The Republicans will win the Senate tonight in their biggest such win in a generation, even though two states may vote again in December and January. The Senate is currently made up of 53 Democrats, 2 independents who caucus with the Democrats and 45 Republicans. As such, the Republicans need 6 gains for control. They will achieve that.
This is how the races match up in each key state.
Alaska (Democratic seat: Mark Begich)
The scandal embroiled-Ted Stevens, Alaska’s most celebrated Senator, was hotly tipped to lose his seat in 2008 – as he did, by the narrowest of margins. Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, the son of a former Governor, was until recently expected to win re-election, even in this heavily Republican state. The choice of Dan Sullivan for the Republicans, however, a moderate state official, has left the Democrats with a fight on their hands. In the absence of a Republican who is either too tainted to too extreme to win the seat, Begich has been underwater in most polls over the past few months.
Verdict: Alaska is a red state where Barack Obama is very unpopular, much as Begich is seen as a moderate. With fewer residents than Newcastle, the state is so small that accurate polling is hugely difficult – and Begich could well defy the analysts. But as things stand, we should put Alaska down as a Republican gain.
Arkansas (Democratic seat: Mark Pryor)
If Colorado has gone from reddish purple to blueish purple to just plain purple, Arkansas has seen a more violent change in its political leaves. Bill Clinton’s home state has swung violently against Democrats at a national level over the past 14 years, supporting Republican candidates in greater numbers during their landslide 2008 and 2012 losses than George W Bush managed to achieve in his two election wins. Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln was defeated by an astounding 21 point margin in 2010.
Part of this is a long-term realignment of the upland south – as the Democratic Party’s national brand became more cosmopolitan and socially liberal, conservative rural states drifted away. Mark Pryor, one of the last Democratic ‘good old boys’, whose father was a hugely popular Governor, wins no prizes for charisma. He once declared that you don’t need to be smart to be a Senator. But for much of the year, his campaign proved doggedly resilient, usually polling just above his Republican opponent Congressman Tom Cotton. But comments from Pryor referring to Cotton’s military service giving him a ‘sense of entitlement’, his support for Obamacare and a somewhat shameless exploitation of deadly tornadoes in campaign commercials have done little to endear him to voters.
In the end, the political hue of Arkansas, in what promises to be a dismal year for red state Democrats, was too much for even a two-term Senator to overcome. Moreover, in the current anti-political mood, being a pillar of the establishment is not a good look in the face of a young fresh combat veteran.
Verdict: Pryor has fought well, but will almost certainly lose tonight. We can fairly safely put this in the Republican column.
Colorado (Democratic seat: Mark Udall)
No state has proven more of a headache to Republicans in the past ten years than Colorado. This bastion of gun-toting vigorous virtues is home to Focus on the Family, and has long been associated with conservatism of different stripes.
Before Barack Obama, the Centennial State voted for all but three post-war GOP candidates. Over the past decade, however, Democrats have turned Colorado into an effective one-party state: they hold both Senators, the Governorship, both houses of the state legislature and in 2012 Barack Obama became the first candidate from his party to twice receive the state’s electoral votes since Franklin Roosevelt in 1936. This has in large part been due to an evolution in the state’s population, with a younger more diverse liberal electorate moving to the Greater Denver area from the coasts – but it has also been part of an improved organisation and strategy on the part of Democrats, detailed in the book Project Blueprint.
This year seems different, however. Democrats were delighted when appointed Senator Michael Bennet defied the polls to win election in 2010 against Tea Party hopeful Ken Buck, and Senator Mark Udall was not expected to face major obstacles this year. But Udall’s campaign, focusing largely on the issue of abortion, has appeared tone deaf in the face of a Republican candidate, Cory Gardner, who has done a rather effective job of painting himself as a moderate pragmatist. The only real wildcard is the move to an all-postal voting system, widely predicted to help Democrats get their vote out. Early tallies from the Colorado Secretary of State’s office, however, suggest it has had a negligible effect this year.
Verdict: This was the Democrats’ race to lose, and much as it will likely be extremely close, their Centennial winning streak could run dry. If forced, I’ll give it to Gardner.
Georgia (Open seat in Republican hands)
Georgia’s transition from a deep blue to deep red state in the generation following the Civil Rights movement has been well documented, but as in North Carolina, the expansion of metropolitan Atlanta is shifting the state back in a purple direction.
Michelle Nunn, the daughter of popular former Senator Sam Nunn has run a strong campaign, emphasising her bipartisan credentials and Georgia Democrats have successfully registered large numbers of minority voters, in a still racially polarised state. The business record of David Perdue, who won the bitter Republican primary, was meant to be his strong point – but comments on outsourcing have allowed the Nunn campaign to paint him as callous. A few weeks ago, the Democrat was surging in most polls, but this has since died down and Perdue seems poised to win narrowly. However, Georgia has a run-off voting system, meaning that if no candidate wins over 50%, voters go to the polls again in January, after the new Senate has convened.
Verdict: However good Nunn’s campaign, this is a bad year for Democrats in a state where Barack Obama’s approval ratings are fairly weak. Perdue will almost certainly top the poll, but there’s a slight likelihood of this race heading for a January run-off.
Iowa (Open seat in Democratic hands)
When long-serving liberal Senator Tom Harkin announced his retirement, Republicans quickly eyed a pick-up opportunity. But while Democrats rallied around Congressman Bruce Braley, an ostensibly sensible choice, Republicans searched in vain to find a credible candidate in the Hawkeye State.
Late in the primary season, however, State Senator and pig farmer Joni Ernst hit a nerve, declaring that she would take a similar approach to Washington pork as she would to pig castration, vowing to ‘make them squeal’. While Ernst, a deeply conservative candidate, was managed to project a vision of ‘Iowa nice’, the Braley campaign has run perhaps the most hapless campaign of the season. Earlier in the year, the Democrat referred, in a private donor meeting, to popular veteran Republican Senator Chuck Grassley as a farmer who never went to law school. As if this were a bad thing in corn country. Ernst, who also serves as a National Guardswoman, remains vulnerable on issues like Medicare and Social Security – but she has proven herself surprisingly resilient in the national spotlight for a comparatively inexperienced and immoderate candidate.
Verdict: To say the Republicans have won the campaign in Iowa would be an understatement. Will they also win the election itself? It will be close, but Ernst appears to have the upper hand.
Kansas (Republican seat: Pat Roberts)
Thomas Frank’s high profile book What’s The Matter With Kansas?, published in 2004, asked how less affluent states in the American heartland voted so solidly Republican while their economic interests, the author thought, lay with the Democrats.
Republicans this year are asking Frank’s question a different way. How, in what promises to be a landslide election year, can Pat Roberts be in trouble in a state that has not elected a Democratic Senator since the Great Depression?
The answer lies in a bitter Republican primary, where Tea Party candidate Milton Wolf tarnished Roberts in the eyes of the Republican electorate – and the unusual decision of the Democratic candidate to have himself removed from the ballot paper in favour of independent businessman Greg Orman. These factors combined with overspill from the unpopularity of conservative Governor Sam Brownback to create a serious headache for the Kansas GOP. Roberts has spent the final months of the campaign painting Orman as an ally of President Obama and the independent has failed to say which side he would caucus with should he win.
Verdict: The Kansas race has excited many, deservedly so. However, on a night where Republicans seem poised to gain states like Iowa and Colorado, is it truly realistic to think they will lose Kansas? I don’t buy it. Most analysts have this race as a toss-up. I think Pat Roberts will hold narrowly.
Kentucky (Republican seat: Mitch McConnell)
Just as Gretchen Wieners in Mean Girls failed to make ‘fetch’ happen, so too did the seemingly high Democratic hopes of unseating Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell in the Bluegrass State fall flat. Indeed, similar hopes were dashed in 2008, when Democrats came within 6 points of McConnell, and in 2010, when had unpopular Republican Senator Jim Bunning not retired, the result may have been rather different. In fact, the blues haven’t won a Senate race in the state since 1992, when Bill Clinton’s Presidential ticket also stormed to victory.
After Hollywood actress Ashley Judd declined to run this year, national Democrats were delighted by the fresh energetic choice of Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundegran Grimes. But it was not to be – in a state where Barack Obama’s approval ratings are ice-cold, McConnell has been able to use his vast war chest to paint Grimes as a puppet of the President. As for Grimes herself, a failure to tell the electorate whether she voted for Obama has proven more damaging a flip-flop than the admission she voted for her own party’s candidate would ever have been.
Verdict: Some polls still have this race close. It can safely be put into the Republican column.
Louisiana (Democratic seat: Mary Landrieu)
The most high profile Democratic Senator up for election this year is Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu, the Chair of the Senate Energy Committee. In a state that breeds political dynasties (the Longs, most famously), her brother Mitch is Mayor of New Orleans, as was their father, Moon.
Since Bill Clinton, Democratic support amongst white Catholics in this state has declined steadily, and like Arkansas to the north, Barack Obama has performed worse here than either Al Gore or John Kerry.
First elected in 1996, Landrieu has survived a tough challenge in 2002, when she won in a run-off and was run surprisingly close in 2008, following the displacement of many traditionally Democratic New Orleans voters by Hurricane Katrina. With an anti-establishment wind, there is also an element of Landrieu fatigue, and Bill Cassidy a Republican Congressman and doctor is the favourite to win this seat, as the race currently stands.
Verdict: Mary Landrieu will lead tonight’s tally, but fail to get 50%. The race will then go to a run-off in December, in which the Republican is favoured. However, in the event that Senate control has already been handed to the Republicans, with or without Cassidy, Landrieu may be able to localise the race and cling on. Louisiana is a likely Republican ‘icing on the cake’ in December.
New Hampshire (Democratic seat: Jeanne Shaheen)
When Scott Brown, who sensationally won a Massachusetts Senate seat in 201o and then lost it to Elizabeth Warren in 2012, announced he had moved north and would run for Senator Jeanne Shaheen’s seat, most thought it rather far-fetched.
Early polls had Brown trailing by double digits, but a well-funded and energetic campaign has left him within striking distance of a Democrat who, as a former Governor, could scarcely have deeper roots in the state.
Few Republican candidates have managed to pivot off the news agenda as adeptly as Brown, tapping into concerns around ISIS and illegal immigration, even in a state so far from the Mexican border. But in the end, Brown is a moderate in a moderate state, with a record of bipartisanship and military service.
Verdict: Whatever the surprising success of the Brown campaign, Shaheen’s lead in the majority of polls, however narrow, appears convincing – even in a terrible year for Democrats. She will likely be one of the lucky survivors.
North Carolina (Democratic seat: Kay Hagan)
The expansion of the Charlotte and Raleigh metro areas, and influx of younger more liberal voters, has made North Carolina a purple state in recent years.
In 2008, Kay Hagan unseated Republican Elizabeth Dole by a wider margin than many were predicting. As the solid Republican victory here in 2010 here shows, North Carolina is an easier fight for the GOP than in a Presidential year (Mitt Romney only narrowly beat President Obama here in 2012), as fewer young and minority voters tend to participate. As such, Tar-heel Republicans were salivating at the chance of taking out Hagan this year in a state that has re-elected a Senator just once in the past two decades.
The Republican candidate, State House Speaker Thom Tillis, has solid business credentials and was widely seen as electable – but he has been significantly out-fundraised by Hagan, who has managed to pin some of the less popular decisions of the state legislature on him.
Verdict: Hagan has clung to a lead of 1 to 3 points throughout the campaign, and most analysts predict she will hang on narrowly. However, much as early voting returns suggest a more Democratic electorate than in 2010, will enough liberal voters to up to see her through? I think this is a race where the polls may overstate Hagan’s lead and is perhaps the truest tossup of the night.
Certain Republican gains in open seats
West Virginia: Republican Representative Shelley Moore Capito is moderate and well-respected – and was as good as elected when she announced she was running for Senator Nelson Rockefeller’s seat. Like Arkansas, West Virginia has been trending Republican strongly in recent decades. The House races in Districts 2 and 3 are more interesting.
Montana: When appointed Democratic Senator John Walsh admitted he plagiarised his Army War College thesis and was bowing out of the race, this election was over. Republican Representative Steve Daines will win in a landslide in a state that narrowly denied the GOP Senate wins in 2006 and 2012.
South Dakota: This race should have received more attention, and seemed like a potential upset for a while. Governor Mike Rounds was tainted by an immigration scandal and was losing votes to former Republican Senator turned Independent candidate Larry Pressler. Former Clinton official and Democratic candidate Rick Weiland fought hard, raising little money, despite making one of the best adverts of the season. But all the excitement seems over now – and Rounds will win.
Mark Gettleson is an elections and polling analyst and Director of Portobello Communications.
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