Who ran the worst Senate campaign in 2016?

[Maxwell]

I want to know who you think ran the worst Senate campaign of 2016? I included winners and losers, and I'll give you some reasons why I think the way I do:

Ted Strickland - my number one choice because he totally blew a wide name recognition advantage and got decimated as soon as the race got serious. I've never seen someone as experienced as Strickland get blown out of the water so quickly. Truly an embarrassing race. Lost by 21 points, doing much worse even than Hillary Clinton in a state she did very poorly in.

Russ Feingold - started the race with a double digit lead and every pundit in the country very sure of his victory. But when things closed, he under-performed Hillary Clinton by 3 - despite still probably being more popular than Ron Johnson, the victor. This person is my number 2 pick for worst campaign.

Evan Bayh - this guy just got savaged and never really made a compelling argument for his candidacy.

I cast a wide net, but you can still make your own write-in option.

[Maxwell]

What was so bad about Rand Paul's campaign? That he ran 5 points behind Trump?

I cast a wide net - Rand ran pretty far behind The Donald this year and pretty close to his 2010 result, despite being in the Senate for a full term and getting an opponent who nobody really gave a shot.

[Maxwell]

Roy Blunt is the obvious answer here, though Kirk's campaign was basically just as bad as Blunt's.

I mean if Kirk had just shut up and run a dignified campaign, he might've lost by a respectable margin and might've got a chance to leave political office with his head up high. Instead he ran into the mud and got savaged.

[Maxwell]

Probably Strickland. He was a two-stint congressman and a Governor and he lost by 21% points. He let Portman attack him and didn't counter Portman's attack ads at all. Portman did probably did run the best campaign out of any US Senate Candidate though this cycle. He was "on the ground" a lot courting voters I think.

Bayh lost because he was a lobbyist and people don't want to vote in former lobbyists this cycle. They were angry at Washington DC just like they were in 2010 and wanted to send "the political class" a message. 

Bayh was also an establishment candidate, and he seemed to be out of touch with IN; people perhaps didn't see him as one of their own anymore.

That IS what did Lugar in.

Well Coats won in 2010 and he was a lobbyist after he retired from the US Senate in 1998.

Coats' margin was pretty underwhelming, considering that Young almost won by that much this year despite trailing by over 10 as much as a few months ago.