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Can Democrats Win The Senate In 2016?

Can Democrats Win The Senate In 2016?

By Stuart Rothenberg, CQ-Roll Call (TNS)

WASHINGTON — For Republicans, the fight for control of the Senate in 2016 is all about playing defense.

Unlike 2014 (and 2018), the Senate races of 2016 offer few, if any, opportunities for the GOP as the election cycle begins. The map strongly favors Democrats and suggests the possibility of considerable Democratic gains.

Republicans hope to recruit strong challengers to Democrats Michael Bennet of Colorado and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, but the other eight Democratic senators up next year come from states so reliably Democratic that Republicans don’t have any real hope of making them competitive.

On the other hand, Republicans are defending 24 seats, including seven that gave their electoral votes twice to President Barack Obama, and another two (Indiana and North Carolina) that were carried by Obama in 2008, but not 2012.

Some of the GOP seats that went for Obama twice are prime Democratic opportunities — Illinois, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, for example — while others remain only mouthwatering possibilities for now. How they will develop will depend on the quality of Democratic recruiting and other factors.

Democrats will need to net five seats to win a Senate majority in 2016, but they could win control by adding only four seats (getting to 50) if the party holds the White House for the third straight election.

Based solely on fundamentals, three Republicans in the “bluest” states of the cycle start out at the greatest risk: Mark S. Kirk in Illinois, Patrick J. Toomey in Pennsylvania and Ron Johnson in Wisconsin.

All three states voted for the Democrat in at least each of the past six presidential contests (Wisconsin went Democratic in the past seven). They are also large, populous and expensive states for campaigns.

Size and population are important because candidates have a hard time localizing races in those kinds of states. A hopeful simply can’t meet a lot of voters and has to rely on statewide, or in the case of the presidential race, national, messaging.

Kirk and Toomey squeaked by their Democratic opponents in 2010, a remarkable Republican year, while Johnson had a somewhat easier time defeating veteran Sen. Russ Feingold. But it’s unlikely any of the Republicans would have won in anything approaching a neutral political environment.

Even if those three Republican senators lose, Democrats would need at least one more victory, and possibly two. That won’t be easy.

The next group of vulnerable Senate Republicans includes Marco Rubio in Florida, Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire and Rob Portman in Ohio, all of whom hail from swing states. Obama carried their states twice, though his margins in Florida and Ohio were razor-thin.

Obama’s performance in New Hampshire in 2008 and 2012 was almost identical to his performance in Pennsylvania, but the Granite State is much smaller, and retail campaigning is easier there. Just as noteworthy, while Toomey squeaked by his Democratic open-seat opponent in 2010, Ayotte annihilated her Democratic opponent in her open-seat race.

Three other Republican seats should be on everyone’s radar, though they aren’t nearly as competitive as the six already mentioned.

Recent presidential and Senate races confirm North Carolina has become competitive, so Sen. Richard M. Burr bears watching. And Sens. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, who will turn 83 before his next re-election, and John McCain of Arizona, who will turn 80 in September of 2016, can’t be ignored.

One huge unknown about 2016 involves the presidential race.

There have been a few cases where a strong presidential victory by the non-incumbent party also swept in a large number of senators from the incoming president’s party. The two most obvious recent examples are 1980 (Ronald Reagan) and 2008 (Obama), when “change” elections filtered down to House and Senate races.

But there are plenty of other cases where a presidential victory didn’t result in notable Senate gains. Republican George W. Bush won the White House (though not the popular vote), but Democrats added four Senate seats in 2000. Democrat Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992 (in a three-way race), but Democrats gained no Senate seats. (All data from Brookings’ Vital Statistics on Congress, tables 2-3 and 2-4.)

In 1976, Democrat Jimmy Carter won the White House running as a messenger of change, but neither party gained Senate seats that year. And in one of the more remarkable outcomes, Republican Richard M. Nixon was re-elected in a landslide in 1972, but Democrats added two Senate seats.

In the single case over the past 60 years when one party held the White House for three consecutive elections, the GOP in 1988, Democrats gained one Senate seat.

Large net Senate swings (of five seats or more) obviously depend on the partisan makeup of each class, but it is also clear that they are more likely to occur during midterm elections (for example, 2014, 2010, 2006, 1994, 1986 and 1958) than in presidential years.

Presidential year dynamics differ from midterm dynamics in one important way: Unlike midterm elections in states with Senate races, voters in presidential cycles have two votes — one for the president and one for the Senate. That gives them the freedom to make two very different statements.

In 2012, six states selected a senator from one party and a presidential nominee from another: Indiana, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota and West Virginia.

In 2008, seven states voted for one party’s presidential nominee but the other party’s Senate nominee: Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Maine, Montana, South Dakota and West Virginia.

This cycle, the Senate map, historical turnout patterns in presidential years (which favor Democrats) and the division within the GOP create enough good opportunities for Democrats to win at least three and as many as six seats.

But parties don’t always take advantage of opportunities, and Democrats will have to work hard to flip the Senate in a presidential year.

Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

How Democrats Could Maintain Senate Control

How Democrats Could Maintain Senate Control

By Stuart Rothenberg, CQ Roll Call

WASHINGTON — A few weeks ago I wrote Senate Republicans would gain at least seven seats, even though the Rothenberg Political Report/Roll Call race ratings showed a likely Republican gain of five to eight seats.

That expectation was based on national survey results showing the president extremely unpopular and voters unhappy with the direction of the country, as well as state polling that showed Democratic incumbents well below the critical 50 percent threshold in ballot tests against their GOP opponents.

My admission shouldn’t have been all that startling. After all, Mitt Romney carried seven states where Democrats are defending Senate seats, and in this era of declining ticket-splitting, it wouldn’t be surprising for anti-Obama voters to vote against the Senate nominees of the president’s party.

Indeed, midterm electoral history would suggest Democrats have an uphill battle to hold onto the Senate.

But, as I pointed out in the column, with only three Democratic Senate seats in the bag for GOP — South Dakota, West Virginia and Montana — Republicans can’t yet be certain they will net the six Senate seats they need for a majority in the next Congress.

So what could/would cause me to change my expectations over the next month? How could Democrats alter the election’s trajectory?

First, Democrats still may be able to localize elections in a few states — the most likely prospects are North Carolina and Alaska, which were carried by Romney, and two swing states won by President Barack Obama, Iowa and Colorado. Doing so would inoculate the Democratic nominees (three incumbents and one open seat hopeful) from Obama’s near-toxic political standing.

Democrats certainly have lowered the boom on North Carolina’s Thom Tillis, Alaska’s Dan Sullivan, Iowa’s Joni Ernst and Colorado’s Cory Gardner, and it isn’t unreasonable to believe that they can hold all four seats by discrediting the GOP nominees.

But, as I previously noted, plenty of Republicans who lost in 2006 and Democrats who lost in 2010 tried that strategy — unsuccessfully. So while it isn’t impossible to localize a race, the broad national mood and the states in play combine to make that a tough task. And the president’s recent assertion that while he isn’t on the ballot next month his policies are only makes localizing more difficult for Democrats.

Second, Democrats may be able to register and turn out additional voters, who could change the arithmetic of the election.

I have been assuming a 2014 electorate that looks more like the last midterm electorate than either of the past two presidential electorates. The 2010 electorate was much older and whiter than the 2008 and 2012 electorates, and there is no reason to believe that Democrats won’t suffer again from this year’s midterm electorate.

But Democrats are making an effort to register African-American voters in a number of states, mobilize Democratic voters in Alaska’s remote villages, and turn out both younger voters and reliable Democratic voters who in the past sat out midterm elections. If they can change the electorate, they can change their chances of holding on to a handful of states that I am expecting them to lose.

As I wrote in mid-April, it’s hard to quantify the effectiveness of the Democrats’ ground game, but that doesn’t mean it can’t have a significant impact in November. Still, given the president’s problems and signs of lower Democratic enthusiasm, it’s difficult to imagine widespread sufficient Democratic turnout gains.

Third, the Democrats’ money advantage could help limit GOP gains to five seats or fewer, keeping the Senate in Democratic hands for the president’s final two years.

“We have been waiting for our big donors to come into (competitive) races, but I’m starting to think that they aren’t going to come,” said one worried Republican consultant to me recently.

The veteran insider fears the party’s hype about winning the Senate in 2010 and 2012 had turned major GOP donors into skeptics about 2014 as well.

Campaigns and outside groups generally seem to be awash in money these days, but some GOP insiders are particularly worried about Democratic spending in North Carolina making it easier for Democrats to squeeze out a narrow victory.

Finally, news is always a wild card. Some event could raise questions about the Republican Party, change the election’s narrative or cause the country, or at least Democrats, to rally around the president. The beheadings by ISIS and the president’s decision to bomb the group’s forces in Iraq and Syria may help Obama’s numbers inch up, but any electoral impact would likely be negligible.

Obviously, a significant improvement in the president’s job approval ratings could change the national dynamic and improve the chances of a few endangered Democratic senators and Senate candidates.

Every election involves some tension between national and state forces. National factors look quite strong to me now, but that doesn’t mean that I couldn’t have a different view in three weeks.

At this point, however, with Election Day fast approaching, I remain where I was a month ago. I still don’t like where many Democratic Senate nominees are now positioned.

Photo: Diliff via Wikimedia Commons

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