News from the Votemaster

Is 2014 a Repeat of 2006?

An unpopular President and a tough map were enough to flip the Senate in 2006, when Republicans went in with 55 seats and came out in the minority. This year the Democrats have an unpopular President and 55 seats going into the election and they are trying hard not to end up in the minority, as the Republicans did after the 2006 elections. Could 2014 be 2006 in reverse? Then as now, the map worked against the President's party. In 2006, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Rhode Island, Missouri, Montana and Ohio were seats that the Republicans were defending. This year the Democrats are defending Alaska, Louisiana, Arkansas, North Carolina, Colorado, and Iowa, among others, and currently only North Carolina looks good for them. Still, there is a month to go and many of the races are close.

Obama Will Speak on the Economy Thursday

The economy has been steadily improving, with unemployment now down to 5.9%, the lowest in 6 years. Yet Obama and the Democrats get little credit for it. On Thursday, Obama will give a speech on the economy at Northwestern University in Illinois in an attempt to inform Americans of the fact that things have actually gotten much better. This speech could be crucial in determining which party wins control of the Senate. Currently only 34% of likely voters consider the economy to be good, so Obama has his work cut out for him.

Boehner Backs Gay Republican Candidates

House speaker John Boehner is traveling to California this week to raise money for openly gay Republican candidate Carl DeMaio, who is challenging Rep. Scott Peters (D-CA) in CA-52 (San Diego). Boehner has been criticized by conservative groups that oppose homosexuality. Boehner has replied that what he really cares about is winning elections. He also supports another gay Republican, Richard Tisei, who is running for the House in Massachusetts.

Bill Clinton to Campaign in Arkansas

Arkansas Democrats are in trouble up and down the line, but if there is one person who can help them, it is Bill Clinton, and this week he is going to try. He will campaign for endangered Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR), who he has known since the 1970s, when Pryor's father, David Pryor, was governor. Clinton will also campaign for gubernatorial candidate Mike Ross and for some House candidates as well. Clinton is still well loved in Arkansas and could easily win any office he ran for, but whether he can boost other candidates remains to be seen. It is doubtful that he can convince many undecided voters to support Democratic candidates, but he can raise money for them and he can improve turnout of the Democratic base.

Do Debates Matter?

Televised debates between candidates are very common now, but do they matter? The answer is debatable. Alan Schroeder, a professor who has written books about presidential debates says they do matter. They give the voters a chance to see the candidates live and in an unscripted setting. Most voters have already made up their minds before the debates start, but a small number have not and in a close election, their votes matter. When the airwaves are full of ads on both sides, they largely cancel each other and for some voters, the debates are the determining factor.

Democrats Pouring Money into Firewall States

Democratic strategists are convinced that if they can hold Colorado, Iowa, and North Carolina, they can most likely hold the Senate and are spending accordingly. From Sept. to election day, here is what they are spending, with Republican spending in parentheses: North Carolina: $25 million ($19 million), Colorado: $19 million ($16 million), and Iowa: $15 million ($13 million). Next in the list come Arkansas, Michigan, and Alaska. The numbers don't give the absolute importance though. Putting $8 million into Alaska, for example, is a lot of money because it is a state with a low population and cheap television time. Also, as we have pointed out before, the Democrats are spending much more than the Republicans on their get-out-the-vote operation because their supporters tend not to vote in midterms whereas Republicans are more faithful voters.

$100 Million Could Pour into a Georgia During a Runoff

Georgia has two races with famous names this year. In the Senate race for the seat being vacated by Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) the candidates are Michelle Nunn (D), daughter of legendary senator Sam Nunn, and David Perdue (R), cousin of former governor Sonny Perdue. As if that weren't enough, the Democratic candidate for governor is Jason Carter (D), grandson of former President Jimmy Carter.

While Georgia has been reliably Republican in recent years, the demographics are changing. For either Democrat to win, they need to get 30% of the white vote and they also need to have the black vote be 30% of the total, as it was in 2012. Obama got 23% of the white vote in 2012 but there is certainly a chance that white candidates will do better with white voters than a black candidate. This is the Democrats' hope and Republicans' fear. Perdue is running as a job creator, but Friday a document surfaced in which Perdue admitted that he had outsourced jobs, and in fact, that was his company's specialty.

There is a Libertarian Party candidates in the Senate race who could get 3-4% of the vote, possibly enough to keep either Nunn or Perdue from getting 50%. If no candidate gets 50%, there will be a runoff between the top two finishers on Jan. 6, 2015, after the new Senate has convened. If control of the Senate depends on the runoff, experts estimate that $100 million could be spent on the runoff.

Is the Romney Boomlet a Result of a Weak 2016 GOP Field?

In the past few weeks, two-time unsuccessful presidential candidate Mitt Romney, has emerged from seclusion and hinted at a possible third run. Why would he do this? The real reason is that the donor class thinks Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) can't win, former Florida governor Jeb Bush won't run, and the other candidates are awful.

On the other hand, conservatives hated Romney in 2012 and will hate him even more in 2016 since his politics haven't changed but he lost a winnable election in 2012. Their problem is that they have close to 10 possible candidates, and their support could be badly split accross all of them, possibly enabling Romney to get the nomination again. Still, the last time a major party ran the same candidate twice in a row was in 1952 and 1956, when the Democrats bet on Adlai Stevenson twice and lost badly twice. Republicans are not likely to forget this.

Today's Senate Polls

We have a slew of new polls today, mostly from YouGov. YouGov's methodology differs from traditional polling, which is having trouble with response rates less than 10% and increasingly many people with no landline. Instead of calling people using random digit dialing and trying to get 600 interviews, YouGov used online interviews with over 100,000 respondents. This approach requires massive statistical manipulation to get the right number of people in each demographic group, but it might be the future of polling.

The most important results are that Colorado and Iowa are a true tossups. Other polls have put the Republicans consistently ahead in these critical state. If the Democrats can win Colorado and Iowa they can probably hold the Senate if Kansas independent Greg Orman wins and caucuses with them.

State	Democrat	D %	Republican	R %	I	I %	Start	End	Pollster
Alaska	Mark Begich*	42%	Dan Sullivan	48%			Sep 20	Oct 01	YouGov
Alabama	None	0%	Jeff Sessions*	61%			Sep 20	Oct 01	YouGov
Arkansas	Mark Pryor*	41%	Tom Cotton	45%			Sep 20	Oct 01	YouGov
Colorado	Mark Udall*	48%	Cory Gardner	45%			Sep 20	Oct 01	YouGov
Delaware	Chris Coons*	51%	Kevin Wade	35%			Sep 20	Oct 01	YouGov
Georgia	Michelle Nunn	43%	David Perdue	47%			Sep 20	Oct 01	YouGov
Hawaii	Brian Schatz*	71%	Cam Cavasso	17%			Sep 20	Oct 01	YouGov
Iowa	Bruce Braley	44%	Joni Ernst	43%			Sep 20	Oct 01	YouGov
Iowa	Bruce Braley	44%	Joni Ernst	46%			Sep 27	Oct 01	Marist Coll.
Idaho	Nels Mitchell	27%	Jim Risch*	64%			Sep 20	Oct 01	YouGov
Illinois	Dick Durbin*	51%	Jim Oberweis	39%			Sep 20	Oct 01	YouGov
Kansas			Pat Roberts*	38%	Greg Orman	48%	Sep 27	Oct 01	Marist Coll.
Kansas			Pat Roberts*	40%	Greg Orman	40%	Sep 20	Oct 01	YouGov
Kentucky	Alison L.-Grimes	41%	Mitch McConnell*	47%			Sep 20	Oct 01	YouGov
Louisiana	Mary Landrieu*	41%	Bill Cassidy	47%			Sep 20	Oct 01	YouGov
Massachusetts	Ed Markey*	54%	Brian Herr	31%			Sep 20	Oct 01	YouGov
Maine	Shenna Bellows	33%	Susan Collins*	57%			Sep 20	Oct 01	YouGov
Michigan	Gary Peters	46%	Terri Land	41%			Sep 20	Oct 01	YouGov
Minnesota	Al Franken*	49%	Mike McFadden	42%			Sep 20	Oct 01	YouGov
Mississippi	Travis Childers	35%	Thad Cochran*	46%			Sep 20	Oct 01	YouGov
Montana	Amanda Curtis	34%	Steve Daines	55%			Sep 20	Oct 01	YouGov
North Carolina	Kay Hagan*	44%	Thom Tillis	40%	Sean Haugh (L)	7%	Sep 27	Oct 01	Marist Coll.
North Carolina	Kay Hagan*	46%	Thom Tillis	45%	Sean Haugh (L)	2%	Sep 20	Oct 01	YouGov
Nebraska	Dave Domina	31%	Ben Sasse	58%			Sep 20	Oct 01	YouGov
New Hampshire	Jeanne Shaheen*	48%	Scott Brown	41%			Sep 20	Oct 01	YouGov
New Jersey	Cory Booker*	51%	Jeff Bell	37%			Sep 20	Oct 01	YouGov
New Mexico	Tom Udall*	53%	Allen Weh	35%			Sep 20	Oct 01	YouGov
Oklahoma	Matt Silverstein	25%	James Inhofe*	67%			Sep 20	Oct 01	YouGov
Oregon	Jeff Merkley*	52%	Monica Wehby	39%			Sep 20	Oct 01	YouGov
Rhode Island	Jack Reed*	64%	Mark Zaccaria	22%			Sep 20	Oct 01	YouGov
South Carolina	Brad Hutto	27%	Lindsey Graham*	44%			Sep 20	Oct 01	YouGov
South Dakota	Rick Weiland	27%	Mike Rounds	42%	Larry Pressler	12%	Sep 20	Oct 01	YouGov
Tennessee	Gordon Ball	32%	Lamar Alexander*	53%			Sep 20	Oct 01	YouGov
Texas	David Alameel	29%	John Cornyn*	50%			Oct 01	Oct 02	Rasmussen
Texas	David Alameel	35%	John Cornyn*	55%			Sep 20	Oct 01	YouGov
Virginia	Mark Warner*	51%	Ed Gillespie	39%			Sep 20	Oct 01	YouGov
West Virginia	Natalie Tennant	33%	Shelley Moore-Capito	56%			Sep 20	Oct 01	YouGov
Wyoming	Charlie Hardy	17%	Michael Enzi*	75%			Sep 20	Oct 01	YouGov

* Denotes incumbent

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---The Votemaster