Most likely scenario is that the Republicans take control
of the Senate. The Republicans need to secure just one of the tossup seats of a
possible three. Democrats need to take both Iowa and Georgia and then get Greg
Orman to caucus with them to hold onto the Senate. Polls at the moment are
putting the Republicans in Iowa and Georgia ahead by 1% point, if the polls are
accurate then a GOP majority is almost certain.
As you can see any kind of pro-Democratic skew in the
polls would result in a Republican majority without a doubt. Interestingly this
scenario means that the Republicans cannot lose Kansas as Orman has promised to
caucus with the party that makes up a majority.
A sign of just how tough the election is going to be,
even a 2% pro-Republican skew in polls doesn’t automatically produce a Democratic majority. Despite that, a 2%
skew would probably produce a Democratic majority. If the Democrats want to win
a majority without Orman’s support, then they need to win three of the five
Tossups (remember that Joe Biden will break a 50-50 tie in favour of
Democrats). It’s slightly tougher for Republicans as they could only afford to
lose one of the Tossups. Considering that a 2% skew would mean that Iowa and
Georgia are actually slightly more favourable towards Democrats and that Colorado
would be a true tossup, it would be a huge struggle.
2% Democratic skew in the polls
Safe Dem
Likely Dem
Leans Dem
Tossup
Leans Rep
Likely Rep
Safe Rep
DE, HI, IL, MA, MN, NJ, NM, OR, RI, VA, MI
North Carolina, New Hampshire
Iowa, Georgia, Kansas,
Arkansas, Colorado, Kentucky, Louisiana, South Dakota
A Democratic majority would be all but certain. They
would only need to win one of the tossups to secure a majority without Orman’s
help. Even if they lost all the ones classed as Tossup, they could still court
Orman into caucusing with them.
It feels almost pointless doing this one as the only
changes are states going from leans/likely Republican to likely/safe Republican.
Note: Although this will likely be my final blog post about the elections, I may update my predictions on Twitter. You find me at www.twitter.com/michaeljspence
It has been eight months since I last wrote about the
Senate elections that will be held next week. Since then most of the news has
been good for Republicans, they have made gains in about ten states and lost
ground in just three. Considering they only need to gain six seats to take the
Senate, this is a very good sign for them. The blog FiveThirtyEight, at the
time of writing, predicts that the Republicans have a 64% chance of controlling
the Senate, with the most likely scenario being one in which they control 52
seats to the Democrats 48. I will now review each close state and then make my
updated prediction.
Kansas:
When I posted my Senate elections update in February I
didn’t even mention Kansas, other than to put it into the “Safe Republican”
column of my table. Incumbent Senator Pat Roberts only real worry was a primary
from Tea Party challenger Milton Wolf. Roberts managed to survive the primary,
but he came out severely damaged by revelations that he no longer owned a home
in Kansas. This helped to promote an image of him being an out-of-touch member
of the Washington elite.
You might expect the story to end there as Kansas is a
very red state, the last time Kansas elected a Democrat to the Senate was in 1932! Roberts also had two serious challengers; Democrat Chad Taylor and an
independent Greg Orman, who split the anti-Roberts vote. These two factors
combined to offset his weakness and made it look likely that he was going to scrape
to victory in the Sunflower State. Then came the bombshell that blew the race
wide open, the Democrat Chad Taylor dropped out of the race and endorsed the
independent! This meant that the anti-Roberts vote was no longer split between
two candidates, seriously jeopardising Roberts’ chances! At the moment this
race is probably the closest in the country, don’t be surprised if it ends up
going to a recount.
Rating: Tossup
Iowa:
When I wrote about Iowa earlier this year I noted that
the trend was positive for the Democrats. They had one candidate in the
primary, Bruce Braley, compared to six candidates in the Republican primary. To
make it even better, Braley was leading all candidates in the polls. With less
than a week until the election this has changed completely. According to the
HuffPost pollster average, Republican Joni Ernst is leading Braley 47% to 45.3%. I am genuinely shocked by this; Iowa is a purple state which would lead
you to expect that extremes of right and left would not fare well in Iowa. However
Ernst is a hardcore Tea Partier; she wants to abolish the IRS, the EPA and the
Department of Education. She supports abolishing the federal minimum wage, and
at least partially privatising Medicare. She also supports a personhood
amendment which defines life as beginning at conception, effectively making all
abortions illegal as well as some forms of hormonal birth control.
In a presidential election year she would probably lose,
as the voters she turns off (women, ethnic minorities and young people) all
turn out in larger numbers. My only explanation for how Ernst is doing so well
is that the Republican vote is especially energised, whilst the independent and
Democratic vote is depressed.
Rating Tossup
If all this was starting to get a bit much, have a break and watch this rather hilarious campaign ad from Joni Ernst.
Georgia
Back in February it was difficult to say how Georgia was
going to play out due to the number of people running in both primaries, eight
in the Republican and five in the Democratic. On the Republican side you have
David Purdue, a businessman. On the Democratic side there is Michelle Nunn, the
CEO of a charity, Points of Light, and the daughter of popular former Senator
Sam Nunn. At the moment Nunn is doing surprisingly well in the Peach State,
considering that it is a red state. Purdue is not helped by the relative
unpopularity of Georgian Republicans. Governor Nathan Deal is trying to fend
off a serious challenge from former President Jimmy Carter’s grandson, Jason Carter.
It has caused Republicans to have a completely split message, Purdue is telling
Georgians that the economy is terrible and that you should blame Obama and the
Democrats. Whilst in the other race Deal is telling Georgians that the economy is
doing great and that he should get the credit. Not exactly a consistent message
that will win over independents come Election Day.
Current rating: Tossup
Colorado
I previously rated Colorado as likely Democrat, and it
looks like I could be totally wrong. The
main reason for this belief was that I thought Ken Buck would win the Republican
primary. In 2010 Buck had failed to unseat a much weaker Democrat in more favourable
conditions. However it was Cory Gardener who won the Republican primary, he immediately
showed that he had learnt from Buck’s mistakes. Gardener has been a supporter
of controversial personhood amendments, and is still a co-sponsor of a federal bill that would make the position the law. However he claims that he has
changed his mind (70% of Colorado voters rejecting a personhood amendment in 2010 may have been very persuasive). In the summer he declared his support for
over-the-counter contraceptives. He is hoping to close the gender gap, or at
least not to provoke women into turning out to vote against him.
Interestingly there is a personhood amendment on the
ballot again in Colorado, if Mark
Udall can successfully tie Gardener to the amendment then he might be able to
scrape a win on Election Day.
Current rating: Leans Republican
Cory Gardener has plenty of reasons to smile, he's winning a race that many expected him to lose. Source: www.thinkprogress.com
North Carolina
In a mid-term election year with a Democratic President,
you might think that a Democratic Senator in a Republican leaning state would
have little chance of success. Especially considering her poor approval
ratings, in a poll released on the 20th of October, 41% of voters
approve of Senator Kay Hagan job against 50% who disapprove. However, conditions
in North Carolina may mean that she holds onto her Senate seat.
In 2012 Pat McCrory won the governorship of North
Carolina, this meant that for the first time in over a century, Republicans
controlled both the governorship and the legislature. They used this
opportunity to pursue a very right-wing agenda. This has not gone down well
with North Carolinian voters, in the poll mentioned before the legislature boasted an
approval rating of just 25%. It has not been difficult for Hagan to tie her
Republican challenger, Thom Tillis, to the failures of state Republicans
considering he is the Republican leader of the State House of Representatives.
Current Rating: Leans Democrat
Kentucky
Kentucky is one of two states which actually might
exchange a Republican Senator for a Democratic one (remember Greg Orman in
Kansas is an independent). Back in February Kentucky was possibly the closest
race in the country, eight months later it has slowly drifted towards the
Republican. Flipping Kentucky would be a massive coup for the Democrats, even
if they lost control of the Senate, as the incumbent Republican, Mitch
McConnell is the leader of the Republican Party in the Senate!
Toppling Mitch McConnell has been made possible by his
serious unpopularity in Kentucky. In recent years he has been the most
unpopular Senator, with a majority of Kentuckians saying they disapproved of
his performance. Luckily for the Democrats they secured a very strong candidate
in Alison Lundergan Grimes, the Secretary of State for Kentucky.
However as we get closer to polling day it looks
increasingly likely that Mitch McConnell will hang onto his Senate seat by a
narrow margin. At one point the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (the
committee tasked with getting more Democrats elected to the Senate) actually
stopped running ads in Kentucky, although they reversed that decision a week
ago.
Current Rating: Leans Republican
If you need another break, here is 2 minutes of Mitch McConnell released by his campaign. The first ten seconds are particularly hilarious, a smile just doesn't look right on Mitch.
Louisiana:
If the Republicans want to take back control of the
Senate, then the really need to win Louisiana. If they lose Louisiana then they
probably won’t control the Senate. Interestingly if Republicans are successful
then this will be the first time they have won this seat since 1877! It will
also be the first time they’ve held both of Louisiana’s Senate seats since
1872.
The incumbent Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu is Chair
of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, a committee that is
essential to the economy of Louisiana thanks to the oil industry. If Landrieu
wins and the Democrats lose control of the Senate then she would become the
ranking member on the committee instead. This would mean that she is still
extremely important, are Louisianians really going to give up Landrieu for
someone who will have no influence over the Committee that has most relevance
to their state? Probably.
At the moment it looks highly likely that the Republican
challenger, Bill Cassidy, will beat Landrieu to become the next Senator from
Louisiana.
Current Rating: Leans Republican
Arkansas:
The Natural State has become significantly more
Republican since Mark Pryor first got elected in 2002. When he assumed office,
Democrats still dominated Arkansas; they had both Senators, both State Houses,
three of four of Arkansas’ US House Representatives. Only Governor Mike
Huckabee was a Republican, and that changed in 2006 when Mike Beebe won the
election. However the state has gotten consistently more hostile to Democrats
in the past few years. In 2010 Pryor’s fellow Senator Blanche Lincoln was
crushed by her Republican opponent, John Boozman, and the Republicans made
gains in the State Houses and the US House. In 2012 Democrats lost control of
both of the State Houses and their final US House Representative was defeated.
Pryor is now the only Democrat representing Arkansas in Congress, in 2008 there
was only one Republican.
Pryor was always going to face a tough re-election, even
if he was the most conservative Senate Democrat in 2013, according to the American Conservative Union. It is looking very likely that Pryor will lose to Tom
Cotton, current polls have Cotton up four points and FiveThirtyEight gives
Cotton an 83% probability that he will win.
Current Rating: Leans Republican
Here's a campaign ad from Mark Pryor, if you couldn't tell that he was from a very conservative state with a lot of Evangelical Christians, you certainly can from this ad!
There is one more race I want to talk about that I think is
interesting, but is not close (in my opinion); Alaska. To those of you paying
attention to the mid-terms this year may be very confused by my Alaska rating.
It has been constantly talked about as one of the closest races, either party
could win. FiveThirtyEight currently has Alaska as the third closest race, and
the HuffPost Pollster Average has Republican Dan Sullivan leading Democrat Mark
Begich by 3.6%, not the widest margin. As well as that ballot initiatives on the minimum wage and marijuana legalisation will almost certainly drive up
turnout amongst Democrats, in a way that may be hidden to pollsters. But it is
the potential for a skew in the polls that has left me so certain that
Democrats will lose this race. Alaska is notoriously hard to poll, in 2008
polls for the US House seat were off by an average of 12.5%! The polls have
also been consistently skewed in
favour of Democrats, this is true of every race since 2000. The average skew in
favour of Democrats is 7.2%, which is an awful lot. This is why my rating for
Alaska is likely Republican.
One of the really interesting things that could happen
this November is the potential that we won’t know who controls the Senate the
quite a while after Election Day. Three states have the potential to throw a
spanner into the works: Kansas, Georgia and Louisiana.
In Georgia and Louisiana
if no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, then the top two candidates
fight it out in a run-off. In Louisiana the run-off is almost certainly going to
happen, the run-off will be held on the 6th of December. The Georgia
run-off is less likely but still has a good chance of happening. However
Georgia’s run-off won’t happen until the 6th of January, which is
three days after Congress gets sworn in! This could mean we don’t know who
controls the Senate in the next Congress until after Congress actually begins.
The reason why Kansas could through a spanner into the works is that Orman has
said that he could caucus with either party. If the Senate is split then this
would mean that for the next two years Orman would probably be the most
important person in American politics after President Obama. He has said that
even if he decides to caucus with one Party, he could change his affiliation if
he dislikes how that Party is running the Senate!
In 2013 G8 leaders agreed that they would not pay ransoms for captured citizens. Recently it has emerged that Italy, Germany and France may have renegaded on their promise and paid ransoms to the terrorist organisation ISIL. Considering that other countries have decided to pay the ransoms, should Britain and America follow suit? The short answer: No.
By paying ransoms to terrorists you endanger other westerners by making them bigger targets. The terrorists know that governments are prepared to pay ransoms, and so they will go out of their way to capture more westerners in the hopes of making more money. Different groups have been demanding money for hostages from the American and British governments for decades with little success. The last known case of either government paying ransoms for hostage was the Iran-Contra Affair that nearly got Reagan impeached in the 1980s. So why do Brits and Americans continue to be taken hostage if their governments refuse to pay ransoms? Well sometimes families manage to raise enough money to pay the ransom, helping to maintain the cycle. Another reason is that they put themselves in a win-win situation. If they get the money, then they have more money to fund their activities. On the other hand if they don’t receive the money and they kill the hostage, then they receive a huge amount of publicity, which is exactly what they want.
The more important reason why you shouldn’t pay the ransoms is that the money paid is financing terrorists. ISIL demanded $132million (£80 million) for the release of American journalist James Foley. If the American government had given ISIL that money, they would have used it to fund their war in Iraq and Syria. This would have resulted in hundreds of people dead and ISIL would have been in a stronger position.
Thankfully the British public understand this, in aYouGov poll conducted in early September 68% of respondents said that it was wrong to pay the ransoms, compared to 9% who said it was right and 24% who said that they “don’t know”. This is encouraging as it means there is no pressure from the public to do the wrong thing.
