As I said in another board, I would not be surprised if Hillary won with a Republican Senate majority, and even a rather secure one like 53 or 54 seats.
That's extremely unlikely. The same factors working against red state Democrats (increased polarization, decrease in split ticket voting) will also work against blue state Republicans. If Republicans break even in the Senate, Hillary almost certainly lost. You can make the argument that the Republican incumbents are unnaturally strong in 2016 (I don't see the logic behind it since most of them haven't been tested statewide outside of a low turnout Republican wave, but I digress), but people were saying the exact same thing about Pryor and Landrieu in 2013/2014. How did that turn out again?
It is more a indictment against the type of coalition Hillary would put together. Indies, women, plus some old conserva dems and of course boatloads of former Republicans in suburbs. Professional Republicans, willing to work accross the aisle threaten much more ticket splitting then was possible with Obama's coalition. I can easily see Toomey and Clinton both winning Bucks county at the same time and same goes for Kirk in Lake County.
If anything Landrieu and Pryor serve to prove my point. Suppose Hillary improves in both those states for instance, does anyone think that it would translate down ballot? The reason for this is because also that Clinton if the election were today, has a persona that is popular beyond her Party and therefore, she will outrun her own Party. That means the swing votes decide the game and they are just as finicky as ever. A good but more extreme example is Cuomo who had appeal beyond his Party, though unlike Cuomo she is not hated within it. Also, save for ILL, none of those states are direct comparisons to Republicans winning in close Presidential states.
Don't put too much effort into trying to reason with Mr. Spear. He seems to think that the all-powerful magical Hillary wave will translate into some sort of D+10 landslide that will recapture the house and then Hillary and her Democratic congress will spread milk and honey throughout the land.
