Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) ends 2014 atop the Power Rankings for competitive Senate races.
After the long two-year midterm cycle, we are now down to the final sprint. Within 72 hours, we will have the identity of (most of) the winners and losers of the 2014 elections from coast to coast.
With the finish line now in sight, the final weekend brings us to the very last edition of the Daily Kos Elections Power Rankings. Beginning in April, the monthly top ten was designed to assess which races were getting the most ink (using our own daily digests), the most polls, and were viewed as the most competitive. Using a simple rubric (which you can peruse at the end of the piece), we assigned a point value for each of these criteria. Add them up, and ... lo and behold! ... the Top 10 appears.
For fun, in this final edition, we will compare our current Power Rankings for the Senate and gubernatorial categories, not from where they were during the last edition of the Power Rankings (published in late September), but where they were ranked all the way back in the spring, when the inaugural rankings were pulled together.
Follow me past the fold to see where your favorite race wound up, as we close down the 2014 midterm cycle with the final round of the Daily Kos Election Power Rankings.
FINAL U.S. SENATE POWER RANKINGS (April Ranking in parentheses)
1. COLORADO—Mark Udall [D]—137 points (2)
2. IOWA—Open Seat [Harkin—D]—125 points (8)
3. NORTH CAROLINA—Kay Hagan [D]—118 points (1)
4. NEW HAMPSHIRE—Jeanne Shaheen [D]—109 points (4)
5. GEORGIA—Open Seat [Chambliss—R]—107 points (6—tie)
6. MICHIGAN—Open Seat [Levin—D]—104 points (6—tie)
7. KANSAS—Pat Roberts [R]—101 points (25—tie)
8. KENTUCKY—Mitch McConnell [R]—78 points (10)
9 (tie). ALASKA—Mark Begich [D]—72 points (5)
9 (tie). ARKANSAS—Mark Pryor [D]—72 points (9)
Also receiving points (points in parentheses)
South Dakota—Democratic Open Seat (71); Louisiana—Landrieu (70); Minnesota—Franken (39); Virginia—Warner (33); Oregon—Merkley (29); Illinois—Durbin (28); Maine—Collins (28); New Jersey—Booker (28); Montana—Democratic Open Seat (23); New Mexico—T. Udall (20); West Virginia—Democratic Open Seat (18); Hawaii—Schatz (17); Massachusetts—Markey (16); Texas—Cornyn (16); Idaho—Risch (12); Oklahoma "A"—Inhofe (12); Oklahoma "B"—Republican Open Seat (12); South Carolina "A"—Graham (12); South Carolina "B"—Scott (12); Tennessee—Alexander (12); Alabama—Sessions (8); Delaware—Coons (8); Mississippi—Cochran (8); Nebraska—Republican Open Seat (8); Rhode Island—Reed (8); Wyoming—Enzi (8)
My favorite Power Rankings trivia question would be to ask someone to name every state that led, at one point or another, the Power Rankings. Here is a hint: There were
four races that spent at least one month at No. 1.
(Waits ... hums the Jeopardy! theme quietly)
Give up? Three of them are fairly predictable, and are in the top 10 this month—Colorado (of course), North Carolina, and Georgia.
The fourth one might take you a little while, and reminds us of how long an election cycle truly is. For the July power rankings, which took into account activity during the month of June, the No. 1 pick was ... Mississippi. Ah, memories.
The Magnolia State, of course, fell all the way to a tie for last place, as the anger over the GOP primary fracas between incumbent Thad Cochran and challenger Chris McDaniel failed to really have a tangible impact in the general election, where Cochran is expected to easily best former Democratic Rep. Travis Childers.
Mississippi aside, on first blush the comparison between the April Power Rankings and today's edition makes it look like the 2014 cycle was stubbornly stable. Only one of the original top 10 dropped out over the course of the cycle: Louisiana, which dropped from third to 12th, probably because by October, more or less everyone had presumed that the race was heading to "overtime" in the form of a runoff election.
In Louisiana's place—and who could question it?—came Kansas. In April, for those scoring at home, Kansas was tied with Maine for 25th place. Of course, in April, the race was forecast to be a fairly one-sided affair between third-term Senate veteran Pat Roberts (R) and his little-known Democratic challenger, Chad Taylor. But then summer came, and Taylor elected to stand down, leaving Independent Greg Orman as the sole source of opposition to Roberts, whose poll numbers began to dive precipitously at the beginning of summer. Kansas is having a decidedly odd election cycle (as the gubernatorial race would also attest), and the race stayed in the top 10 as poll after poll confirmed the Roberts-Orman battle to be among the closest in the nation.
The most consistent races, in terms of the attention bestowed upon it, were North Carolina, Alaska, and Iowa. Those three states can claim the same distinction: They are the only three never to leave the top 10 during this whole year's Rankings.
North Carolina briefly slid toward the bottom during the summer when other races briefly captivated the attention of national political geeks. However, at this stage of the game, it may well be the closest state in the nation, when you look at recent polls.
Alaska had briefly threatened to fade away at the last, as early October brought a combination of polling and whispers through the media that incumbent Sen. Mark Begich's defeat was almost inevitable. That talk evaporated by the end of the month. Here, half the intrigue is those late polls, which showed everything from a modest Sullivan lead to a fairly respectable (10 points!) Begich lead. It is the only race in the nation where I can say this: Virtually no outcome on Tuesday night would surprise me.
Iowa has been tightening at the last, but it is a race for which Democrats clearly have to feel frustrated. Joni Ernst, despite having some huge policy liabilities, has parlayed a campaign-ready personal biography and her opponent's occasional missteps into a stubborn-but-narrow edge. Her opponent, Democrat Bruce Braley, has to be happy that the race has closed a little at the last, but if the GOP holds on here, there will be some serious head-scratching, given how far outside the mainstream Ernst is, from an ideological perspective.
Atop the pyramid, though, is Colorado. Colorado is a race where the polling has been close, but with a consistent (albeit narrow) edge to Republican challenger Cory Gardner over Democratic Sen. Mark Udall. Democrats are heartened somewhat by what they feel to be polling issues, as they are convinced that Latino voters (who, according to polls solely of Colorado Latinos, seem to strongly favor Udall) are being underrepresented in the data. Polls in Colorado were off the mark in 2010 and 2012, to some extent, but Gardner is further ahead in 2014 than Ken Buck was in 2010. But there are enough variables here (all mail voting, shifting demographics) to make this race very interesting.
FINAL GUBERNATORIAL POWER RANKINGS (April Ranking in parentheses)
1. FLORIDA—Rick Scott [R]—137 points (1)
2. COLORADO—John Hickenlooper [D]—116 points (11)
3. MASSACHUSETTS—Open Seat [Patrick—D]—110 points (14—tie)
4. MICHIGAN—Rick Snyder [R]—106 points (3)
5. GEORGIA—Nathan Deal [R]—100 points (7—tie)
6. KANSAS—Sam Brownback [R]—99 points (14—tie)
7. MAINE—Paul LePage [R]—85 points (9—tie)
8. ILLINOIS—Pat Quinn [D]—83 points (4)
9. NEW HAMPSHIRE—Maggie Hassan [D]—81 points (20)
10. WISCONSIN—Scott Walker [R]—70 points (7—tie)
Also receiving points (points in parentheses)
Arkansas—Democratic Open Seat (60); Iowa—Branstad (59); Connecticut—Malloy (58); Maryland—Democratic Open Seat (58); Hawaii—Democratic Open Seat (56); Arizona—Republican Open Seat (56); Alaska—Parnell (51); Texas—Republican Open Seat (43); Rhode Island—Democratic Open Seat (40); Pennsylvania—Corbett (37); Minnesota—Dayton (33); South Carolina—Haley (29); Oregon—Kitzhaber (29); New Mexico—Martinez (28); South Dakota—Daugaard (28); Idaho—Otter (23); Oklahoma—Fallin (21); New York—Cuomo (21); Nebraska—Republican Open Seat (18); California—Brown (18); Alabama—Bentley (13); Ohio—Kasich (13); Nevada—Sandoval (12); Vermont—Shumlin (12); Wyoming—Mead (12); Tennessee—Haslam (8)
For the curious, there were four states that began the Power Rankings in the top 10, only to fall out along the way. The most precipitous dive was seen in Ohio, where Republican John Kasich's re-election campaign began the Power Rankings in April in sixth position. It would up being tied for 31st, driven downward by the effective collapse of the Democratic campaign of Ed FitzGerald, who suffered through one of the worst summers of any candidate in recent memory. The other three races fell out of favor as well, though without the drama associated with Ohio. They were Arkansas (an open seat that just became incrementally less competitive as time went on), Iowa (a race that looked like it might catch fire in the spring, only to fall victim to an underfunded Democratic challenger), and Pennsylvania (where incumbent Republican Gov. Tom Corbett was, in the final analysis, far too damaged to scratch his way back to parity in his bid for a second term).
The undisputed leader, as it has been virtually all along, is Florida. While on the Senate side, the top few positions changed hands virtually monthly, on the statehouse side of the equation, Florida was either No. 1 or No. 2 during every single edition of the Power Rankings.
And, really, how could it be any other way? The current Republican governor, elected narrowly in a GOP wave year, squaring off with the former Republican governor, who after a falling out with his party (culminating in an unsuccessful U.S. Senate bid as an Independent) decided to seek his old office as a Democrat. It is one of the most expensive races in the nation, and it is also one of the closest.
It is also, rather interestingly, one of only a handful of large-state governorships that anyone is bothering to pay attention to. The three other most populous states in the Union saw their gubernatorial elections rate between 19th and 31st place out of the 36 gubernatorial elections on tap. Texas is the most intriguing of the three, but Democrat Wendy Davis has struggled to close a gap on longtime Republican frontrunner Greg Abbott in the battle to replace longtime Gov. (and likely 2016 aspirant) Rick Perry.
The states that do grace the countdown play against type is several key races. Realistically, no one would look at the numbers and expect Republican incumbents in places like Kansas and Georgia to be endangered in what every journalist in DC is straining a larynx talking about a "GOP wave." Conversely, however, Democrats have to be feeling a strong sense of deja vu that, yet again, one of the bluest states in the union, Massachusetts, is strongly flirting with electing a Republican governor. Perpetually blue Illinois is also the home of an endangered incumbent, though he may be on the verge of an amazing comeback after trailing Republican Bruce Rauner by as much as a dozen points earlier in the cycle.
Comparing the two power rankings yields some interesting information as well. For one thing, it does demonstrate that there does not appear to be a uniform headwind for one party this cycle. On the Senate side, as has long been the case, most of the high-interest (read: imperiled) races are on the Democratic side—seven of the top 10 races on the docket are Democratic-held seats. But on the gubernatorial side of the ledger, it is a near-converse: six of the most embattled gubernatorial slots are held at present by Republicans. This squares very well with our own race ratings, where Republicans make up only one of 11 seats that are either tossups or favored by the non-incumbent party, but make up seven of the 11 gubernatorial seats in the same perilous circumstance.
THE RUBRIC: Three criteria were used to generate our Daily Kos Elections power rankings. One is competitiveness. This was done rather easily, utilizing our DKE race ratings. If a race had been designated by the Daily Kos Elections crew as a "toss-up," that netted that race 15 points, unless it is a race we have designated as "tilting" to one party (then it gets 12 points). If the race was designated as a "lean" D/R race, it was worth 10 points. If the race was designated as a "likely" D/R contest, it was worth five points.
The second criteria is newsworthiness. Some races, for lack of a more elegant way of putting it, have more going on than others. The criteria here was also objective: a race received a single point for every day in which it was mentioned in a Daily Kos Elections Daily Digest.
The final criteria is "pollworthiness." Media outlets, campaigns, and polling firms are not going to poll a race for nothing. The more intriguing races are going to get more data points, typically. So, four points were awarded for each poll conducted in a given state's race.
This particular set of Power Rankings covered polls and digest mentions from October 1-30.