What freshmen senators do you see being unseated in 2014, after just one term?

[RIP Robert H Bork]

I am referring the following people, all of whom were elected to their first full terms this year.

Mark Begich (D/AK)
Mark Udall (D/CO)
Jim Risch (R/ID)
Al Franken, if he wins the recount (D/MN)
Mike Johanns (R/NE)
Jeanne Shaheen (D/NH)
Tom Udall (D/CO)
Kay Hagan (D/NC)
Jeff Merkley (D/OR)
Mark Warner (D/VA)

Roger Wicker (R/MS) and John Barrasso (R/WY) do not get their chances for their first full terms until 2012 so they do not count.

[DownWithTheLeft]

Good chance:
Mark Begich (D/AK)
Kay Hagan (D/NC)

Could happen:
Al Franken (D/MN)
Jeanne Shaheen (D/NH)
Tom Udall (D/NM)

Not likely:
Mark Udall (D/CO)
Jim Risch (R/ID)
Mike Johanns (R/NE)
Jeff Merkley (D/OR)
Mark Warner (D/VA)

[Lunar]

Funny how all five of your good chances are Democrats.  Well, it's not funny so much as inaccurate and biased.  Having five in the top might be a bit over the top, yaddamean?

Franken is the best chance, followed by Hagan and Begich, perhaps.  I suppose Risch and Johanns are safe, but I expect one of the two not to run for reelection.

edit: on reflection, I dunno about anything I just said

[justfollowingtheelections]

Funny how all five of your good chances are Democrats.  Well, it's not funny so much as inaccurate and biased. 

I was going to say the same thing.

[Lunar]

Well, I don't know.  Frankly Risch and Johanns aren't exactly remotely vulnerable.

If one were to shift one or two "could happeners" down to solid, it'd be fine to have all the most vulnerable people be Democrats...

[Verily]

If any of them loses in 2014, it will be Jeanne Shaheen. Followed by Al Franken. But that is, of course, with almost no information about what the next six years will be like. Begich is much safer than popularly thought, despite (or, rather, because of) his slender victory over Stevens.

[Kevin]

If any of them loses in 2014, it will be Jeanne Shaheen. Followed by Al Franken. But that is, of course, with almost no information about what the next six years will be like. Begich is much safer than popularly thought, despite (or, rather, because of) his slender victory over Stevens.

Why do you say Shaheen?

[DownWithTheLeft]

Funny how all five of your good chances are Democrats.  Well, it's not funny so much as inaccurate and biased.  Having five in the top might be a bit over the top, yaddamean?

Franken is the best chance, followed by Hagan and Begich, perhaps.  I suppose Risch and Johanns are safe, but I expect one of the two not to run for reelection.

edit: on reflection, I dunno about anything I just said

Yeah, I'm going to go with your last line.   The numbers are heavily skewed toward more Democrats, and neither of the Republicans are in states that appear to be moving near remotely competitive.  Had for example, John Kennedy or Dick Zimmer had won, they would have gone into "Good Chance" or "Could Happen"

[RIP Robert H Bork]

Funny how all five of your good chances are Democrats.  Well, it's not funny so much as inaccurate and biased.  Having five in the top might be a bit over the top, yaddamean?

Franken is the best chance, followed by Hagan and Begich, perhaps.  I suppose Risch and Johanns are safe, but I expect one of the two not to run for reelection.

edit: on reflection, I dunno about anything I just said

That is because the 2008 senate elections have resulted in more freshmen Democrats than Republicans. As I have already noted, there are only 2 new Republicans as opposed to 8 new Democrats.

[Lief 🗽]

I seriously doubt Franken runs for a second term.

[Sam Spade]

Just as a general rule, it's very hard for any two-term President (I don't think it's happened since the 1920s, when the country was quite different) to get away without one wave election occurring against them during their Presidency.

So, if 2010 is a generally even year and Obama wins in 2012, 2014 will probably be a wave of some sort.  And in a wave, all of the seats listed above could be problems excluding other unknown factors.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Of course, there's absolutely no way to predict what will happen in six years time, but...

Highly endangered:

Mark Begich (D-AK) - He's the only Democrat from a state McCain won by over 20 percent and he barely beat a convicted felon. There's a huge target on his back.
Kay Hagan (D-NC) - North Carolina seems to have little love for its Senators.

Some danger:

Mark Udall (D-CO) - I imagine Mark will probably move more to the center now.
Al Franken (D-MN) - I think one of two things will happen with Al: he'll turn out to be a good Senator and his popularity improves, making him safe in Dem-leaning MN, or he'll turn out to be a bad senator and he'll pull a Dayton, making way for a better senator like, say, Betty McCollum.

Little danger:

Jeff Merkley (D-OR) - Gordon Smith is probably the last gasp for the Republicans in OR for a while.
Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) - Probably will be a backbencher but it's not looking like NH Republicans are going to recover any time soon.

Safer than safe:

Mike Johanns (R-NE)
Jim Risch (R-ID)
Tom Udall (D-NM)
Mark Warner (D-VA)

[Lunar]

Finally a post I almost agree with.

You assume Franken is not egotistical with your assumption he'd step aside if endangered  I see him as more endangered than Begich simply because Alaska loves their incumbents, but I guess we'll have to see.  It's a close battle between them in my book.

[Holmes]

Well, if Begich is good to Alaska and his favorabilities aren't horrible, I honestly think no one. But if I really had to choose, it'd be him or Franken.

The only thing Hagan has to worry about is that bogus North Carolina senator curse in which incumbents only ever serve on term then are voted out. If Burr loses in 2 years, then we'll see... but I really don't believe in things like that.

[opebo]

More likely than not:
Mark Begich (D/AK)

50/50:
Kay Hagan (D/NC)

Could happen:
Al Franken (D/MN)
Jeanne Shaheen (D/NH)
Mark Udall (D/CO)

Not likely:
Tom Udall (D/NM)
Jim Risch (R/ID)
Mike Johanns (R/NE)
Jeff Merkley (D/OR)
Mark Warner (D/VA)

[Mr.Phips]

Well, if Begich is good to Alaska and his favorabilities aren't horrible, I honestly think no one. But if I really had to choose, it'd be him or Franken.

The only thing Hagan has to worry about is that bogus North Carolina senator curse in which incumbents only ever serve on term then are voted out. If Burr loses in 2 years, then we'll see... but I really don't believe in things like that.

The seat Hagan holds usually keeps its incumbents.  Helms won the seat for 25 years and the only reason Dole won it in the first place was the Republican tide of 2002. 

[Josh/Devilman88]

Hagan is safe as long as she is does better then Dole.

[DownWithTheLeft]

Hagan is safe as long as she is does better then Dole.

Wrong.  Hagan benefitted greatly from heavy African American turnout.  As we saw in Georgia, this drastically decreases without Obama heading the ticket.

[Sensei]

Begich will probably be gone
Hagan wouldn't be surprising
Franken wouldn't be surprising

the rest are varying degrees of safe

[Lief 🗽]

Hagan is safe as long as she is does better then Dole.

Wrong.  Hagan benefitted greatly from heavy African American turnout.  As we saw in Georgia, this drastically decreases without Obama heading the ticket.

Yep, Hagan was the first statewide Democrat elected in North Carolina in decades solely because of high black turnout from Barack Obama. Please don't be ridiculous. Hagan would have won if black turnout was the same as it had been in 2004.

[Holmes]

Besides, Hagan has six years until re-election, not one month. She won the young vote handily and even the young white vote like Obama did, not to mention population is still gonna be bleeding into the state during the next six years while those voters grow older. So I'm really not worried...

[Ronnie]

Begich will probably be gone
Hagan wouldn't be surprising
Franken wouldn't be surprising

the rest are varying degrees of safe

I agree completely with this.

[Dan the Roman]

Its worth noting that Hagan won by a greater margin than Dole did in 2002, against a much stronger opponent. Everyone here underestimated her. She is not some fluke win like Begich, or a lucky beneficiary of a wave like Merkley or Franken. She won on her own, and by such a margin(9 points) that she probably would have won even had McCain won the national election, and the state comfortably. She is vulnerable given the state, but she as a Senator is not, and if anyone is capable of surviving an unfavorable climate of the freshman class this year(with the exception of Warner) it is her.

[Lunar]

Its worth noting that Hagan won by a greater margin than Dole did in 2002, against a much stronger opponent. Everyone here underestimated her. She is not some fluke win like Begich, or a lucky beneficiary of a wave like Merkley or Franken. She won on her own, and by such a margin(9 points) that she probably would have won even had McCain won the national election, and the state comfortably. She is vulnerable given the state, but she as a Senator is not, and if anyone is capable of surviving an unfavorable climate of the freshman class this year(with the exception of Warner) it is her.

Well, her lead was exaggerated because her existing lead caused Dole to do a last-minute idiotic commercial that caused a bit of a scandal.

And that lead was partially substantial enough to cause Dole to do this because of Youth & Black turnout associated with Obama.

And Dole was not really a good opponent, she's an awful campaigner

[Ogre Mage]

I think a big risk for Begich is the Palin factor.  If she runs for reelection as governor in 2010, her second term will conveniently be up in 2014.  She would be an extremely formidable opponent for the first term senator.

Franken is the other freshman I see as highly endangered if he wins, although that will be true for Coleman as well even though he will be in his second term.  Given the circumstances, a huge number of people are going to view the winner of the MN senate race as illegitimate no matter who it is.  And both men have been tainted by scandals.