We haven’t been at a 0 environment in a while though. I think the default is something more like Dem +3, which makes those GOP states as close to the mean as the Dem ones. Plus to lose a seat in a +5 seat, you usually need a bad candidate as the GOP has had a much greater tendency lately to nominate extreme and unqualified candidates.
No one seems to be considering Nebraska in this thread. Nebraska has both Senate seats up for election this year. Everyone no doubt thinks both are in the bag for the red party, but it turns out both are not.
One is a special election to fill the vacancy left by Ben Sasse. That one is in the bag. The other one is very competitive. The candidates are Deb Fischer (R-incumbent) and Dan Osborn (I, but functionally D). It hasn’t been polled a lot but the latest poll gives Osborn a slight edge:
Discourse won’t let me imbed the graph. The latest poll is by SurveyUSA which gives Osborn a 45%-44% lead. That’s up from a 1% lead by Fischer in August.
that would be amazing.
It’s happening, fellas – national Democrats are investing in the Texas and Florida Senate races:
I’ve read a couple of articles about the Nebraska Senate race. All power to Osborn if he can pull it off. The challenge for Democrats in trying to boost him is that he’s been very aggressive in defining himself as a true independent. Fischer would love nothing more than being able to point to an influx of Democratic cash supporting Osborn to show that he’s really a tool of the Democratic Party.
Darn – just when I was about to whip out my checkbook for Osborn!
This is delightful – the Senate Leadership Fund, a SuperPAC controlled by Mitch McConnell for getting Republicans elected to the Senate, has so far refused to spend any money on behalf of Ted Cruz or Rick Scott. Both have historically been pains in the ass to McConnell (with Scott challenging him for party leader after the midterm elections).
Ted Cruz, Rick Scott races miss out on Senate Leadership Fund help (thehill.com)
Delightful is exactly the correct word. That is the type of news that cheers me up about how things are going.
Other than Harris/Walz winning I can’t imagine anything better than Cruz and Scott losing their races.
Meanwhile, per Jay Kuo (Status Kuo Substack) …
(Cruz’ opponent Colin Allred’s) numbers appear to have caught the attention of the national Democratic apparatus, which is now shifting millions of dollars to help Allred in Texas and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell in Florida.
On the downside, this also due to Tester’s numbers looking really poor, and winning Florida or Texas might be required to maintain control of the senate.
Tester is so far refusing to endorse Harris. I get that Montana is pretty red, but dayum man. You can’t decide between Harris and Trump?
We will be much better off with beating Scott and/or Cruz than stuck with this. Manchin was a pain but this seems worse. I’d divert all funds from Tester to those two races.
Tester would far more often than not support the Harris Administration, but he can’t afford to endorse her now and have that appear - within hours, I bet - in an attack ad.
I’m sorry, but this is a terrible take. Tester has routinely backed the Biden Administration on controversial votes even though it put him at greater risk in a deeply red state. As @Elendil_s_Heir says, he would do the same for President Harris. I’m sure she’s 100% fine with him declining to endorse her.
Also, diverting funds from Tester to Allred and Mucarsel-Powell is a bad value proposition. A few million dollars goes a lot further in Montana than it does in Texas or Florida.
A poll in Nebraska has Osborn (I) up 5 points over Fischer (R). The Dems have no candidate in this race; they’re just hoping Osborn will caucus with them. He has to caucus with one of the two parties or he doesn’t get any committee assignments. He hasn’t indicated who he’ll caucus with; if he says he’ll caucus with the Democrats, it would kill any chance of getting elected in that state.
Given how close the partisan balance is likely to remain in the Senate after the election, it’s not impossible that you could end up with control of the chamber resting on which party Osborn chooses to caucus with. That’d be a pretty sweet situation for him.
I think that should be marked as a partisan poll. It was sponsored by a group called the Independent Center that pretty clearly works to get non-aligned candidates elected. Most of the other polling in the race has also been sponsored by the Osborn campaign or PACs that support independent candidates.
It also has a pretty massive undecided number (10%) for this close to election day.
I guess I’m taking it with a very heavy grain of salt that an independent candidate is going to beat an incumbent Republican in Nebraska this year, with control of the Senate up for grabs.
No arguement. Electoral-vote.com didn’t include it in their daily list of Senate polls, so they apparently think the same.
Problem is, there’s very few non-partisan polls of this particular election, so you have to take what’s out there.
During the the debate between NJ senate candidates the Republican candidate appeared to have a burtation. Not a very good explanation afterwards but I guess they were implying that it was a low blood sugar issue. Not that it matters much. I hadn’t even heard that there was going to be a debate. The Republican candidate has zero name recognition and no buzz going into the last month of the campaign.
kim acted well during that incident. he is a good man.