The terrifying 2014 Senate numbers (laid out usefully in this RCP article include:
• 7 now-Dem-held Red-State seats;
• 4 now-Dem-held Swing-State seats & 1 additional risky open seat in Dem-leaning Michigan;
• Very few vulnerable Repug incumbents;
• All full-term incumbents having last faced the voters in Obama’s 2008 wave that reacted against W-Cheney-McCain-Palin and the pre-election Financial Crisis.
Key messages from this are:
1. These 12 races merit high priority.
2. Beating 1 or 2 Republican incumbent Senators is crucial to enabling a narrative in 2015 that includes “anti-incumbent wave” instead of only the “anti-Democratic wave” that the political class is getting ready to hammer.
A. How to prioritize Republican incumbent targets?
1. KY-Sen: The Republican incumbent defeat that would most impact the narrative would be in Kentucky, of Senate Minority Leader McConnell. But this will be hard, especially because virtually every Progressive/Environmental step objected to by Big Coal will tend to reduce the prospects for presumed Democratic nominee Grimes (like for presumed WV-Sen Democratic nominee Tennant). Moreover, the most likely scenario for beating McConnell entails him being hurt so badly by his Tea Party primary challenger that the main resulting addition to the prevailing narrative would be “pro-Tea Party primary wave” (along with “Grimes won by running away from Obama’s environmentalism”).
2. ME-Sen: The narrative impact of defeating Maine incumbent Republican Susan Collins would highlight several productive themes: not only “anti-incumbent” but “anti-triangulation” and “anti-surveillance-abuse”, along with “generational change”. Early-declared Democratic challenger Shenna Bellows has profile, skills and strategy that appear well-suited to turning her challenge to incumbent Collins into a winnable referendum on surveillance abuse (thereby obtaining electoral value from Edward Snowden’s continuing drip of disclosures). The small amount of funds sufficient to enable such a successful scenario in Maine's cheap media market is a tiny fraction of the amount needed in most other states.