With about three weeks to go until the midterm elections, where does the battle for Congress stand?
Last year House Democrats had high hopes of retaking the lower chamber in 2014, and political junkies were inundated with stories about their prowess at fundraising and mobilizing. Those hopes have mostly been dashed. The brutal national environment has forced Democrats onto the defensive. Just last week, the party quietly cut ad time in many Republican-held districts it had been targeting. Still, there is little room for the GOP to grow; its natural ceiling in the House is probably 250 seats, and it already controls 234. In its last update, the Cook Political Report listed 26 Democratic-held seats as being in some jeopardy, but just 11 Republican seats. How these races will break remains to be seen, but Republican gains in the range of 7 to 15 seats seem probable.
The more the merrier: The GOP already has a strong majority in the House, so gains would amount to an insurance policy in case the Democrats surge in 2016. Typically, when a party retains the White House, it enjoys little in the way of coattails; apart from the unusual election of 1964 in the wake of the Kennedy assassination, you have to go back all the way to 1948 to find an incumbent president’s party retaining the White House and picking up a decisive number of House seats. A president-elect Hillary Clinton, then, would be unlikely to sweep, say, 25-30 Democrats into the House, and even that would give Democrats only a nominal majority; an actual governing majority would require upwards of 40 pickups in 2016. So if Republicans do well in the House next month, that will go a long way toward preventing a liberal governing majority until at least 2019.
As for the Senate, the GOP’s prospects include the good, the bad, and the ugly. In the last month the Republican position has unequivocally improved in three must-win races with Democratic incumbents. In Alaska, Republican Dan Sullivan has broken open a lead against Democrat Mark Begich. Recent polls show the Democrat down by about 5 points and stuck at an anemic 42 percent of the vote. Alaska is a tricky state to poll, so you never know until the votes are counted, but the GOP should feel good about its position on the Last Frontier.
In Arkansas, Republican Tom Cotton retains an apparently durable lead over Democrat Mark Pryor. The Democratic narrative of the spring and summer—Pryor was great on the stump, while Cotton was wooden—has mostly fallen apart. Just last week, Pryor was asked a simple question about how the government was handling Ebola and gave an answer to rival Ted Kennedy’s meandering nonresponse to Roger Mudd about why he wanted to be president. Cotton, meanwhile, responded to Bill Clinton’s campaigning on behalf of Pryor with this winning rebuke: “I’m not worried about Bill Clinton’s support for Mark Pryor. I’m worried about Pryor’s support for Barack Obama.” Conservatives should feel excited at the prospect of a Senator Cotton. Combine him with Ben Sasse of Nebraska, a shoo-in for victory, and the intellectual wattage of the Senate GOP increases substantially.
In Louisiana, Republican Bill Cassidy has mostly held a lead over Democrat Mary Landrieu this year. That lead appears to have widened, and the polls show Cassidy nearing the critical 50 percent mark. That is especially important because Louisiana’s election occurs in two stages: a jungle primary, in which candidates from all parties battle one another, and a runoff between the top vote-getters. This race is widely expected to go to a runoff, in which Cassidy would be the favorite.
More good news in Iowa. Republican Joni Ernst charged out of no-where early this year to capture the attention of the party establishment and grassroots activists. She cruised to victory in the primary and has taken what appears to be a clear lead over Democrat Bruce Braley. This is the reverse of what Beltway wags expected a year ago. It seemed then that the Democrats had scored a coup in recruiting Braley, a House member, while the GOP field was unimpressive. Now it is Ernst who is the star and Braley the gaffe-prone dud. Given the president’s unpopularity and the staunch independ-ence of Iowa, the GOP can be hopeful about this race. Still, with 15 percent of voters undecided in the average of the latest polls, the seat can’t be taken
for granted.
In Colorado, Republican Cory Gardner has withstood months of attacks from Democratic incumbent Mark Udall, focused mainly on abortion and birth control. A month ago, the conventional wisdom was that Gardner was fading, but he has shown strength of late, and the polling averages show a tied race. Like Iowa, Colorado is a true swing state, and with Obama unpopular, Gardner has at least even odds of pulling out the win. Again, Democrats cannot be pleased that Udall, who dominated the airwaves through the summer, is stuck around 45 percent—in the danger zone for an incumbent seeking reelection.
Finally, New Hampshire has emerged as the party’s potential “stretch” victory. This too is quite a change. In August, Sam Wang—a Ph.D. neurobiologist who runs the Princeton Election Consortium—tweeted snarkily, “People. Please. If Jeanne Shaheen (D) loses to Scott Brown (R) in NH-Sen, I promise to eat a bug.” Chances are still good that Wang will not have to swallow a cricket, but less good than he would like. Recent polling shows Shaheen leading, but Brown within striking distance—down about 5 points in the reputable polls. Unlike other vulnerable Democrats, Shaheen is reasonably close to the 50 percent mark, however, which means that almost all the undecideds would have to break towards Brown for him to win.
Next, the bad news. Would-be GOP challenges seem to have fizzled in Michigan, Minnesota, and Oregon. In all three states, Republican candidates are down by 10 points or more. That is a tough margin to overcome in just under a month, and it is disappointing. Michigan, in particular, is a bitter pill for Republicans. Early ads put Democrat Gary Peters on the defensive, but the left struck back—and how. Republican Terri Lynn Land has been savaged on the airwaves, and the GOP response has not kept pace. Add the complaint from insiders that Land’s campaign has been lackluster, and this once-promising pickup is all but out of reach.
More bad news from North Carolina. Democratic incumbent Kay Hagan has held her own, mostly by running a negative campaign against her Republican challenger, Thom Tillis. Of course, campaigns these days are largely negative. Yet Democrats have precious few issues that work for them this cycle, so incumbents like Udall and Pryor have been reduced to limp warnings about the “war on women” (Udall) and even Ebola (Pryor). The story is different in North Carolina. Tillis is the speaker of the unpopular state house, and Hagan has been blasting him for his record there, especially on education. So far, it seems to have worked. She maintains a lead of about 3 points, though her own share of the vote is stuck around 45 percent. North Carolina is a quirky state that has swung back and forth in recent cycles, so this is shaping up as a potential nailbiter.
Bad news in Georgia and Kentucky, too. Republicans have leads in both states, ranging from 3 to 5 points, but given the overall partisan dynamics there, not to mention the unpopularity of the president, it is frustrating that the Democrats have held on. The GOP is favored in both states, but resources that will have to be directed there could have been better spent in places like Iowa and Colorado.
Finally, the ugly news—first from Kansas. Republican infighting led to a nasty primary between radiologist Milton Wolf and longtime senator Pat Roberts. The latter won, more narrowly than expected. That seemed the end of the story, but Democrats pulled their candidate from the ballot and threw their support to independent Greg Orman. Polling is all over the map, but it is a fair bet that Orman has a narrow lead. This is a self-inflicted wound for the GOP, and there is blame to go around. The silver lining is that Kansas remains one of the most Republican states in the union, so the Roberts campaign “merely” needs voters to stick with their party.
Aiding Republicans is the fact that—despite his claims to independence—Orman, on closer inspection, looks like a Democrat. There is also a growing sense that he might not be ready for prime time. He recently floated the notion that he might switch partisan loyalties back and forth in the upper chamber. Likewise, he has inartfully dodged salient questions, like what he would do about Obamacare. His lead in the polls notwithstanding, Orman faces a difficult task. To win, he needs to motivate Kansas Democrats—about 40 percent of the electorate—without alienating independents or a critical number of Republicans. So far, his strategy has him sounding vague and occasionally asinine.
The race in South Dakota may also turn ugly. Polling remains sparse, but the Republican nominee, former governor Mike Rounds, is in a three-way race against Democrat Rick Weiland and Republican-turned-independent (and two-time Obama endorser) Larry Pressler. Rounds has held a lead all along, but he has begun to take on water, in part because of a controversial visa program run on his watch. The last couple of polls have shown Weiland or Pressler gaining, and just last week national Democrats pledged to pump $1 million into the state. This race should be an easy victory for Republicans. But the same thing was said about the North Dakota Senate battle in 2012; that year, Republican Rick Berg ran a lackadaisical campaign against Democrat Heidi Heitkamp. Despite Berg’s consistent lead in the handful of public polls, he narrowly lost on Election Day.
Add all this up and what do you get? The GOP probably has a clear lead in seven Democratic-held seats (Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, South Dakota, West Virginia); there is a tie in Colorado; and the party is within striking distance in New Hampshire and North Carolina. It has yet to finish off challengers in Georgia and Kentucky, and it is behind in Kansas. The party needs a net six pickups to claim the majority. Midterm races often break in October, even late in the month, as low-information voters begin to engage. While Republicans have the edge for the Senate, there has not been a definitive break, and it is safest to consider control of the Senate a toss-up.
And even if they won, Republicans would be foolish to take victory as a vindication. At most, it would mean that the public wants to check Barack Obama. Polls show wide swaths of the population still view the Republican party as part of the problem, and one need look no further than deep-red Kansas to see the implications. Orman, though largely a cipher, may very well beat a Republican who has been in Congress for over 30 years—in a state that last voted Democratic for president in 1964. So, while capturing the Senate would be enormously helpful in stopping Obama in his final two years, it should not be mistaken for a vote of confidence in the GOP.
Jay Cost is a staff writer at The Weekly Standard.
