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2014 Senate

Sabato's Crystal Ball

ALL SENATORS ARE EQUAL, BUT THEIR CLASSES AREN’T

Make no mistake — this year’s Senate elections are being waged on Republican turf. But that’s not uncommon. A third of all Senate seats are on the ballot every other November, which means that two-thirds of the Senate remains the same even after a federal election (special elections prompted by vacancies can create a bit more turnover). This is in stark contrast to the House, where every member is up for reelection every two years. The Senate “classes” predate the popular election of senators, which was enacted through the ratification of the 17th Amendment in 1913. As we’ve noted before, Democrats have to defend 21 Senate seats this cycle to the Republicans’ 14, and compounding their problems is that in the past four elections, the Democratic presidential candidate received an average of just 46.6% of the two-party presidential vote in the 33 states that have a Class 2 Senate seat, which are the ones up for election this year (the special elections coming up in Hawaii and South Carolina next year are not included because those seats are typically contested as part of different Senate classes). That’s the most Republican-tilting of the three Senate classes. Class 1, the Senate map

Kyle Kondik

2014 Senate ratings: Red Alert!

We’ll grant you, most people now prefer to follow the candidates in a March 2013 election over in Rome, not the 2014 contests in the United States. But the Crystal Ball doesn’t analyze papabili and has all but endorsed Timothy Cardinal Dolan (our proffered populist yet saintly slogan for him: “He’s just like you, only better”), so you’ll have to be content with an early-bird look at U.S. Senate contenders. As we unveil our first ratings of the new Senate cycle, the key question 20 months before the election is this: What seats are in the greatest danger of flipping from one party to the other? To quickly illustrate the most vulnerable seats, we’re borrowing a concept from Star Trek: red alert. (Readers will surely be shocked to know that Crystal Ball staffers are also science fiction geeks.) States listed in red alert are ones where the incumbent party is at best a tiny favorite to hold the seat. These are the states where all hands are on deck, and the Klingons are opening fire. (This is fitting because partisans surely look at their opponents as ultra-aggressive warmongers.) Orange alert is where candidates are on full alert, but have not

Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik, and Geoffrey Skelley

What would a Republican renaissance look like?

As you read this, the U.S. House Republicans are meeting in retreat at Williamsburg, VA. While some would argue this is a good choice of locale to get back to the Republic’s colonial roots and fundamental principles, others will say it augurs poorly for the GOP’s need to embrace the future with new ideas and rejuvenating initiatives. In our new book on the 2012 elections, Barack Obama and the New America: The 2012 Election and the Changing Face of Politics (available here), we cover some of the challenges Republicans will need to overcome going forward. For instance, Nate Cohn of The New Republic — in his chapter on the country’s shifting demographics — makes the following observation about how the Republicans’ demographic advantage in midterm elections might be fading: It is hard to say if or when minorities might begin to participate in midterm elections at higher rates. Even so, demographic changes are already diminishing the white share of the midterm electorate, which declined from 81 percent in 2002, to 79 percent in 2006 and 77 percent in 2010. At that pace, the GOP will face a midterm electorate reminiscent of 2008 in 2014 and more like 2012 by 2018.

Larry J. Sabato

Rockefeller retirement guarantees Republicans nothing

Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s (D-WV) decision to retire is a positive development for Republicans. But whether they can capitalize on it, and their other opportunities, is an open question. There are 35 Senate elections coming up in November 2014 — 33 regularly scheduled and two specials (Hawaii and a second seat in South Carolina). Democrats currently hold 21 of those seats, and Republicans hold 14. Obviously, these numbers would seem to benefit the Republicans, especially because of the 14 Republican-held seats, there aren’t really any obvious Democratic targets (unless Susan Collins retires in Maine, but there’s no indication she’ll do so). Perhaps some strange primary outcome will make an uncompetitive Republican seat competitive — something akin to Richard Lugar’s primary defeat in Indiana in 2012 — but there’s no real indication of that happening this early in the cycle. West Virginia is probably now the Republicans’ best Senate pickup opportunity, but there are several others. South Dakota’s Tim Johnson (D) may retire, and even if he doesn’t, ex-Gov. Mike Rounds (R) will be a very strong challenger, assuming he runs (which is likely). Other red state Democrats who probably will have tough races are Alaska’s Mark Begich, Arkansas’ Mark Pryor, Louisiana’s

Kyle Kondik

Democrats Dread 2014 Drop-Off

At first blush, Saxby Chambliss and the Michigan right-to-work episode seem completely unrelated. Most Republicans approve of both, of course, but there is a deeper connection. The Georgia senator and Michigan’s effort to restrict organized labor’s power are both byproducts of a phenomenon that, despite the electoral problems currently facing Republicans, continues to favor the GOP: severe ballot turnout drop-off in non-presidential elections. On Nov. 4, 2008, Chambliss received 49.8% of the 3.75 million votes cast statewide in Georgia; Democrat Jim Martin finished second with 46.8%, three points behind. Because Chambliss fell two-tenths of a percent shy of the absolute majority required, however, Georgia law required a run-off. Four weeks later on Dec. 2, Chambliss crushed Martin by 14.8% — nearly five times his November margin. Only 2.14 million votes were cast in the run-off, 43% fewer. High turnout in November — driven, no doubt, by African-American voter enthusiasm, given Obama’s presence on the ballot — kept Martin competitive; far lower turnout in December doomed the Democrat’s chances in the run-off. Two years later, Republican Rick Snyder easily won the Michigan governor’s race with 58.1% of 3.23 million votes cast statewide. His victory was sandwiched between the 2008 and 2012

Thomas F. Schaller

HELP US TRACK GUBERNATORIAL, SENATE CANDIDATES

With 38 gubernatorial contests and 35 Senate races to be decided during the next two years (and with perhaps more to come), there are a ton of names that get bandied about as possible candidates, particularly when there’s more than a year until the possibilities are winnowed down in primaries. The churn of potential candidates changes almost daily. For instance, in Ohio on Tuesday morning, former Gov. Ted Strickland (D) ruled out a rematch against Gov. John Kasich (R). Later that day, a former Obama administration health care official, Donald Berwick (D), floated the possibility of running for Massachusetts governor. And on it goes. Throughout the cycle, we’ll keep track of the rumored and actual candidacies on our race rating charts for the gubernatorial and Senate contests (the House, with its 435 races, is too unwieldy to track, but we’ll continue to update our listing of the most competitive contests). We freely admit that, especially in the early going, there might be some names we should add, or possible candidates that we’ve listed who don’t really belong on the list. So we welcome your comments about our running Senate and gubernatorial race charts, which are posted at www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball. Please send

UVA Center for Politics

Post-election book to be released Tuesday

The University of Virginia Center for Politics is pleased to announce that our post-election book, Barack Obama and the New America: The 2012 Election and the Changing Face of Politics, will be released next Tuesday, Jan. 15. To order the book — which is published by Rowman and Littlefield — click here. Center for Politics Director Larry J. Sabato has brought together top journalists and academics from across the political spectrum to examine every facet of the 2012 election, and what its outcome will mean for the nation moving forward. In frank, accessible prose, each author offers insight that goes beyond the headlines, and dives into the underlying forces and shifts that drove the election from its earliest developments to its dramatic conclusion. This book features contributions from: — Alan Abramowitz, Crystal Ball Senior Columnist — Diana Owen, Georgetown University — Geoffrey Skelley, U.Va. Center for Politics — Jamelle Bouie, The American Prospect — James Campbell, SUNY-Buffalo — Kyle Kondik, U.Va. Center for Politics — Michael Toner, former FEC chairman — Nate Cohn, The New Republic — Rhodes Cook, Crystal Ball Senior Columnist — Robert Costa, National Review — Sean Trende, RealClearPolitics — Susan MacManus, University of South Florida

UVA Center for Politics

CLOSING THE BOOK ON 2012

Now that we have official election results from nearly every state, we wanted to offer some closing thoughts on election 2012. So here are 10 bite-sized nuggets, an appetizer for your holiday feasts. As a programming note, we’re taking the next two weeks off to recharge for the next cycle. Our next issue of the Crystal Ball will hit your inboxes on Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013. From all of us here at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, we wish our readers Happy Holidays and a Merry Christmas. — The Editors 1. Thank God it wasn’t close One of these days we’ll have another 2000-style election, where the result will be so tight that we will not know the outcome on the election evening — or for many days thereafter. Consider New York State — which a month and a half after the fact still has not certified its election results. (We remember Superstorm Sandy, but New Jersey was hit just as hard.) Even a critical New York state Senate race remains up in the air: George Amedore (R) has a 39-vote lead on Cecilia Tkaczyk (D), who is not conceding and is likely to appeal a court decision

Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik, and Geoffrey Skelley

South Carolina Doubles Down on 2014

When Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) unexpectedly announced that he planned to resign his seat in early 2013 to become president of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, he set in motion an odd American political occurrence: the double-barreled Senate election. This is when there is both a Senate special election and a regularly-scheduled Senate election held on the same day in the same state. In 2014, South Carolina will have a special election for the rest of DeMint’s term at the same time Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) is up for reelection. The 2014 double-barreled Senate elections in South Carolina will be the 49th pair of regularly-scheduled and special elections for a state’s two Senate seats in November since popular elections for the Senate began (and the third in South Carolina). Below is a chart listing all of those elections. Chart 1: Double-barreled Senate elections in November Sources: Guide to U.S. Elections, CQ Press; Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Special elections included in this list are ones that took place in November and were to finish out a Senate term extending into the next Congress. This list does not include special elections to fill out the remaining time

Geoffrey Skelley

2014 SENATE PREVIEW: CAN REPUBLICANS FINALLY TURN POTENTIAL INTO REALITY?

As the 2012 election fades into the history books, we begin our first look at the 2014 contests for Senate, House and Governor. Let’s start with the Senate, which will be the site of an intense battle for control once again. Before looking ahead at the Republicans’ prospects to gain the six seats they need to win control of the Senate, it is first important — though for Republicans, painful — to look back at the past two Senate cycles. In 2010, Republicans probably threw away three seats when they nominated weak candidates in Colorado, Delaware and Nevada. Then, in the just-concluded election, they threw away, at a minimum, two more seats in Indiana and Missouri (thanks to the disastrous candidacies of Richard Mourdock and Todd Akin). And that’s not counting other Senate races where different Republican candidates might have performed better or even won in Florida, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio and Virginia. So instead of having a tied Senate, or a tiny majority for one side or the other, Republicans are in the unenviable position of needing to levitate out of a deep hole they’ve dug for themselves. Only then can they end Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV)

Larry J. Sabato and Kyle Kondik

12 FROM ’12: SOME TAKEAWAYS FROM A WILD ELECTION

Programming note: The Crystal Ball is taking the week off for Thanksgiving next week, but we’ll be back with another edition on Thursday, Nov. 29. So what can we glean from last week’s election? Plenty. Here are 12 takeaways from the 2012 election, presented in bite-sized pieces. One note: all vote totals and percentages used in this piece were as of Wednesday morning; the figures may change as states continue to finalize their results. 1. 2012 results mirror 2008 Crystal Ball Senior Columnist Alan Abramowitz points out in the chart below that how a state voted in 2008 was predictive of how it voted in 2012. The correlation between President Obama’s margin in 2012 and his margin in 2008 across all 50 states and D.C. is .96. In other words, you can closely predict Obama’s margin in 2012 almost perfectly from his margin in 2008; his drop from 2008 to 2012 was fairly uniform, and limited the number of electoral votes he lost from 2008. Chart 1: Comparing 2012 Obama vote to 2008 Note: Click on chart for larger version. The biggest outliers are Utah, where Obama did substantially worse than expected in 2012, and Alaska, where he did substantially better

Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik, and Geoffrey Skelley