Democracy Corps: Dem enthusiasm gap worsens

[Miles]

Article.

[IceSpear]

Luckily an unenthusiastic vote counts just as much as an enthusiastic one, as we saw in 2012.

[Matty]

I still think Democrats are going to have a net loss of exactly zero seats in the senate, as Georgia, Kentucky, and Kansas will balance out WV, Montana , and Dakota.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

They should compare the coalition to 2010, not other years. Anyways, the GOP maxed out its gains in 2010, especially in House, we will lose seats but may not see control switch because of GOP maxing out gains already. Which Dems didnt achieve until second Bush term.

[Mad Deadly Worldwide Communist Gangster Computer God]

I still think Democrats are going to have a net loss of exactly zero seats in the senate, as Georgia, Kentucky, and Kansas will balance out WV, Montana , and Dakota.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Try looking at compiled map and AK, La and NC are the firewall states for a net loss of 4 seats.

[IceSpear]

I still think Democrats are going to have a net loss of exactly zero seats in the senate, as Georgia, Kentucky, and Kansas will balance out WV, Montana , and Dakota.

He must have a lot of confidence in Milton Wolf.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

I still think Democrats are going to have a net loss of exactly zero seats in the senate, as Georgia, Kentucky, and Kansas will balance out WV, Montana , and Dakota.

He must have a lot of confidence in Milton Wolf.

Maybe he's confusing the senate and governor races.

[GaussLaw]

I still think Democrats are going to have a net loss of exactly zero seats in the senate, as Georgia, Kentucky, and Kansas will balance out WV, Montana , and Dakota.

Meanwhile, legitimate political forecasters like Upshot and 538 give the GOP a 55% chance.

[ElectionsGuy]

I still think Democrats are going to have a net loss of exactly zero seats in the senate, as Georgia, Kentucky, and Kansas will balance out WV, Montana , and Dakota.

He must have a lot of confidence in Milton Wolf.

He probably thinks Kansas is Brownback, the governor. Anyway, not going to happen. The GOP will gain at least 2 seats.

[Matty]

How will the GOP gain two seats? Kentucky and Georgia will negate Dakota and WV. Hagan is safe in NC, Pryor is gaining ground in hogland, and Landrieu will coast to a victory because her last name is French.

[nolesfan2011]

Article.

not surprised, Dems are awful at messaging and are running a bunch of cardboard bland candidates that nobody gets excited for this year. Their whole appeal is "the GOP is worse" and they aren't selling anything.

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

How will the GOP gain two seats? Kentucky and Georgia will negate Dakota and WV. Hagan is safe in NC, Pryor is gaining ground in hogland, and Landrieu will coast to a victory because her last name is French.

Well, MT, SD, and WV are more than ready to flip. Let's go over the rest:

Hagan is anything but safe. The only reason she's polling 5-6 points ahead of Tillis right now is because the legislature is in session - once the session ends, it will once again become a statistical tie. Sure, it's Toss-Up/Tilt D - but nothing more than that. And while Pryor may not be in as much trouble as he was in this past winter, he's definitely not out of the woods yet - take the RCP Average, put the outlier in there at half weight (Divide Pryor's lead in the outlier poll by 2), and re-average it with the other three polls there, and you get a Cotton lead of 0.4%. Eliminate the outlier completely and you get a Cotton lead of 2.3%. I'd put my bet on Cotton if the election was held today, and there's no guarantee that Pryor will keep gaining ground.

And as far as Landrieu goes, last names don't mean a thing in politics. She has about a 90% chance of facing a december runoff (she is very unlikely to reach 50% in the jungle primary in November), which the current polling indicates she is more likely to lose than win. Also, you're forgetting about TONS of races. There's Alaska, where it appears to be Toss-Up/Tilt D, but we really don't know a thing because Alaska is so hard to poll. Udall is polling within the margin of error in CO, and one poll even has him behind (Magellan Strategies). Iowa seems within reach for the GOP as well. And if the GOP can make this into a good year for them, rather than a sort of moderate to slightly good year, there's several races that may very well become more competitive: NH, MI, MN, VA, perhaps even OR.

Sure, GA and KY will be tight, but for GA, Jack Kingston (who is favored to win the runoff) is at best slightly ahead of Nunn and at worst exactly tied with her if you average the post-primary polls (depending on whether you count Rasmussen's Survey or not - none of the 3 post-primary polls are outliers when compared with one another but Rasmussen is the least reliable of the three pollsters (other two are PPP and SUSA)).(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_in_Georgia,_2014#Polling_4). Georgia still has republican leanings, however slight they may be, and Kingston is a good nominee who has about a 63,64% chance of being able to at least force a december runoff (which he would be a heavy favorite to win) if not win outright in November. And as far as KY goes, McConnell's going to win by a Jim Bunning esque margin most likely (1,2, maybe 3 points). Let's face it, he has a lot more  money to spend on advertising than Grimes ever will, and on election day, KY voters will realize that voting out McConnell is essentially a vote for Reid to continue being majority leader, and as much as they hate McConnell, I don't think they'll be able to stomach giving Grimes all of the votes she needs to win, although if current polling means anything she'll come quite close. Granted, I'm not nearly confident as Sabato is here, and give McConnell only a 67% chance of winning. But still.

If the election was held today, I'd predict a tied senate, with MT, SD, WV, LA, and AR flipping from democrat to republican. But that's today. The election is in November. While there is a very slight chance that democrats could turn this into a good year for them, and only lose 1 or 2 seats, the most likely outcomes involve them losing 4-7 seats, and losing more than that is more likely than losing less than that. The Republicans have the best map in a decade, they aren't trying to ruin it by making rape comments or nominating unelectable candidates, they have the turnout advantage, they have the six-year-itch rule working in their favor (and this is no 1998), and there isn't a single competitive senate race where Obama's approval rating is 50% (http://www.gallup.com/poll/125066/State-States.aspx) (I know it's from the very end of 2013, but it's not like Obama's gotten any more popular since then, if anything he's less popular than he was last January) . There is literally nothing that points to miniscule GOP gains and everything that points to (speaking from the democrats' perspective here) a very thin democratic majority at best and a wide republican majority at worst.