Given his assurance of caucusing with the majority party, this race matters much less now unless Democrats manage to pick up three of AK, CO, IA, NC. It looks like Orman will be a Republican soon.
Orman will win and the DNC needs to take note. Democrat is the bad word in the Plains and South, not the policies of the Democratic Party. If Davis were independent like Orman, he'd be up 15 on Brownback.
Republican is also a bad word, but not as severely. An "Independent" might have beaten Cochran and Rounds as well if there were no Democrats involved.
If I'm head of the DSCC for 2016, I'm putting no Democrat on the ballot in 2016 against Shelby, Murkowski, Boozman, Moran, Hoeven, Thune, and Lee. Instead, I put out a feeler for the most Democratic friendly Independent I can find, tell innocuous PACs to support them, and just step back and see what happens.
People want a third party, right?
Be careful what you wish for. I could see this strategy electing senators who caucus with the GOP in any of the New England states. There are more solid R states that D's presently forfeit than solid D states that R's presently forfeit, though so if it goes national it would probably benefit Democrats on net.
Also if we imagine that 5-10+ independents got elected on a "caucus with the clear majority" platform, it would effectively abolish the filibuster because the winning side would always have 60 senators. That could be the best part of this type of reform. Also, the independents would be even less likely to oppose non-crazy executive branch appointees, which would be another benefit for the system.
