Detroit News-Michigan Clinton ahead

[pbrower2a]

Really great numbers for Rubio. However, MI won't be competitive. No way, barring a Republican landslide.

It's not obvious to me that Michigan is any better/worse of a target than Pennsylvania.  Sure, MI gave Obama better margins, but it is also more elastic than PA.  What factor do you see as different between  the two?

Good question, but I don't think that MI is more elastic than PA. When was the last time MI elected a Republican Senator? There are more "Democratic no matter what" voters in MI. The Philly suburbs are much easier to flip IMO.

Michigan last elected a Republican Senator in 1994 -- Spence Abraham. He was defeated in 2000. 

[pbrower2a]

Really great numbers for Rubio. However, MI won't be competitive. No way, barring a Republican landslide.

It's not obvious to me that Michigan is any better/worse of a target than Pennsylvania.  Sure, MI gave Obama better margins, but it is also more elastic than PA.  What factor do you see as different between  the two?

Good question, but I don't think that MI is more elastic than PA. When was the last time MI elected a Republican Senator? There are more "Democratic no matter what" voters in MI. The Philly suburbs are much easier to flip IMO.

Well, Michigan didn't have an open seat in 2010 and an incumbent Democrat who lost a bitter primary.  Given that perfect storm, a 51/49 R senate win isn't particularly impressive to me.  And of course Specter was very, very moderate by today's standards when he was still winning elections as a Republican.  Also, keep in mind that Romney was pretty much the ideal R candidate for northeastern suburbs and he still lagged Bush statewide.  PA looks very similar to VA for Republicans because there is a serious tension between being conservative enough to drive up rural turnout sufficiently and still moderate enough not to get held under 45% in the suburbs.  It's always pretty close but increasingly unclear where the last 1-3% comes from. 

In MI and other parts of the upper midwest, there is a more coherent R block because they can probably offer enough to peel off the labor component of the D coalition without alienating their base to the degree they would have to do on social issues in NE/West Coast suburbs.  Note that making peace with unions could help Nevada and New Mexico down the line as well.  It would probably mean conceding NH/VA/CO for good, but there are more EV to be had elsewhere and the Romney suburban strategy clearly didn't work.

You make some really good points there. But the 2014 election results in MI were really disappointing for the GOP. Not only did they lose the Senate race badly but they also lost the popular vote in the House races, while winning it by 11 points in PA.

It's somewhat dangerous to extrapolate from 2014 for a presidential election because turnout was so anomalously low.  Nevertheless, it is interesting that Shaheen, Hassan, Hickenlooper and Warner (while he was clearly viewed as generic D by that point) held on while virtually every other incumbent D in a >45% Romney state was swamped.  Of course Peters did romp in MI, but that seemed to be more about Land fumbling the race to actually end up below Romney numbers in that environment while Snyder was winning convincingly. 

But over in PA, Corbett was the only incumbent R to actually lose to a D in 2014.  It seems to me that the SEPA Kerry voters are on board for the long haul.  I also wonder if the bottom hasn't actually fallen out yet in the inner suburbs?  After 2013/14, it would not entirely surprise me to see CO, NH and VA east of the mountains go reverse AR/WV in the next Republican midterm.  That trend would hit SEPA and some early Upper Midwest investment would be critical in that world.  And there probably are people in rural PA who still like generic D a lot more than they like Obama. That's unlikely to hold true in the Upper Midwest, and even a slight moderation of the black vote in Detroit, facilitated in part by reaching out to labor, would be very relevant in MI.

Corbett was linked to some really ugly, nasty scandals involving child abuse. 2014 was a great year for the GOP, but even some things can't be swept under the rug. It is possible to lose a race despite a wave in one's Party's favor.