In my column last week I mentioned seven distinct advantages Republicans had in pursuing control of the Senate in this cycle, along with the entirely unrelated “mandates” they are likely to claim if they don’t blow a winning hand. I might have added that in addition to the unreal individual factors that will be cited as reasons for a GOP victory heavily dictated by ephemeral circumstances of landscape and turnout, we will hear a lot of thundering about a “center-right nation” and “the death of liberalism” and so on and so forth. While all kinds of partisans tend to see irreversible world-historical trends in every election win, today’s Republicans are especially prone to confusing themselves with the essence of Americanism.
But before we dispute post-election spin too much, it’s important to ask: What, exactly, could spoil the celebration Republicans are already planning? The cold percentages the forecasters put out showing 30 percent or 40 percent or even 45 percent odds of a Democratic Senate “hold” aren’t vivid enough to disturb happy elephant dreams. What should prudent Republicans fear?
Money. You may find it shocking to learn that Democrats actually appear to have a national money and advertising advantage, at least in Senate races. But it’s true. Here’s how Charlie Cook of the Cook Political Report puts it in his National Journal column:
Perhaps the biggest untold story of this election is how so many Republican and conservative donors, at least those whose last name isn’t Koch, have kept their checkbooks relatively closed. In many cases, GOP candidates are not enjoying nearly the same financial largesse that existed in 2012, and in some races, they are well behind Democrats …
Many Republican and conservative donors appear to be somewhat demoralized after 2012. They feel that they were misled about the GOP’s chances in both the presidential and senatorial races that year, and/or their money was not well spent. In short, they are giving less if at all, and it has put Republican candidates in a bind in a number of places.
As for the Kochs, they haven’t outgunned Democrats as they expected either, as the Washington Post’s Matea Gold explains:
Led by a quartet of longtime political strategists with close ties to Reid (D-Nev.), Senate Majority PAC has elbowed out other pro-Democratic groups and been on the leading edge of attacks against conservative donors Charles and David Koch. The group has become a fixed center of gravity in the left’s expanding constellation of super PACs and interest groups.
Perhaps most notably, the super PAC has held its own on the air against Americans for Prosperity, a conservative advocacy group that is the primary political organ of a network backed by the Koch brothers and other wealthy donors on the right. By the end of the summer, the two groups had run nearly the same volume of television ads nationwide, according to Kantar Media/CMAG data analyzed by the Wesleyan Media Project.
The “Republicans will get all the breaks down the home stretch” assumption a lot of folks are making could be based on mistaken ideas of GOP financial supremacy.
Turnout. We’ll soon know if the much-discussed $60 million Bannock Street Project of the DSCC, aimed at applying the targeted voter outreach efforts of the 2012 Obama campaign to the enormously critical task of reducing the party’s “midterm falloff problem,” is a myth or a miracle, or (more likely) something in-between. My own guess is that it’s likely to have the greatest impact in states with a previously under-mobilized minority vote (e.g., Arkansas and Georgia), or with an exceptionally strong pre-existing GOTV infrastructure (e.g., Iowa). Polling this year is generally showing a “likely voter” boost for Republicans that’s substantial but not as large as in 2010; reducing it even more — perhaps beneath the polling radar — is the Bannock Street Project’s goal.
Misinformation. It’s alway possible that the impression of a big year for Republicans is based on inadequate information, including spotty or inaccurate polls. That, of course, can cut both ways. FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver suggested this week that polling in Alaska over the last several cycles has consistently over-estimated Democratic performance. But on the other hand, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution survey giving Republican gubernatorial and Senate candidates in Georgia a small lead among likely voters estimated the African-American percentage of the electorate at 24 percent, significantly lower than in 2010, which seems, well, very unlikely. There’s also a very recent polling trend in Colorado, North Carolina, Iowa, and Michigan suggesting that these states may not look as good for Republicans as before, calling into question a general impression of a uniform pro-GOP drift.
Kansas. Nobody handicapping 2014 races as recently as three weeks ago factored in the possibility that Kansas, of all places, might become a sudden GOP sinkhole. Now Sen. Pat Roberts is in real and consistent trouble against independent candidate Greg Orman, as part of what appears to be a self-conscious revolt of moderate Republican voters who are also threatening to throw Gov. (and former Sen.) Sam Brownback out of office. Even if a national GOP intervention saves the Kansas ticket, this is money and effort that was supposed to be expended somewhere else.
And the sudden emergence of Kansas as a battleground raises on other possibility pre-triumphal Republicans should ponder:
Candidate Error. While Republicans avoided nominating a Christine O’Donnell or a Ken Buck this year (Senate nominees who were obviously weaker in a general election than their primary rivals), it’s not clear yet they didn’t unconsciously nominate another Todd Aiken or Richard Mourdock (purveyors of siliver-bullet-disaster gaffes) or Sharron Angle (someone with a rich record of extremist positions that negative ads could exploit). While Iowa Democrat Bruce Braley probably committed the most damaging single gaffe (his remark to Texas lawyers about an “Iowa farmer” chairing the Senate Judiciary Committee in the event of a GOP takeover) of the cycle so far, his opponent, Joni Ernst, seems capable of something just as bad, and also has Angle’s problem of telling wingnuts exactly what they wanted to hear for too long. And until Braley dissed Chuck Grassley, the most gaffe-prone Senate candidate in the country was probably Georgia’s David Perdue, who’s hardly out of the woods himself.
So no one should be measuring new Senate office space just yet.
Ed Kilgore is the principal blogger for Washington Monthly’s Political Animal blog, Managing Editor of The Democratic Strategist, and a Senior Fellow at theProgressive Policy Institute. Earlier he worked for three governors and a U.S. Senator. He can be followed on Twitter at @ed_kilgore.
Moronic off-color comment by GOP Senate candidate sparking national ridicule in 3-2-1…
The Real “Elephant Nightmare” is the picture accompanying the article! A particularly unflattering pic of McTurtle (and that is really saying something!) aside two zombie senators. Yikes!
As for the content, i like reading this challenge to the conventional wisdom that it’s the Republicans’ year. Always enjoy Mr. Kilgore’s take on things.
The one thing missing from this analysis is a straightforward look at the polls. The fact is that Sam Wang, using an approach that ignores all these sorts of considerations and simply averages the polls, gives the Democrats a 70% chance of retaining the Senate. Given that Wang called every race in 2012 correctly (unlike Nate, who missed two of them), his prediction should be taken seriously.
Now 70% is not a guarantee of victory; it’s a probability and there’s only one event so the less likely outcome could occur (in fact, there’s a 30% chance of that happening!). But it seems to me that the 2012 race showed pretty clearly the worthlessness of all the pundits’ “expert” speculations. If we want to idly speculate, fine. But if we’re actually interested in knowing what is likely to occur in the election we should look at what the polls are saying. And here it seems to me that the main question is which type of meta-analysis is correct. Wang, with a straight averaging of the polls, favors the Democrats. Silver, adding “fundamentals” to the mix, favors the Republicans, although the odds are steadily decreasing. We will see.
All of the things described at the beginning of this piece (perceived mandate, center-right, etc.) are exactly why McConnell’s nightmare might be the very thing he wants.
As the fundamentals shift in key states, it is now considered far less likely that the GOP will capture many more seats than 6. If it’s a choice between 5 and 6, then McConnell may prefer 5.
Imagine the result of a 51-49 senate where the GOP just replaced 6 of the more moderate dems with 6 of the most conservative firebrands in the country. The tea-partification of the senate will be more complete than in the house.
McConnell will then have a much more right-wing no-compromise caucus than before, and there will be hulking shadow of several members running for President, including folks like Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio, all of whom have put personal politics ahead of party on several occasions.
So, with this bare majority, McConnell will have to keep his herd of cats in line, with nary a vote to lose, during a Presidential election cycle. He’ll be expected to deliver on that ‘mandate’ to ‘center-right America’ and to put that ‘lawless-socialist-Kenyan’ in his place. The bills he brings to the floor will have to be partisan firebombs loaded with payback and tea party agenda items. Compromise with democrats will quickly be attacked by the winger crowd, which will make it difficult to get more than one or two votes from across the aisle…No margin, big egos, ideological inflexibility…And he wants this outcome?
And, of course, if all the rest of that weren’t there, the shadow of Harry Reid, who loathes McConnell and has endured 6 years of rightwing excoriation and constant procedural attacks, will be lurking. His job will suddenly be simple. He needs to keep McConnell from sending right wing red-meat to Obama’s desk, make sure that the GOP doesn’t get to validated their claim that democrats have been responsible for gridlock, and demoralize the right wing base by denying them the results they’re expecting. He has the tools to thwart McConnell, but he won’t have to wield them nearly as often. Most of the time he can sit back and watch the show, but when McConnell finally wiggles free of his various chains, he’ll be there to lock them up again.
On the other hand, a 50-50 split with Biden having to trudge to the capital every day of the week to break a tie, McConnell can claim that the GOP ‘win’ of 5 seats means ‘America wants democrats to compromise’. Then HE can sit back and gum up the works while ginning up support in his right wing base to ‘put them fully in control’ in 2016.
Be careful what you wish for.
I understand that in some localities in the United States it is illegal to keep turtles as pets. Does anyone here have any information about Kentucky?