There are about six Senate races that are close and going down to the wire. Here is the latest in regards to these six Senate races.
Nevada: 538 now has GOP Senator Dean Heller with a 55.5% chance of winning. Link
This Senate race is a dead heat, and I really have no idea who will win this race out of Heller and Rosen.
Arizona: 538 now has AZ Democrat Kyrsten Sinema with a 63.2% chance of winning her Senate election. Link
While I will be voting for Kyrsten Sinema for Senate, I don’t really agree with 538 giving Sinema that high of a percentage chance of her winning. I would put Sinema’s chances of winning this Arizona Senate race at about 55%. And RealClearPolitics now has Sinema’s GOP opponent McSally up by 0.7 percentage points.
Missouri: 538 now has Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill with a 60.8% chance of winning. Link
Like with Arizona, I don’t really agree with 538 giving Senator McCaskill having that high of a percentage chance of her winning. I would put this Senate race at about 50/50.
Florida: 538 now has Democratic Senator Bill Nelson with a 63.7% chance of winning. Link
I now think that Senator Nelson will win his reelection bid by doing better among white voters in Florida than Hillary.
Indiana: 538 now has Democratic Senator Joe Donnelly with a 84.8% chance of winning his reelection bid. Link
I definitely think that Senator Donnelly will win his reelection bid.
North Dakota: 538 now has Republican Kevin Cramer with a 64.8% chance of winning. Link
I think that 538 should give Kevin Cramer a higher percentage chance of winning. North Dakota is a much redder state now than it was back in 2012. Back in 2012, Heidi Heitkamp just barely won her Senate election while Romney won North Dakota by about 20 percentage points. In 2016, Trump won North Dakota by as much as 36 percentage points. And the latest FOX Poll has Republican Cramer up by 12 percentage points. I definitely think that Democratic Senator Heitkamp will lose her reelection bid.
By 2020 there will be enough R senate seats in play to flip the senate and enough voters will have come to there senses that the 4 year nightmare of Trump will be over.
It comes and goes in cycles. Normally the mid-term elections favor the party that doesn’t hold the White House, but so many (D)s are in play that I expect (R)s to gain a seat or two.
2020 will be the (R)s turn to play defense. It will take some strong showings by Trump’s administration to provide the momentum and coattails to retain the (R) share in 2 years. (On the flip side Trump might be such a liability that (R)s get mowed down.) 2020 is so far away that it’s impossible to predict. Any predictions now about 2020 just reflect the prognosticator’s hopes and little more. Trump is such a wild card that the fortunes of the GOP vary from day to day. Forget about trying to guess what 2 more years will bring.
I’m not sure what Obama turned around? Are you referring to quantitative easing (Printing Money) which was brought on by Ben Bernanke of the Federal Reserve? That has zero to do with Obama, just like watching Trump freak out that the Fed keeps raising interest rates. I think people on both sides tend to give Presidents way to much credit for the economy.
Presidents shouldn’t but often start wars before congress votes on them which can effect the economy, they also have broad power in trade, as we can see in tariffs. One can argue which presidents trade platform benefits America the most but Obama didn’t save the economy, anymore than Trump did.
Not to mention the two chief things they point to as Obama turning around the economy, TARP and the auto bail out, were put in place by George Bush before he left office.
And if the infamous double dip recession had hit, which repugs were constantly predicting, that too would have been all on Obama and so much for presidents not getting credit/blame for the economy.
The Arizona Republic recently ended up endorsing Sinema for Senate in Arizona here. However, I am not too sure if their endorsement of Sinema is going to help her out that much.
The problem is there has been scant polling in key states, such as MO, IN, WV, and FL. Maybe there is the assumption that Dems are going to win those races again and it’s not close, but just today there was another ND poll which showed Cramer with an even bigger lead than previously, 16 points. So I think most pundits wrote off ND awhile ago.
Anyway, if Rs hold Nevada and Arizona, which is looking more possible now, and only pick up ND, they will have 52 seats, but with a much tougher map in 2020 the Dems would have an excellent chance of flipping the Senate at that time.
Senator Heitkamp is now toast. Senators Manchin and Donnelly should win their reelection bids. AZ, MO, NV, and FL are all still too close to really predict who will win in these states.
Have you seen any recent polling from WV, IN or MO? I haven’t.
There were two NYT polls last week for NV and AZ, both had the R up by 2 but that’s basically a tied race. If I had to guess though I would say Rs will win both by a small margin. Arizona is a purple state, and while Nevada has been trending more towards Ds, every poll I’ve seen has Heller with a small lead, and he did win in 2012 which was the Obama year.
RealClearPolitics now has Senator Donnelly up by 2.4 percentage points. Link
A recent poll from Gravis Marketing has Senator Donnelly up by 4 percentage points.
