What Senate Seats have Democrats thrown away?

[bballrox4717]

If Specter had just retired or Sestak didn't run, Pennsylvania 2010 was certainly winnable. It's a shame Toomey has the political talent to get himself reelected now. He certainly wasn't held in high esteem back then.

Pennsylvania 2010 was doomed from the start. Specter wasn't incredibly popular after switching parties (Voters don't like Traitors), 2010 was a rough year, and Toomey is a very strong campaigner.

80,000 votes was the margin of victory and Toomey barely got a majority. Sestak made enemies of Specter moderates during the primary campaign who eventually voted for Toomey when he started to move towards the center. I'm not going to argue Toomey's merits. He's a damn good senator (as much as I despise what he stands for) who stands an excellent chance of beating Sestak again in 2016, but that primary was way too bitter and it likely made the difference. It was certainly one of the ugliest moments for Obama when he supported Specter for his vote on the stimulus.

[Landslide Lyndon]

If they talked Meek into dropping out, they could have won Florida in 2010 with Crist.

Ah yes, Crist and Meek vote combined was slightly more than the Rubio vote.

No. Rubio got a little more than 50%. Also, many of Crist's voters were dissafected moderate Republicans who thought Rubio was too conservative.

The Halter primary certainly didn't help Lincoln in 2010.

Lincoln was DOA, no matter what. As a matter of fact, Halter performed better in the polls against Boozman.

[ElectionsGuy]

If they talked Meek into dropping out, they could have won Florida in 2010 with Crist.

Ah yes, Crist and Meek vote combined was slightly more than the Rubio vote.

No. Rubio got a little more than 50%. Also, many of Crist's voters were dissafected moderate Republicans who thought Rubio was too conservative.

https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/index.html

[Landslide Lyndon]

If they talked Meek into dropping out, they could have won Florida in 2010 with Crist.

Ah yes, Crist and Meek vote combined was slightly more than the Rubio vote.

No. Rubio got a little more than 50%. Also, many of Crist's voters were dissafected moderate Republicans who thought Rubio was too conservative.

https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/index.html

That's weird. I remember the first couple of days after the election Rubio had 50,1% or something like that.
Anyway, As I said Many of Crist's voters were disaffected Republicans and I highly doubt that they would still vote for him if he had a D next to his name.

[ElectionsGuy]

If they talked Meek into dropping out, they could have won Florida in 2010 with Crist.

Ah yes, Crist and Meek vote combined was slightly more than the Rubio vote.

No. Rubio got a little more than 50%. Also, many of Crist's voters were dissafected moderate Republicans who thought Rubio was too conservative.

https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/index.html

That's weird. I remember the first couple of days after the election Rubio had 50,1% or something like that.
Anyway, As I said Many of Crist's voters were disaffected Republicans and I highly doubt that they would still vote for him if he had a D next to his name.

Eh, its fine, first day results are usually funky. But yes, If the republicans could win PA and IL in '10 then they could've probably won FL in a 2-way race.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Mt 2014, iL, WI, and pa 2010. Madigan is still the best recruit we should have. Feingold top fundraiser. Toomey, despite him reaching across aisle is still a tea partier.?races we can win in 2016. As for MT senate, it was indeed a letdown when Schweizer didn't run.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

If Specter had just retired or Sestak didn't run, Pennsylvania 2010 was certainly winnable. It's a shame Toomey has the political talent to get himself reelected now. He certainly wasn't held in high esteem back then.

Pennsylvania 2010 was doomed from the start. Specter wasn't incredibly popular after switching parties (Voters don't like Traitors), 2010 was a rough year, and Toomey is a very strong campaigner.

80,000 votes was the margin of victory and Toomey barely got a majority. Sestak made enemies of Specter moderates during the primary campaign who eventually voted for Toomey when he started to move towards the center. I'm not going to argue Toomey's merits. He's a damn good senator (as much as I despise what he stands for) who stands an excellent chance of beating Sestak again in 2016, but that primary was way too bitter and it likely made the difference. It was certainly one of the ugliest moments for Obama when he supported Specter for his vote on the stimulus.

Toomey was constantly being underestimated until just recently. He was going to win that as open seat and he would have beaten Specter by 5 to 6 points. Really you were lucky to have Sestak as the nominee because he could both run strong in SE PA and have appeal as "The Admiral" to the rest of the state, whereas any other candidate would have been one or the other mostly. Toomey has also been adapt at moving to the center on social issues since Specter jumped ship and his support for  background checks is merely a continuation of that, which started with him endorsing Sotomeyer, writing an article welcoming in pro-choice Republicans and then after the election endorsing the repeal of DADT.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Democrats have nominated lots of bad candidates too; it's just that Republicans have just been hilariously unlucky/stupid (depending on the race in question; mostly the latter, but some of the former as well) in picking candidates the past two cycles (we could've had Senator Norton; Senator Tarkanian; Senator Brunner; Senator Lugar; Senator Hovde; Senator Kalk and a majority. But we don't).

Thompson was the best candidate, but he blew it himself. He made that gaffe about social security and he got lazy as a candidate, I remember hearing him complain about not being able to count on Romney to carry him over the top once the 47% thing came out.

Also I still would have preferred Steelman in Missouri and Shafer or Stenejhem in ND.

[hopper]

The Halter primary certainly didn't help Lincoln in 2010.

No Lincoln's numbers were terrible though after the ObamaCare vote. She would have lost to any Arkansas Republican besides Boozman.

[hopper]

Yeah the Democrats threw away the Illinois US Senate Seat in 2010. Kirk had his own problems with kind of lieing about his military background though but Ginolunias's dealing with Tony Resko I think is why he lost.

[Donerail]

If they talked Meek into dropping out, they could have won Florida in 2010 with Crist.

Ah yes, Crist and Meek vote combined was slightly more than the Rubio vote.

No. Rubio got a little more than 50%. Also, many of Crist's voters were dissafected moderate Republicans who thought Rubio was too conservative.

https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/index.html

That's weird. I remember the first couple of days after the election Rubio had 50,1% or something like that.
Anyway, As I said Many of Crist's voters were disaffected Republicans and I highly doubt that they would still vote for him if he had a D next to his name.

If Meek had hypothetically dropped out, it'd probably depend on who started campaigning for Charlie. He would've still had an I next to his name, so I doubt most moderate Rs would have left him (though some would if he were seen as the de facto D candidate). Probable result is a narrow loss for Crist due to lower black turnout.

[hopper]

Democrats have nominated lots of bad candidates too; it's just that Republicans have just been hilariously unlucky/stupid (depending on the race in question; mostly the latter, but some of the former as well) in picking candidates the past two cycles (we could've had Senator Norton; Senator Tarkanian; Senator Brunner; Senator Lugar; Senator Hovde; Senator Kalk and a majority. But we don't).

Thompson was the best candidate, but he blew it himself. He made that gaffe about social security and he got lazy as a candidate, I remember hearing him complain about not being able to count on Romney to carry him over the top once the 47% thing came out.

Also I still would have preferred Steelman in Missouri and Shafer or Stenejhem in ND.

Steelman ran in MO but the 2 ND politicians never ran for the seat. Berg was too conservative for the state on economic issues. ND is economically moderate its not conservative.

Tarkanian has ran in NV like 3-4 times for different offices and never won once. Some people  thought he would beat Steven Horsford last cycle for the NV-04 congressional seat. and he lost.

[hopper]

I think the fact is that the Democrats have done a great job with recruitment, fundraising and campaigning in the past 15 years.  There are races that bug you, like Mongiardo losing to Bunning and Daschle losing to Thune, but few easy opportunities lost.  And, then there's 2010 which was just a horrible election on the whole.  But, there's another big reason Democrats don't throw elections away like Republicans.  Democrats have a big tent party and are willing to compromise, and Republicans let the Tea Party dictate their candidates. 

Arizona 2012, Nevada 2012, Tennessee 2006, Kentucky 2010

Aside from Nevada in 2012, all of those were uphill battles in red states.  That's coming up short, not throwing a race away with mistakes. 

I don't know about the big tent theory. The Dems just pick one candidate and stick with them throughout election seasons. The Republicans on the other hand the Tea Party factor does mess them up in terms of primaries because moderate voters can't really relate to the Tea Party candidate.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Democrats have nominated lots of bad candidates too; it's just that Republicans have just been hilariously unlucky/stupid (depending on the race in question; mostly the latter, but some of the former as well) in picking candidates the past two cycles (we could've had Senator Norton; Senator Tarkanian; Senator Brunner; Senator Lugar; Senator Hovde; Senator Kalk and a majority. But we don't).

Thompson was the best candidate, but he blew it himself. He made that gaffe about social security and he got lazy as a candidate, I remember hearing him complain about not being able to count on Romney to carry him over the top once the 47% thing came out.

Also I still would have preferred Steelman in Missouri and Shafer or Stenejhem in ND.

Steelman ran in MO but the 2 ND politicians never ran for the seat. Berg was too conservative for the state on economic issues. ND is economically moderate its not conservative.

Tarkanian has ran in NV like 3-4 times for different offices and never won once. Some people  thought he would beat Steven Horsford last cycle for the NV-04 congressional seat. and he lost.

THe problem with Berg was tht he couldn't connect, and Heitkamp did, but the field was largely cleared for him so there was no alternative that one could say was better. The two I listed have a following and wouldn't have created the opening that Berg did. It was a misrecruitment in my opinion.

Tarkanian is a perenial candidate with limited appeal, but it doesn't take much to beat Reid, just have to not be a train wreck. Both Lowden and Angle were though.

NV-04 is a difficult seat to win if North Las Vegas is turning out to vote and that was a certainty with Obama up top the ticket.