Biggest recruitment busts of the cycle?

[Storr]

Democrats: PA-01 by far. How hard is it to find someone in the tossup of all tossups?

Republicans: CA-21. When the NRCC disavows their own nominee, you know you have a problem.

Neither party has completely awful candidates in competitive Senate races (I don't consider NH competitive). A lot of Democratic recruits that originally seemed underwhelming are looking better simply due to the worsening mood of the Country for Republicans (Greenfield, Gideon, Cunningham). But, I'd have to say the worst Dem Senate recruit is MJ Hegar. It's not like Texas Democrats have a huge bench, but solidifying around a Congressional loser who lost during a Democratic wave year is fairly uninspiring. Though her inspiring life story helps make up for that issue somewhat. The possible better candidates that come to mind are Beto and Colin Allred. Obviously Beto was focused on his ill-fated Presidential run, and I doubt Allred wanted to risk his political future running against a three term incumbent after only one House term, so failing to miss those two makes sense. But seeing Beto run for the Senate again following all of the notoriety he gained in 2018 would have been more intriguing than Hegar. So would have been seeing a Black man gain a major party nomination in a majority-minority state.

For Republicans I'd say the worst Senate "recruit" is their success in 2014. They won so many races and now many of those bland empty suit freshmen (Ernst, Daines, Tillis, Gardner, and I suppose McSally could be added too) are facing a very rough election year for Republicans, much less favorable than in 2014.