Democratic senators who are retiring might have prevented the Senate from falling into Republican hands if they had simply postponed their retirements.
Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Tim Johnson of South Dakota, and Max Baucus formerly of Montana could have postponed their retirements until 2016 when the Democrats had a better chance of retaining these seats. If each had won, the Senate would have been evenly divided with Vice President Biden casting the deciding vote, assuming Mary Landrieu loses.
Each senator was more than likely to be reelected. Certainly the odds favored a sitting senator more than the Democratic candidates who ran for their open seats.
Was this discussed? It was barely mentioned by the media. Why didn’t the Democratic Party put pressure on these senators to run in 2014 and then retire in 2016?