining state contests don’t start up again for three weeks. Here’s the good news for those of us hoping to determine whether Democrats or Republicans will be celebrating in the fall: From early May to early September, we’ll have a steady stream of conventions, primaries and runoffs to keep us busy. We’ve already learned a little from the first two contests. On March 4, Texas told us two contradictory things: The Tea Party has waned in Republican influence because U.S. Sen. John Cornyn won his re-nomination race easily over Rep. Steve Stockman, and the Tea Party is still strong because of its power in the GOP lieutenant governor’s contest and some other lower-level match-ups. Thanks for clearing that up, Lone Star State voters. Maybe the picture will come into

Larry J. Sabato

RATINGS CHANGES: GEORGIA, PENNSYLVANIA, TENNESSEE AND WEST VIRGINIA

Two statewide southerners are seeing their fortunes move in opposite directions, while the weight of both a party label and a barrage of negative advertising look increasingly likely to sink one of the longest-serving members of the House. Here are this week’s Crystal Ball ratings changes in four gubernatorial, Senate and House contests. Table 1: Crystal Ball ratings changes GEORGIA (GOVERNOR): Gov. Nathan Deal (R), who has dealt with numerous ethical questions over the years (not to mention orchestrating a horrible response to Atlanta’s 2014 ice storm), got another bad headline late last week: A jury found that the former director of the state ethics commission was forced out of office as retribution for investigating Deal’s 2010 gubernatorial campaign. The former director, Stacey Kalberman, will receive $700,000 as a result of the ruling. This story will likely linger: On Monday morning, Jim Galloway and other reporters at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution posted a piece headlined “Friday’s verdict just the beginning of trial trouble for Nathan Deal.” They note that other former ethics commission staffers have made similar claims as Kalberman, which could keep the controversy in the headlines for months. Meanwhile, state Sen. Jason Carter (D) is raising an impressive amount of

Kyle Kondik

Midterm 2014: Where things stand now

Election Day 2014 is now almost exactly seven months away, which is both near and far. On the one hand, more than half of the states — 29 of 50 — have passed their filing deadlines for major party candidates (the deadline in a 30th, Tennessee, is today). The late entries of Rep. Cory Gardner (R, CO-4) and ex-Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) into, respectively, the Colorado and New Hampshire Senate races are probably the last major candidate announcements we’re going to see this cycle, barring a late retirement or other big surprise. So the playing field is basically set. On the other hand, the specific players in the game are not set. Just two states — Illinois and Texas — have held their primaries. After the District of Columbia voted on Tuesday, there isn’t another primary until May 6. Candidate selection, particularly for Republicans in places like Georgia, Iowa and North Carolina, could be a decisive factor in the battle for the Senate. So with the caveat that plenty can change, we know enough about the political environment, fundamentals, candidates and other factors that will impact 2014 to offer a new Crystal Ball feature this week: Narrow ranges of what

Larry J. Sabato and Kyle Kondik