"No true individual has existed yet, able to live, able to die. Only diseased, tragic, or dismal and ludicrous fools who sometimes hoped to acheive some ideal by fiat, by their great desire for it. But usually by bullying all mankind into believing them." -Herzog by Saul Bellow
Let me first off make a few disclaimers. One is that I prefer to be an optimist, and therefore I am pushing forward with my optimism in calling some close races where there isn't enough hard evidence to compel me to abandon my rose-colored glasses. In 2012, I was extremely accurate, calling every Senate race correctly but Nevada, and every Presidential state. I think my biggest undershot in the entire Presidential predictions was giving Romney a 1 point win in NC (he won by 3). But this cycle has been hard to get a handle on.
Us on DailyKos Elections have made this discussion numerous times, but there are a lot of close races and a lot of races where the polls look worse than gut reality suggests. More broadly, either the polls will be right and this turns into a tough Senate election for Democrats where they lose the Senate and have losses in the House, or the likely voter modeling shows its considerable flaws and goes the way of exit polling. In any case, some of the really wide LV versus RV gaps we've seen, such as those in Iowa, seem a product of screens that are unjustifiably tight in my opinion (to start with, discounting everyone who didn't vote in 2010 is ridiculous, because 2010 was the lowest turnout election in recent history). Anyway, here are my calls, just so that in the off chance my optimism pays off, I can again beat my chest like the silverback that I am and proclaim how I, anonymous blogger #2364A have been more accurate than Nate Silver in two consecutive elections.
House
I'm not going into any detail in most of these.
Republican hold:
CO-06 -Sadly, Mike Coffman seems impervious to his own assholishness and conservatism in a Democratic leaning, Dem-trending district. That and Andrew Romanoff has no political base in the district, and while having raised a lot of money, doesn't seem like the best fit here and wasn't exactly popular as Speaker of the Colorado State House.
CO-03
CA-21
AR-04 - James Lee Witt has run as fantastic a campaign as humanly possible for an Arkansas Democrat, and he was a very well-connected fellow with a great resume. This district has just slipped too far away from Democrats. A sloppy 2012 map from the state legislature failed to shore up either AR-01 or AR-04. A better map that united the Delta and eastern Arkansas with AR-04's core, dropping the southwest portion from Miller to El Dorado County and dropping it's western counties, would have made a district that was strongly Democratic at a local level and which Witt would win. But oh well. The Pryor campaign is expecting though to have fantastic turnout from Pine Bluffs, one of their main targets, and Mike Ross is running strong here in his gubernatorial race, so it's definitely closer than it should be under normal circumstances.
NY-11 - Forget the Martha Coakley jokes. Turn around and focus on Dominic Recchia. This is someone who's going to lose to an opponent who barely won reelection in 2012, and then got indicted on some extremely incriminating business practices and was revealed to have been kicked out of the FBI. Sure Staten Island is filled with assholes more than ready to buy some uninformed bullshit about Grimm's charges being politically motivated (and assholes to vote for a guy who was caught on camera threatening to throw a reporter over a balcony), but really Recchia's campaign has just been that bad. Grimm has no money and no national Republican support, but Reccchia hasn't lit it up on the fundraising front to take full advantage of that (instead national Democratic groups have had to come in and aid him). More pressingly, he's from the wrong end of the district, and his lack of charisma, his gaffes, and the over all impression that he's a young idiot from Brooklyn have actually handed Grimm enough opportunities to rally his base.
KY-06
KS-02 - Lynn Jenkins is caught up in the all out civil war between the reasonable faction of the Kansas Republican party and the fringe, anti-government/dominionist group that has exploded under governor Sam Brownback, who is set to lose reelection—and thus will lose this district by double-digits most likely. Jenkins was almost caught napping, but it looks like national Republicans stepped in fast enough to stop an upset, and her lack of a well-funded, first class opponent will save her.
ND-AL - This was almost my pick for upset of the night. Byron Dorgan and Earl Pomeroy held North Dakota's At Large seat for almost 30 years, including tough election cycles like 1984, and 1994. Kevin Cramer, elected after Rick Berg left for his disaster of a Senate campaign (quite likely the weakest candidate Republicans could have put forth, thereby allowing Heidi Heitkamp an unlikely victory in an increasingly Republican and polarized state), has run a bizarre campaign. With almost no media appearances, light advertising, and even lists himself as his media contact on his online website. It's still a possible upset. The Democrat is fairly high caliber recruit this time, unlike in 2012. State Senator George Sinner is the son of the state's last Democratic Governor, who served from 1984-1992, and is fairly well-known and has run a good, well-funded campaign. Cramer also drew international infamy for quoting the Bible in arguing to eliminate the Food Stamps program. So it would be fairly satisfying to see him lose. I don't see it happening though.
WI-06 - Glenn Grothman is absolutely crazy and has fissioned the local Republican party. Democrat Mark Harris, the current Winnebago County Executive, even received a non-endorsement from the seat's current occupent, 19 term incumbent Tom Petri. By that I mean Petri called Harris a good fit for the seat and someone he could vote for; and Petri is a mainstream conservative in congress. That said Harris has had anemic fundraising and run an underwhelming campaign. This district also became more Republican in redistricting and is ancestrally Republican. Grothman will underperform Romney considerably, but with Walker at the top of the ticket driving Republican turnout here, and general midterm dynamics, this probably isn't the cycle for Democrats to defeat him.
OH-06
MI-01
MI-04
MI-06 -Upton is going to have the closest win of his career by far, I think, but redistricting that made his district substantially more Republican than the 2002 version did, is going to save him this time around.
MI-07
MI-08
MI-11 What I can say? Republicans did a brilliant job gerrymandering the state. And Democrats seriously dropped the ball with getting top-notch candidates in MI-08 and MI-11 to take advantage of the swingy seats.
MN-02
WV-01
WV-02 -Also upset territory. But Alex Mooney, who was the minority leader of the State Senate...in Maryland until he abruptly left the state 2 years ago for the explicit purpose of starting a political career somewhere where he could win. He ended up here, and in this open seat race is struggling against the well-connected local Democrat Nick Casey. Having Capito at the top of the ticket though, and Obama's massive unpopularity seems enough to pull him over the top, though he is obviously underperforming and hurt by his carpetbagging and not being a good political fit for West Virginia, whose Republican candidates are mostly mainstream types who vote to protect federal spending and major welfare projects most of the time.
VA-01
VA-10 John Foust is great, but 17 term incumbent Frank Wolf retired before the district trended more Democratic and made sure to do it on an off-year election which definitely hampers Democrats in a district where their turnout is heavily dependent on Hispanic voters and other minority voting pools. Barbara Comstock is a bit of a radical, known for her focus on hot-button social issues and is neither as personable, or as good a fit as Wolf, but she's likely to win, partially because the Foust campaign has made a few errors along the way and failed to really rally a lot of moderate support.
NJ-03 - This turf is just tougher downballot that it's 51% 2012 Obama vote total makes it look.
NJ-05 -Scott Garrett's not going yet.
NJ-02 -Republicans have a pretty good gerrymander going in this state too. Frank Lobiondo would have a tougher time in a Fair map.
PA-08
PA-06
PA-07 -Republicans did outrageous things to gerrymander the Philedelphia suburbs out of competitiveness and deny 20 years of rapid political change in the region, creating an even 3-3 split in the most Democratic region of the state. (Hint, the Obama districts gave him 90%, 82% and 66% of the vote respectively. The three Republican districts gave Romney 50.6, 50.4, and 49.4% of the vote. Romney won the new 8th by just .1%) The issue is these three districts are ancestrally Republican and Republicans drew so that Democrats would lack strong candidates and have trouble competing at a downballot level. PA-07 was the most aggregious, as a Delaware county district suddenly contorted into a monstrous blob that took in some of the most Republican areas of Chester and Lancaster to turn a district that had previously given Obama something like 59% in 2008, just 51% and which he lost in 2012.
IA-04 Jim Mowrer is the perfect candidate and has run a good campaign. I feel he'll outperform Christie Vilsack, just not by enough to win in this pretty tough, inelastic and ancestrally Republican district.
NY-19
Democratic Holds
ME-02 - This is actually the traditional heart of Maine's Democratic party, even though the super-liberal enclaves around Portland and the southern coast are now more important. As such, even while Democrats have struggled at times elsewhere in the state, this district, despite its national swinginess, has been won by Democrats a lot, in fact it was one of the only pick ups in 1994, after Olympia Snowe retired. Fun Trivia time! This districts past four U.S. Representatives include 3 U.S. Senators and a Governor, and its current representative, Mike Michaud, is also retiring for a competitive gubernatorial race. Emily Cain is a favorite to win agaisnt conservative Republican Bruce Poliquin, who was far from the best candidate Republicans could have run. Cain is very young, at just 34, and is a smart, impressive politician, first elected to the Maine legislature at 24 years old. I see a very bright future for her down the road, particularly given this district's propensity to springboard Governors and Senators (I'm particularly eying Angus King in 2018, as I see him as likely to retire).
NH-01 -This is an upset for some people, but I'm not betting against Carol Shea-Porter. The DCCC isn't leaving her for dead, and the NRCC is still spending big, so both sides feel this race is close. Frank Guinta is a weak Republican with past issues, and CSP has always been good about getting out the vote. The polling we have is mostly sketchy and spotty, and it will be close, but I'm not treating this like a Republican pick up on that flimsy evidence.
NH-02
MA-06
CT-05
CT-04
NY-01 - Tim Bishop has indeed won close races before. Lee Zeldin has had a few speed bumps along the way. I just can't believe Siena at this point. Their wild gyrations, and the fact that they are simply showing an absolute bloodbath in New York for congressional Democrats across the board and showing consistent Republican leads even for some state senate races where Democrats are considered mild favorites by local prognosticators.
NY-18 - Nita Hayworth lost in 2012 for a reason. And Sean Maloney is just a better politician who has run a better campaign in this swing district. We lose this district in a wave. And this isn't a wave election by any conceivable data point we have in polling.
NY-24
FL-26
FL-18
CA-03
CA-26
CA-36 - Raul Ruiz is incredibly impressive. First he outperformed Obama in an ancestrally Republican district to defeat a 7 term incumbent in 2012. Then in 2014 he got a majority of the vote in the runoff in a district where Democratic performance is dependent on hispanic turnout and is much lower in the primary election. He's a solid young liberal Latino politician, the son of migrant farmworkers who grew up to get three graduate degrees from Harvard. His fundraising and charisma are top notch and I could easily see him moving up to Senate sometime in the future.
CA-52 - DeMaio had to run a perfect campaign in this swingish but Democratic leaning and trending district. But he's had a few hiccups, both with conservative church leaders organizing a boycott of his campaign (the Republican party sure is tolerant of gays!), and a few bad news storys about possible scandals.
AZ-01 - It'll be close, but competitive Navajo elections should ensure good turnout. And Andy Tobin had an expensive, divisive Republican primary and has made a few small errors that will give Amy Kirkpatrick another term in this highly swingish district.
AZ-02 - Ron Barber looks a little better this time around than most expected after his shocking near-loss to Martha McSally in 2012.
AZ-09 - Kyrsten Sinema's transformation into politicial creature whose ideas service ambition continues, as the former 2000 Nader accolyte transitions into blue dog in a swingish but Dem-leaning, Dem-trending district with an eye on future statewide races.
TX-23
GA-12 I think Barrow's going to eke out a win this time. The race has closed fast, but I think he can hold on a while longer. It's going to be closer than most thought for most of the cycle. I'm predicting a 51-49 race. Barrow may run for Senate in 2016, or, if he can win reelection again, run for Governor in 2018.
MN-08 I agree with OCGoldy here.
MN-07
IL-10
IL-12 Enyart's going to win a pretty close race, but he's going to win. I would easily make that bet. National prognosticators are again bizarrely off here. IL-12 was talked up as one of the leading toss-up races in 2012 after popular long time incumbent Jerry Costello retired. Illinois national guard Adjutant General Bill Enyart though ended up winning by ten percentage points in a result that was in no reasonable estimate close.
IA-01 Patrick Murphy is going to win a damn bit closer than he should.
IA-02
Here comes tough news
Republican Pick ups
WV-03 -This one hurts. I can't think of anything Rahall has done wrong and he's run a good campaign. Even a well-known, personally like institution is going down to ridiculous fear campaigns on coal and anti-Obama hysteria.
UT-04 - Bill Owens has run this closer than anyone not named Jim Matheson should have been able to. Mia Love once against has run a supremely underwhelming campaign. This was also on my short list for upset of the night, but for now I'm still saying Love in by low single digits.
NC-07 - Yeah. Democrats totally wasted 1.7 million dollars in DCCC money protecting Mike McIntyre for one goddamn cycle. McIntyre though, is a terrible Democrat and good for very little on any major issue.
NY-21 - This is Democratic leaning but ancestrally Republican (and dominated downballot by Republicans in the state legislature) territory. Unfortunately right as Bill Owens, the first Democrat to ever represent most of this district, was starting to get entrenched, he bailed out, and Democrats were unable to come up with any top notch candidates. They ended up with Aaron Wolf, a documentary filmmaker who owns an organic grocery store in Brooklyn. The Green candidate has consistently polled in the double digits here...yeah, if Greens won't vote for a candidate like Aaron Wolf beyond just practical reasons...who will they fucking vote for?
Good news Last
Democratic Pick Ups
AR-02 - Yeah, people are probably like, what? A fucking pick up in Arkansas? During Obama's midterm? What? Okay okay, let me explain myself. Both Mike Ross and Mark Pryor are targeting AR-02 heavily. State Democrats have an unprecedented turnout effort going on for Pulaski county (Little Rock). The current polling has consistently shown Pryor and Ross up in AR-02 by high single digits, and they are both likely to win it by around 7-9 percent, though that's not enough to power them to statewide victory. Other tough statewide races also have Democrats doing well in the district, a mix of conservative suburbs and a heavily Democratic core. My logic is simply that French Hill is an unlikeable banker with a bad profile. He's not a Republican who is going to win these Pryor-Ross voters over a conservative, well-known local Democrat with a strongly established base in one of the only swingish to Republican areas of Pulaski county, North Little Rock. Pat Hays is going to win narrowly, I think. This race and holding onto the state attorney general's office are going to be some of the only highlights for Arkansas Democrats over the past few cycles.
FL-02 -This will be even closer, but Steve Sutherland is in a swingish district that is more Democratic downballot than upballot. Charlie Crist should win here, and Gwen Graham, daughter of the popular former Senator and Governor, is set for a narrow win over a lackluster Republican incumbent.
NE-02 - Lee Terry has sort of stumbled along the last 8 years. He's not very popular, and almost lost in both 2008 and 2012. Democrat Brad Ashford got a late start, but GOTV efforts here have been stellar for Democrats and Terry continued stumbling this year, including whining about not getting his paycheck during the government shutdown. The fact that he and national Republicans ran a Willie Horton racebaiting ad with defcon 5 law and order tones and over the top attacks on Ashford, reek of last minute desperation. The best the NRCC could say recently was that Lee Terry 'could still win it.' Hardly a note of confidence.
CA-31 This 57% Obama district will be falling into partisan lines this year, and will send another bright young Latino politician to Washington, 35 year old Pete Aguilar. The Republican incumbent, Gary Miller, once it became clear that lightning would not strike twice (in 2012 due to terrible Democratic drop off during the primary and a heavily fractured Democratic field, Miller advanced to the Top 2 against a well-established Republican State Senator).
IA-03: I still think this is a narrow pick up. David Young, the Republican candidate, was selected after a divisive caucus. He placed 5th in the Republican priamry. After the caucus he entered the general broke and still largely unknown, up against a former Democratic state senator who had served one term from a Republican leaning state senate district, Staci Appel. She's gotten additional help from the Mayday PAC and national Democrats, and Republicans seem pessimistic about the race, though it will end up close in this extremely swingish district.
Now would everyone roll their drums into a crescendo as I announce my "upset of the night"?
KS-03 - There, I went there. Someone had to do it. This is the least Republican district in the state, and the one with the strongest faction of moderate Republicans. I expect Brownback to get crushed in this district. As far as Kansas goes, KS-01 is monolithically Republican. It's also his base and Brownback will probably win it 60-40. KS-04 will be roughly while KS-02 will give Davis about a 55-45 margin. It's KS-03 that Davis is going to win 60-40. Greg Orman is probably going to do much better here than statewide too. This area is ancestrally Republican, but the growth and trend of Kansas City and suburban Johnson county have made KS-03 within reach for Democrats (I believe even Obama narrowly won it in 2008). Kevin Yoder is in the tea party faction and not liked by Republican moderates. Add in his embarrassing scandal where he went skinny dipping in the sea of Galilee during a foreign trip to Israel. While Yoder's opponent has also raised very little, she has a higher profile than Jenkins' opponent and a more favorable district. Kelly Kultala is a former state senator and the 2010 Democratic lieutenant governor nominee. More than that I guess, I feel Yoder is ripe to get caught up in the anti-Brownback anti-Tea Party wave sweeping much of Kansas. I have a hard time seeing a politician like Yoder get such a big chunk of Davis-Orman-Schdorf voters, even against a Democratic who hasn't been the most visible and hasn't been propped up by national money.
So I'm actually predicting a gain of D+2 in the House, which is on the optimistic end of projections. I simply don't see Republicans sweeping so many tough races like other prognosticators who are saying they will gain 10-15 seats are. My bet and analysis is that this isn't a wave election, and most of those tough seats Democrats simply have better candidates. The low hanging fruit was already lost. Republicans have to win some difficult races, like NH-01 and NY-18, MA-06, IL-12, MN-08 etc, and all with fairly weak candidates like Hayworth, Guinta, and Mike Bost.
Senate Projections:
Republican Holds
Kentucky - Allison Grimes was pretty well-positioned going into the summer. But experienced Democratic operatives and locals that I have interacted with, have all described her campaign over this past summer as a disaster. She let McConnell completely set the pace, and let it become all about coal. Even worse, in that situation she was vague, indecisive and couldn't seem to figure out what her own position on coal was and present a coherent vision for the issue. It seems to have lost her ancestrally Democratic areas of East Kentucky that she needed to win to beat McConnell. Her interview flap that Chuck Todd discredited himself over was only a minor speed bump and had little impact. Her summer of poor decisions though, clearly allowed McConnell to break out of what was a tie and establish a solid lead. That said their are undecideds here and McConnell hasn't acted like he has the race in the bag. Several polling operatives who were recently interview picked this as their top potential upset of election night. McConnell is deeply unpopular, and Grimes is going to do extremely well in Jefferson County (Louisville), and the bluegrass region that is her base. I also expect her to make in-roads into McConnell's west Kentucky base, like McCracken county. But she's going to come up just short, as I project a 51-49 McConnell victory.
Republican pick ups
This is like a band-aid...
AR-SEN - This hurts the most. I can no longer be optimistic enough to say Pryor has a chance. It's clear he's going to lose. Even though Tom Cotton is such an incredible and unmitigated ball of awfulness. True arch conservative elitism, a true believer who makes incredibly right wing votes to the right of Arkansas's entire Republican congressional delegation. He comes off as entitled and arrogant as well, and has a terrible voting record. He's the worst amalgamation possible in politics; an aggressive neo-con social conservative with anti-government Tea Party ideas. In the case of Arkansas, all the King's men could not put the party back together. The combined energies of beloved legends like Dale Bumpers and Mark Pryor's dad, David Pryor, along with popular figures like Mike Beebe and Bill Clinton, could not save Mark Pyror. All his folksiness, his aggressive attacks, fantastic retail politicking, and Cotton's numerous mistakes, none of it was able to overcome the state's political trend and the constant repetition of Obama's name. This race disgusts me. 50-45 Cotton.
WV-SEN - Democrats got a good recruit. Against an obscure Tea Party state legislator or John Raese, Secretary of State Natalie Tennant would have had pretty good odds even in this environment. Shelley Moore Capito is the scion of West Virginia's most successful Republican family and she is a super well-established, 7 term U.S. incumbent herself, with a somewhat moderate record. She was an even better recruit for Republicans. Tennant will have a respectable showing, and perhaps get some practice in for a 2016 gubernatorial run. 58-42 Capito.
SD-SEN - Ugh. Just UGH! Fuck Tom Daschle and the ignorant, disconnected high horse he road into this race on. Mike Rounds implosion and the divisive, multi-candidate race that this turned into, Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin would have been an easy favorite had Daschle not helped push her aside for loose cannon and high progressive Rick Weiland, a virtual unknown in the state and former aid. I don't even want ot bother with percentages.
MT-SEN - UGHHH! JUST UGH!! This is the first glaring recruitment failure in a long, long time for Senate Democrats. John Walsh fell apart right as his campaign was starting to close in on U.S. Rep Steve Daines who had held an early lead. Another Democratic like Mike McGrath, Monica Lindeen, Denise Juneau or fuck, Brian Schweitzer (who played with national Democrats for 6 months, acting all by certain to run and giving indications he would, then pulling the plug last minute after having his ego thoroughly stroked and wasting a huge amount of critical time for other potential Democratic candidates) would probably have pulled even and be in position to make this a real coin flip race on election day. Same here with percentages.
Democratic Holds
This is where my optimism kicks in. I hope it turns out right. I mean I'm not a mindless optimist by any means. I am though looking at the data points and making certain assumptions that favor Democrats, even though they are highly reasonable and plausible assumptions.
North Carolina - I've had a friend working on this campaign. The Hagan campaign has had the same 3 point lead since August. Their sophisticated campaign internals have pretty much never wobbled, and they've had extremely detailed information for GOTV. Hagan has an absurd number of field offices and canvassers, and they are targeting single precincts in Republican counties with field offices. The early vote went quite well, and was substantially better than 2010. This race is close, but has such a large pool of data points that suggest a Hagan win that I feel very confident about that prediction. Thom Tillis, the Republican candidate, has been compromised by his position as Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives. The state's legislature is deeply unpopular because of its radical conservative agenda and failure to deal with pressing issues in education and even letting a film tax credit expire that risks a big chunk of Wilmington's economy. The acrimonious summer legislative session that ended with a fight and a deadlock between the more conservative dominated Senate and the House kept Tillis busy for nearly two months and unable to raise money. The stream of bad headlines and voter frustrations over the legislature also sunk him and no amount of money has been able to regain him a lead. Hagan 49.4%, Tillis 46.8%, Sean Haugh 3.6%
Alaska - Polling showed a stable lead for Mark Begich's Republican opponent Dan Sullivan. However in the last few weeks a stream of polls turned that on its head, and Begich has had momentum even in polls he's still trailing in. Alaska is notoriously difficult to poll, and while it can be argued that its polls underestimate Republican strength, another explanation would be that the polls tend to underestimate the strength of incumbents (who have just usually been Republicans). Beyond that, Alaska is a small state. Begich has an absolutely unprecedent turnout operation there. Dan Sullivan has 12 campaign offices and something like 36 people working them. These offices are pretty much all near Juneau, Anchorage, Fairbanks, and the Matanuska valley. Mark Begich has 44 field offices and over 144 people working them. The Begich campaign has people out in places you can only reach by spending several hours on a chartered campaign. Numerous local tribes and other isolated regional centers like Barrow (one of the only cities inside the arctic circle itself), and Nome have field offices working the Begich campaign. Ballots are also being printed in native languages for the first time this year. Overall, its just a collection of factors that mean we very likely might see record participation from the native tribes, among whom Begich is extremely popular. So again, in such a small state, field operations like this matter a lot more, something that even Nate Silver admitted might make his modeling moot. I'm willing to bet on Begich. Ivan Moore showed him up 6 points, and while they are a Democratic pollster, they have one of the better records for the state. He's also cleverly, and relentlessly promoting the libertarian to push enough dissatisfied conservative and independent voters to that candidate to win with a simply plurality. I project Begich 47.2%, Dan Sullivan 45.6%, 7.2% various third party candidates.
Iowa - Put me in the small camp that believe Ernst's lead is built on LV models that are too restrictive. Both sides are acting like this is very close, and the outlier-ish, random gyration in her favor in the last Selzer poll aside, all other polling has this very close. Despite that, I've seen nothing but confidence and focus from the Braley campaign and the DSCC; they feel it comes down to whose turnout operation is better and they feel they are meeting benchmarks and will turnout voters to get a narrow victory. It should be noted that Braley has consistent, and sometimes even large leads among polls of registered voters (see my note about my main optimistic assumption at the beginning of the electoral analysis).
Colorado - I trust Mellman and the DSCC on this one. Mellman recently revealed their last poll has the race tied, the same as they found in 2010 when Michael Bennet won by 1.8% in a race he trailed by 3% in the pollster average. Vote By Mail is still unpredictable, but it will increase turnout, and for whatever reason (there must be some pyschological or personality factor) Democratic ballots come in later and Democrats also hope to dominate the election day voting and same-day registration efforts. This race is going to be extremely close, but I'm predicting that Mark Udall wins by .8% over U.S. Rep Cory Gardner, despite the fact that he might not have run the most balanced and effective campaign, and how Obama's decision to punt immigration reform actually hurt Udall's reelection chances.
New Hampshire - Scott Brown hasn't really led in any credible polls. While the race has tightened, most polls still show incumbent Democrat Jeanne Shaheen with a lead. If I were going to bet, I would actually bet on polls underestimating her final margin. This won't be all that close, and should finally end Scott Brown's political career and save us the spectacle of his dumb pandering, lack of awareness of the issues, dishonest self-aggrandizement, and whininess. I project a 51-46 Shaheen victory.
Michigan - This was supposed to be one of Republicans top pick up opportunities. Then Terri Lynn Land happened. It's impossible to list her numerous mistakes, but she's run one of the worst campaigns of a competitive candidate in recent memory. She really committed the ultimate sin of politics. You can be a radical conservative like Scott Walker and get away with it if you can politic. Land can't politic. In one horrible, campaign defining moment, she literally froze up in front of Reporters at a big media event and couldn't string together a coherent sentence, finally pushing away the mic and saying "I can't do this." Then she literally cut the media off, and made only a few campaign events, while hiding from all media attention or work for the past year. Work horse Democrat Gary Peters has built up his name recognition in her absence and run a good campaign. He's now leading by double-digits in all the polls. I project Peters wins, 56-44.
Minnesota - This isn't even competitive. The fact that it isn't is kind of satisfying, given how close it was in 2008 and how much of an intelligent, workhorse liberal Al Franken has been. Franken, 57-39.
Virginia - Gillespimentum! The race has closed out marginally. Mark Warner will still win 56-44. It looks like even he's suddenly going to see places he won 70% of the vote in in 2008 give 60% of the vote to his opponent. I'm talking of course about the massive transformation in southwestern Virginia of course.
I am currently projecting that both Georgia and Louisiana go to runoffs. I will punt discussion of those until then. In fact, I need the first round data from Louisiana to calculate my benchmarks and make my projections in that race. To give people my baromteric, if Landrieu gets 47% or higher in tomorrow's primary, she's strongly favored in the primary. If her total is between 45-47% it's going to be a tough, toss up race. If she only scores between 43-44% of the vote, I see as a marginal underdog, unless she intentionally saved some real wallops and December suprises for Cassidy, kind of like she did with Haik-Terrell in 2002. It also of course depends on whether my other predictions are right or not. If they are and Democrats hold the Senate, then it kind of guts the importance of Cassidy's race and demotivates his supporters. It also forces the oil and gas industry to rally behind protecting Landrieu, which this conservative industry has been hestitant to do, instead staying neutral. The national Chamber of Commerce too, probably then makes a move to actually help Landrieu (whom they've endorsed). I could definitely see her winning with those factors even if she only gets 43% in the first round. There is a small, small chance Nunn wins without a runoff, but I wouldn't project that. And an even smaller chance that Landrieu pulls off the turnout miracle she's been hoping for and wins without a runoff (though the DSCC's executive director did say that their polling and data show that's a distinct possibility and that they were trying to push her over the edge in the first round).
Republican losses
KS-SEN. It's a crazy race. I think independent Greg Orman will win very narrowly, but it really has become more of a coin-flip than I expected would be possible in September. Neither result would surprise me.
Gubernatorial Races
I have no more time or energy for writing things and I doubt you have them for reading.
Democratic Pick-ups:
Kansas
Florida
Pennsylvania
Maine
Michigan
Democratic Holds
Connecticut
Illinois
Minnesota
New Hamshire
Colorado
Maryland
Rhode Island
Massachusetts
Republican gains:
Arkansas
Republican holds
Idaho
Oklahoma
South Carolina
Georgia
Wisconsin (ugh, it'll be close I think)
Potential Gubernatorial Upset of the Night
Nebraska. But I'm not betting on this enough to call it a Democratic pick up. I just want to keep an eye on it.
Maine, Michigan, and Florida are all going to be very close, but I feel Democrats are going to sweep the trifecta to make some real gains and that this will be another bright spot in what will be, on the whole, a disappointing nights for Republicans who have gotten their hopes up so high. Pennsylvania is going to be a blow out, the only question is how big Tom Wolf's margin will be. Davis is going to win by less, but still around 4-6 points.
P.S. While Dkos does have reader gauges, these aren't entirely accurate. I always appreciate users who vote in my poll as that gives a more accurate count of readership. Which is always nice to know for something you worked hard on; sucks to feel like you are talking to a wall.