At least Scott Brown has a better chance of winning than Allison Grimes does
I hope you aren't serious...
He's not, but Larry Sabato is.
It's going to be interesting to see what he comes up with for an explanation of why it took him so long if he eventually agrees to reluctantly change the rating. Nearly everyone else has the race at a lower rating and has had it there for months - Cook has it at Toss-Up, RCP and EP have it at Toss-Up/Tilt R. Rothenberg and Daily Kos has it at Lean R (which is also my own rating of the race). Five Thirty Eight has McConnell as an 80% favorite, which still qualifies for 'Lean R' under my guidelines, albeit just barely. Only Sabato and NYT (who ranks McConnell as an 88% favorite) still insist on holding the race at Likely R.
I personally see McConnell as a 67% favorite. Based on polling alone,
Grimes is actually about a 50.1% favorite. The 67% McConnell chance comes from Kentucky's red tendencies and McConnell's large fundraising advantage, as well as his past ability to survive bad democratic years (see McConnell vs. Lunsford, 2008). This fits right into Lean R for me. To deserve a Likely R rating from me, McConnell would need about an 85% chance of victory, which I don't see him having until he has a consistent polling lead of about 6 points or so. (currently, an average of May/June non-outlier polls puts
Grimes ahead by 0.3%). But apparently Sabato has much lower standards for a Likely R rating.
------------------------------
Regardless of what Sabato may believe, Shaheen is slightly better off in New Hampshire, with probably a 73% chance of winning or so. Scott Brown is a moderate, top-tier candidate, but he may have entered too late - Shaheen was able to run several negative ads against him and partially define him under her terms before he even made an exploratory committee. Plus there's the carpetbagging charges.
The biggest reason Brown won in deep blue Massachusetts in 2010 was that Coakley completely refused to campaign for nearly the entire campaign, believing that the political leanings of MA would carry her over no matter what Brown's campaign strategy was or what the national republican brand was like. Unfortunately for Brown, Shaheen will be just like Warren in that she won't take their slight advantage for granted and will actually continue to campaign. Sure, Shaheen definitely isn't a bipartisan senator, supporting whatever the 'reid position' happens to be on essentially every issue, but her state still likes her a lot, and she leads by 7 points in the latest polling average (quite good for a purple state democrat), a lead that Brown will have to work hard to take away.
Brown wasn't a bad senator for MA at all - in fact, he left office with a 59% approval rating (People liked him, they just liked Warren even more) and still managed to hold Warren to 54% of the vote in 2012, while Obama was receiving 61%. But that won't give him an easy time in NH, regardless of what Sabato may think.
With all of Brown's gaffes, missteps, and charges of carpetbagging, I think the NHGOP actually would've been better off with some unknown state senator.
LOL.
---It's worth noting that Smith, Rubens, and Testerman are still polling worse against Shaheen than Brown is, although Smith isn't polling much worse - his average deficit against Shaheen is only about 10 points, just 3 points worse than Brown.
