Democrats will hold the Senate
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from The Gray Area:
Not to burst the Republicans election bubble a month early, but The Gray Area believes the Democrat Party will hold the Senate after the 2014 mid-term election.
We arrived at this conclusion based on the results of the 2012 Presidential Election. President Obama won an election that history and major polls on both sides said he should lose to Mitt Romney. The night before the election, President Obama in a speech to supporters was all but conceding that fact. Yet he won. Some would say he won big. The facts are he won by only about 300,000 votes in all 6 swing states most of which he was expected to lose. How did this happen? The Democrats got out the vote. Democrats do tend to come out to vote more in Presidential election years and the Democrat strategists maximized this trend in the swing states.
In this mid-term election, Republicans can be expected to come out in greater volume than Democrats. Yet the Democrat strategists are not giving in to this trend. Instead they are doubling down on their winning get out the vote strategy in 2012. They are finely targeting money, ads and effort at important states in which they feel they have a chance, no matter how remote, and leaving lost cause states for the Republicans to win, relatively unopposed. They will succeed at this strategy as they did in 2012.
This does not mean the Democrats will gain seats – not at all. They will actually lose some seats. But Republicans will not get the 6 seats they need to take over control. The Democrats will maintain an edge in the Senate, 51-49.
Two recent articles, one right leaning and the other left, in the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post respectively give evidence to support our forecast. In addition, a private GOP fundraising email this week expresses concern over the outcome.
Karl Rove, in the Wall Street Journal today indicated “Democrats have ready-made (get out the vote) organizations in the 2012 presidential battlegrounds of Colorado, Iowa, North Carolina and Virginia, but not in any other states with Senate races.
The Election Lab in the Washington Post recently changed their forecast to a 51% Democrat chance of holding the Senate. They agree with Karl Rove that Colorado and Iowa will likely go Democrat. They also believe that the recent strategy to drop a Democrat candidate in a three way race has resulted in votes coalescing for Democrat win in Kansas.
Republicans will win 18:
Georgia
Louisiana
Oklahoma
South Carolina
Maine
Montana
Idaho
Wyoming
South Dakota
Nebraska
Oklahoma
Texas
Arkansas
Kentucky
Tennessee
West Virginia
Mississippi
Alabama
Democrats will win 16:
Alaska
Colorado
Kansas
Iowa
North Carolina
Virginia
Oregon
New Mexico
Illinois
Minnesota
Michigan
Massachusetts
Rhode Island
Delaware
New Jersey
Hawaii