Ratings Update: June 6, 2014

With Super Tuesday Mk. II three days behind us, I'm ready to make some changes, in addition to the change in Arkansas's gubernatorial election from TOSS-UP to LEANS REPUBLICAN. 

In the Senate: 

Mississippi yielded only one of two surprises from Tuesday: state senator Chris McDaniel placed ahead of incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran in the Republican primary in Mississippi; however, thanks to Thomas Carey's 1.5% share of the vote, neither of the two received the majority required to avoid a runoff on June 24. I slightly favor McDaniel in the runoff based on his performance in the primary, although with three weeks before the runoff anything can really happen. This runoff is a TOSS-UP. Former Rep. Travis Childers, the Democratic nominee, would vastly prefer to face McDaniel in the general election due to the latter's associations with neo-Confederate groups. He's probably right to do so; in the event that McDaniel wins the runoff, I'd change this race to LIKELY REPUBLICAN. (Remember, though, that this is conditional on McDaniel winning the runoff.)

Iowa was the other surprise from Tuesday: while state senator Joni Ernst's victory was completely in accordance with the polls, her 56% share of the vote defied polls that pointed to a victory that would just clear the 35% threshold required to avoid a convention nomination. The first polls taken after her victory (the most recent since three weeks ago) both have her leading, suggesting that earlier polls underestimated her support. This may be because Rep. Bruce Braley was the Democratic front runner long before the primary, while Ernst was only slightly ahead in a crowded field; now that both candidates have settled, poll respondents have a clear choice. Instead of leaning Democratic, I'd say this race is now a TOSS-UP. 

Governor's mansions

Maine (like Oregon in the last update) is really just an overdue change. There is no reason to think, from the limited polling available, that incumbent Republican Gov. Paul LePage is in as much danger as, say, Gov. Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania, who has been down by more than 20 points in all polls taken since the primary there. Therefore I'm moving this one to LEANS DEMOCRAT. Bear in mind that both Rep. Mike Michaud, the Democratic front runner, and Gov. LePage both face complications in independent candidate Eliot Cutler, who came within 2 points of winning the governorship from Gov. LePage in 2010. Cutler isn't polling nearly as well this year, but Gov. LePage should still be wary of his candidacy--and hope that he takes more votes from Rep. Michaud (as often happens to Maine Democrats).

Other than that, the relative dearth of surprises from Tuesday means that the status quo is maintained. Democrats are still likely to pick up 2-3 governorships; the major difference now is that, should Sen. Cochran win his runoff (keeping Mississippi safely in the Republican column), control of the Senate is still a toss-up, but one that now favors Republican control instead of Democratic control, which is what I previously had.

EDIT: I forgot to mention a rating for Georgia's runoff election in the Republican primary between Rep. Jack Kingston and David Perdue. At the present time, by two very important metrics--polls and fundraising--Rep. Kingston has much greater support than Perdue does. In polls Rep. Kingston leads by double-digit margins. In fundraising, not only does Rep. Kingston still have almost $1.3 million on hand compared to Perdue's "mere" $460,000 (a huge advantage considering that the election is still a month and a half away), exactly none of Rep. Kingston's war chest is self-financed, which suggests that his fundraising machine is much more sustainable than Perdue's, which is pretty much all from his wallet at this point. I therefore call this one a LIKELY KINGSTON.

Super Post-Tuesday Mk. II Wrap-Up: Where I Went Wrong

Here we are past midnight, Wednesday, June 4, and we've one race yet to be decided. As of 1:35 AM in Mississippi, with 98% of precincts reporting, state senator Chris McDaniel leads incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran 49.6-48.8: a difference of 2,528 votes. Unfortunately, we probably won't know the exact results until tomorrow morning. Here's Emily Wagster Pettus of the Associated Press in Jackson:

Zero precincts reporting from Covington County. An election commissioner just told me she's home in bed & can't give us numbers. #MSSen
— Emily Wagster Pettus (@EWagsterPettus) June 4, 2014

At this point I think it's safe to say that Mississippi's going to a runoff.

Super Tuesday Mk. II Update: 10:18 PM

Finally Iowa's gotten on the ball and results are filtering in. And they tell us--absolutely nothing, because only 0.4% of the vote is in. Whatever, we can wait.

In Mississippi, things are looking slightly better for Sen. Cochran, who at least has more than 50% of the vote now. With the gap between Sen. Cochran and McDaniel at just over 5,000 votes out of over 166,000 counted, there's still room to call this one either way as more of the 40% of the remaining precincts report in.

In New Jersey the race has only gotten closer. With 28.2% of the vote, Jeff Bell leads Rich Pezzullo even more narrowly than before; meanwhile, less than 25% of the vote remains to be reported. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a recount tomorrow, although I doubt Sen. Booker really cares--it's still a safe seat for him.

Super Tuesday Mk. II and Quick Ratings Update: June 1, 2014

Normally I make the necessary rating changes at the end of the month; however, we have another Super Tuesday coming up, so we'll hold off on that until afterward in case we have any primary surprises. Not that we had any on the last Super Tuesday (May 20), but still. Primaries are going to be held in the following states:

Gaffes: Genes of the American Horserace

The biggest news out of Iowa this week is a comment by Rep. Bruce Braley (D-IA-1), currently the presumptive Democratic nominee to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin. Here's the video of Rep. Braley at a fundraiser in Texas:

If you can't watch it or don't feel like it, the relevant part is this quote at 0:20:

"You might have a farmer from Iowa who never went to law school, never practiced law, serving as the next chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Because if Democrats lose the majority, [Republican senior Sen. from Iowa] Chuck Grassley will be the next chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee." -- Bruce Braley, at a fundraiser in Texas, March 25, 2014

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.