John Sides:
Democrats’ prospects for 2014 do not look rosy. There is little chance that they will retake the House, and a good chance they will lose seats. Even worse, there is a significant chance that they will lose control of the Senate. Our forecasting model said as many as two months ago. That forecast continues to square with the sense of manyanalysts — even those who mocked the forecast.
Our House and Senate predictions are based on the fundamental factors that affect congressional elections — including presidential approval, the state of the economy, and whether the incumbent is running in each district and state. (See this post for more details.) But as we noted in our earlier posts, it is important to build in additional information when it is available, and especially information about the qualities of individual candidates.
One key piece of information is whether candidates have held an elective office before and, if so, which one. Unsurprisingly, political science research has long shown that candidates who have held elective office and higher levels of office tend to do better on Election Day. They usually run better campaigns and make fewer mistakes, if only because they’ve done it before.
As we have begun to incorporate candidate experience into the model, our initial sense is this: Republicans may have a far better chance of winning control of the Senate than we or other analysts previously thought. Here is a preliminary estimate: The GOP could have as much as a 4 in 5 chance of controlling the chamber.
Better candidates emerge when conditions in the country favor their party. As political scientists Gary Jacobson and Samuel Kernell have argued, strong candidates run when they have a better chance of winning. And in 2014 — as in most midterm election years— the playing field is tilted away from the president’s party. So we should see good Republican candidates emerging.
@RICH WHEELER:
A president should have that ability, not like Zippy, who is 100% partisan. The NRA doesn’t rank Kasich very highly. (I’m a life member of NRA) but I do.
@Nanny G #48:
“I don’t blame Obama for this, just Dems.”
Blame. Good tactic.
If, when Republicans controlled both houses of congress AND the White House, they had set a good example SOMEWHERE of how THEY would fix the messes that they continually BLAME Democrats for, they’d be getting more votes. As long as their first order of business is to blame Democrats for EVERYTHING that isn’t perfect in the world and their second order of business is to repeal the Affordable Care Act, is it no surprise that Obama was gifted a second term???
@George Wells:
That doesn’t pass the logic test George. Dims never fix anything when they control everything and you apparently think that’s okay. So why should it matter if the Repubs never fix anything either? I mean, the first 4 years of Zippy, they drove the country straight to hell and it’s still headed that way. Doesn’t seem to affect your thinking. Does it?
George, seems as if some think gay movement shot itself in the foot. I’ll agree, but I think it happened when they joined forces with the Dims.
Read more at
Read more at http://conservativebyte.com/2014/04/6-billion-goes-missing-state-department/#QUZGjJU3VTMrL0ue.99
@Redteam #53:
Makes perfect sense to me. If you are excusing the Republicans’ failure to fix things for the reason that the Democrats did no better, how does that suggest that the Republicans should be given another chance? It says that republicans are no better than Democrats, and in that I would agree.
@Redteam #54:
Just proves that not all gays have the same agenda, now, doesn’t it?
@George Wells:
Actually I don’t excuse either party for being lousy. But that also makes me wonder why you think the Dims deserve another chance.
@George Wells:
It only proves to me that they’re confused and are not sure which end is up
@Redteam # 58/59:
Is there an argument there?
@George Wells: No
What an excellent story…..
Read more at http://conservativebyte.com/2014/04/embarrassing-obama-rejected-network-time-spike-football/#Ct58QEv1tqfdMd2B.99