Ratings Update: September 19, 2014

We're less than seven weeks out from the elections, and it's around now that some uncertainty begins dropping out of the forecast--mainly because 1) there's more polling out, giving us a more accurate picture of where candidates stand, and 2) there's less time for the underdogs to make up the difference before the election. So a lot of our ratings changes this time will be adjusting for that.

Ratings Update: September 1, 2014

Just in time for the Labor Day campaign season kickoff, here's some ratings changes:

The Run-Down: March 31, 2014

To start off, we're going to give basically the crash-course summary of this election, of who wants what to happen.

Thirty-six elections to the Senate will happen on November 4, 2014: 33 "class 2 Senate seats" as well as three special elections in Hawaii, Oklahoma, and South Carolina. Currently, the Democrats have a majority in the Senate, with 53 Democratic senators as well as two independents in Vermont and Maine who are caucusing with the Democrats. Republicans, therefore, need to pick up six seats in order to capture the majority (in the event of a 50-50 split, Vice President Joe Biden would be able to cast a tie-breaking vote).

It's way easier than it sounds. The quirk of Senate elections is that if a senator is elected in a presidential election year, that senator's next election is guaranteed to be in a midterm year, and vice-versa. Midterm elections have historically been horrendous for the president's party: only twice since World War II (in 1998 and 2002) has the president's party gained seats in a midterm election. Even in a neutral or sort-of-okay year, we'd expect the Democrats to lose seats in the Senate. However, this year the Democrats' problem is much worse simply because they did so well six years ago, in 2008, when Senator Obama's popularity allowed him to win the presidential election and swept in a number of Democrats on his coat-tails. As a result of their stellar performance in 2008, not including the special election seats (which are safe for one party or the other, as described below) Democrats now must defend 21 seats, while Republicans only have 12 to defend. Even worse for the Democrats, the GOP seats this year consist of the safest ones that they were able to defend in 2008, while the Democratic seats include many marginal victories they won in competitive states like North Carolina, Louisiana, and Alaska.