2014 Battle for the Senate

Real Clear Politics (RCP) has its "no toss up" polling showing a narrow 51 seat majority for Republicans:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2014/senate/2014_elections_senate_map_no_toss_ups.html

But based on the last two election cycles, I don't really see the Republicans winning the Senate, as they seem to underperform in these races. For whatever reason, they always seem to lose the close ones.

What say you?

 

Here's some good news for Democrats. Dick Morris is predicting big wins for the Republicans.

http://crooksandliars.com/cltv/2014/07/dick-morris-predicts-doom-and-gloom

 

It doesn't really matter as much a many would think. No one projects the Republicans obtaining the 60-seat majority that's actually required for control of the Senate and no legislation that is objectionable to Democrats is going to become law with Obama in office. Finally, as long as Congressional District gerrymandering continues to result on GOP control of the House we're still going to have a non-functional Congress because virtually nothing bi-partisan is coming out of the GOP controlled House (there have been a couple or exceptions of course).

 

The invasion across our southern border hasn't reached the Blue States yet. When it does, a whole lot of Democrat candidates are going to get questions they won't or can't answer.

This will play a big impact and I think the GOP - in spite of its ineptitude - will gain a workable majority in the Senate.

 

RCP gives equal weighting to all the polls, good and bad, and the majority of the polls done now are bad. Quality polling takes a lot of effort, and thus a lot of money, so it's not done this far out from the elections. What we get now is a lot of cheap bad polling, with some stuff that is practically Republican push polls. There aren't any pollsters with a big Democratic bias to counteract that in the RCP results.

And there's also Gallup and Rasmussen, who historically have shown a 4 point Republican bias. At least until their last poll, which they'll try to get right so they can claim they were accurate all along.

 

I agree, I think the Republicans will win the Democratic seats in Arkansas, Louisiana, Montana, South Dakota and West Virginia. On the other side of the ledger I think Michelle Nunn will win in Georgia picking my home state up for the Democrats. The GOP has a net gain of 4 seats.

 

Rasmussen I find hard to figure out. On President Obama's approval ratings Rasmussen always has him higher than any other poll. PPP is another poll although a Democratic polling firm, it too seems to have a slight bias towards the Republicans. Back to Rasmussen, on health care and the generic congressional polls, Rasmussen is in line with every other poll there. I too always thought Rasmussen has a slight bias towards the GOP, but then why does Rasmussen always give President Obama a higher approval rating than any other polling firm?

 

Yeah, if I had to put any money on it today, that's kind of how it looks to me too.

 

Taxcutter asks:
Are you asking us to believe that the Democrats never gerrymandered districts?

They certainly did here in Indiana in 2001.

 

A little over three months away. I can wait to see.

The left figures if the Republicans don't get a 60 majority in the Senate they can continue to see that no legislation passes. Great way to lock in a socialist victory for the presidency.

 

I would never insinuate that Democrats don't attempt to gerrymander Congressional districts but we can't dispute the fact that Republicans are far better at this nefarious political activity than Democrats.

By analogy you merely compare a shoplifter with a bank robber when you compare the effectiveness of gerrymandering between Democrats and Republicans.

 

Noticed today that Scott Brown (R) is now within two points of Jeanne Shaheen (D) in the New Hampshire Senate Race. Brown was down by twelve points just a month or so ago. A little bit of "mo" for Republicans in their hunt for 6 Senate seats.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...-poll-finds/aP4DUADaYLNif2LBJ5TWaI/story.html

 

I can't see the GOP taking the senate. Even if they do it's not going to be enough to get rid of Obama's policies. It might just be that in the end, the GOP will end up denying Obama a second term, simply by making sure that he can't do anything in the end.

 

That would still be a definite good result; keep Barack from doing any additional harm to this nation until his whimper of an administration belly crawls off the scene to be replaced by a competent president from either the GOP or the Dem Party.

 

No, that's not good. It's not healthy for an economy to have a government that can't do anything. In the end it just harms the economy more then it helps. I agree that someone has to take charge, but thanks to modern day politics, it's not going to happen anytime soon.

 

The nation has already been pretty much in a holding pattern since 2009 started and the nation is still working. It can wait until 2017 begins when a competent president is in the Oval Office. Hopefully that's the last time that the radical leftwingers are handed control of the nation by gormless voters.

 

I believe the GOP will take the Senate in 2014. However, I think they lose it in 2016. I say this looking at the seats that are up in both elections. The advantage in 2014 goes to the Republicans because of the fact that Democrats traditionally turn out less in midterm elections. No rock star at the top of the ticket to draw out the occasional voters. Let's face it many voters don't even know who their Representative and Senator are. I don't agree with the earlier poster that Nunn picks up Georgia. I fully believe that Perdue is doing a fine job of tying her to Obama. That won't play well in Georgia.

 

I'll bet the next Democrat presidential nominee really wants a Republican controlled legislature going into the 2016 presidential election. That way he or she can blame the Republicans for all of the problems. They then won't need to be worried about how they can be viewed as a loyal Democrat but distance them self from Obama.

 

Hopefully the electorate has finally figured out that having Democrats in
charge and we won't have to deal with that.

If all goes well the reasonable thinking Tea Party will take over the GOP
and we can get to work repealing obamacare, cut personal income taxes
and cut government spending.

Once that's accomplished we can start working on diplomatic relations
that have been ruined by the organizer in chief and his administration.

That will be fantastic?

 

True, but let's be honest. Remember the debt crisises? Every time we got close to going over the limit there was a contraction in the economy. When businesses don't know how the government is going to decide on something, it ultimately means that there will be a contraction because they can't predict the political climate. When that happens, the regulator can't do anything, and businesses end up losing money because of it.

 

Who gives a damn who wins the Senate. As long as there are free pints...

 

If the Republicans get control of the Senate and keep the House, they need to pass a lot of bills. They need to make President Obama wear out his veto pen. They need to pass jobs bills, immigration bills, revising ACA bills, they need to pass all kinds of bills. They can slip a poison pill in if they want but it doesn't matter. All that matters is that the Democrats vote against them and the President vetoes them. Then who is the party of "No"? The truth is that 2016 elections do not look good for the GOP. Look at the seats that are up in 2016? Without some kind of major change in the land we are looking at a GOP Bloodbath. The Democrats will easily win the Senate back in 2016 especially if they get another rock star at the top of the ticket going for the White House. If the GOP takes the Senate in 2014, it's going to be a barely on the victory 51/49.

• Missouri
• New Hampshire
• Kentucky
• Florida
• Wisconsin
• Pennsylvania
• Illinois

 

Harry Reid made it OK to end filibusters with his invocation of the "Nuclear Option".

 

The only jobs bill that will work is cutting personal income taxes. Congress
can't create jobs. Only people with money can create jobs. The stimulus
didn't work. CRAP (or was it tarp) didn't work. Only cutting personal income
taxes will work. It always has.

 

The "Nuclear Option" only applies when dealing with political appointments to positions other than the SCOTUS, not bills.

The Congress (House & Senate) and the Administration create a climate that makes business want to keep their headquarters here, production here or even do business here. A new problem that we are having is where corporations merge with another corporation and move the headquarters offshore. This is being done because the USA has decided to tax all profits a corporation makes even if made overseas. Many corporations therefore use subsidiaries and never repatriate the funds. One major bill would be a Tax Holiday on Repatriated Funds. Other bills could be things like 10 years of no federal income tax for a company to move its headquarters into the USA. Make it 20 if they bring their manufacturing with it. Think it won't work? The state of New York, with a Democrat Governor is doing it right now and is getting companies to relocate from other states.

Truthfully, these bills don't ever have to get signed into law. They just have to hit the floor so the Democrats can vote against them and the President can veto them.