The analysis of the results can lead to call 2014 a Republican wave year, but looking at them carefully, this is not the impression that I have.
There is not doubt that 2014 has been a year with a moderate Republican lean, but I would not call it a wave year. I have not the impression that the entire political map moved homogeneously this cycle, like in a true wave.
I think the movements have been stronger in some areas. There are areas with a deficient Democratic campaign. My conclussion is that the Democratic Party has been victim of the own failures, that in some cases affected strongly to local results with unexpected loses. But the entire map moved not as hard.
Go with the analysis of my own prediction and numbers to see why this is my conclusion.
First the data of my prediction and the final result. Still we have some races uncalled but as it can take so long, I will try to preview the winner for every race.
In the first chart there are the races that I predicted as a victory for the Democratic side. The color of the letters means about the current party in charge, and about the trajectory of the office this cycle. The color of the cells means about if the prediction has been right or wrong.
In the second chart the same for the races that I predicted as a victory for the Republicans.
As you can see I have only a few mistakes calling races for the Republicans while I had more mistakes in races called for the Democratic party. This is something that always happen to me, despite sometimes I can sound pessimistic.
For the people that knows not my work, it is necessary to explain that my work is a full numerical work, but not a work based only on polls.
One of the most important works to do analyzing and predicting is to preview where will be the middle of the cycle, where is the line that divide the races in Democratic and Repblican victories, according to the numerical results. This time I also have been very close to this line as we can see in the predictions for the US House. And this is not a result of a true wave, despite a strong gerrymandering that left only a few seats in the middle.
I'm very happy with the result of my prediction of the US House. It was my weakest area but this time the improvements worked very well and if I finish with only 11 mistakes, it will be a 97.5% of accurate predictions what is a very good level.
I failed more in the statewide races and state chambers. And I need to see exactly why. Not very happy with it. Analyzing the mistakes we can see the following details.
Races with a very close but negative numerical prospect that finished as gains:
In this group my numbers understimated the chance of the Democratic side. With the same numbers most of the races in similar situation finished as loses for the Democratic Party. AZ-01 has been the best and alone real good surprise of the night. The others had fairly competitive numbers.
IL-ST
AZ-01
AK-Gov
AK-LG
CA-07
FL-02
NE-02
It is a good result for me.
My Own mistakes (also in races with very close numerical prospect):
In this group my numbers where giving a little pro-Republican tilt, but being a little too optimistic I predicted a Democratic victory.
IA-Sen
CO-Sen
CO-06
NM-SS
IL-Gov
IL-LG
MI-Gov
MI-LG
WI-AG
DE-SA
NC-Sen
KS-Gov
KS-LG
AZ-02
Races with a very close but positive numerical prospect that finished as gains:
My prediction agreed with my numerical calculus, but the numbers where very close (less than 2% for the margin between both sides), and the results finished as loses. It is like the inverse case of the first group, and there are acceptable mistakes wich mean not acceptable results for the Democratic party.
ME-Gov
ME-02
NY-24
NY-StS
IA-01
IA-SS
WA-StS
Bad surprises:
The numerical prospect was better for these races, but the Democratic Party failed to win. The cases of WV and MN are understandable (playing in R+ territory in order to keep the majorities) but the rest are a failure that in most of the cases agree not with the national overall average for the results.
MD-Gov
MD-LG
CO-StS
IL-10
NV-04
NV-StS
NV-ST
WV-StH
NV-SC
NM-StH
MN-StH
NH-StH
NV-AG
NV-SS
ME-StS
NM-CPL
DE-ST
NV-StH
WV-StS
Looking at all these mistakes, there are reasons to think that there is a local concentration of the bad results instead of a randomly distributed location? I would answer Yes. There are reasons to think about local mistakes as the cause of these defeats for the Democratic Party.
One data more to add to the analysis. The Democratic only win the following races having a fundraising disadvantage this cycle. Every one knows that most of the Republican money is moved by PACs. To be in fundraising disadvantage is killer for a Democratic candidate today, and a true sign of warning.
MI-Sen
CT-ST
WI-SS
CA-03
MN-08
I habitually published a little alert that was not too well welcomed in time of more optimism but that was unfortunately right. This was
my alert at august 1, when the Democratic candidate was still leading in the fundraising side of his race in CA-03 and not enough data was published about CT-ST and WI-SS. The alert was fairly predictive for future troubles:
THE FUNDRAISING SIDE OF THE CYCLE
Looking at the most recent data we see that between all the races with Toss-Up or better (for the Democratic Party) rating, the Democratic candidates are losing in the total fundraising of the cycle in the following races:
NM-CPL: R Powell
MA-Gov + MA-LG: M Coakley, S Grossman and D Berwick
MI-Sen: G Peters
NV-ST: K Wallin
MN-08: R Nolan
WI-AG: J Richards, R Ozanne and S Happ
IL-Gov + IL-LG: P Quinn + P Vallas
NV-LG: L Flores
KS-Gov + KS-LG: P Davis + J Docking
GA-Gov: J Carter
AZ-SS: T Goddard
The electoral night the Democratic Party lost all the races of my alert except MI-Sen and MN-08.
Returning to the worst surprises of the cycle, it is obvious the big concentration of bad results in some states.
Nevada: (7/19) What happened? The Democratic Party basically campaigned not. A strong gubernatorial challenge was necessary to keep the tension, but not only that. Also it was a strong lack of money in other key statewide races. Doing nothing severe loses can come, and this is a strong leson for the Democratic Party. The epic failure in this state explains more than a 35% of the most unexpected loses.
Maine: (1/19) Nevada was the D+ state with the less contested high profile race (NV-Gov), and Maine was the D+ state with the second less contested high profile race (ME-Sen). In the case of Maine also it was another high profile race (ME-Gov) that was more contested but not well played thanks to E Cutler. Again own mistakes explaining a local bad result with bigger loses than expected. To lose the majority in the state senate plus ME-Gov and ME-02 is a hard coup.
New Mexico: (2/19) In New Mexico the Democratic Party had a candidate challenging the Republican governor, but the campaign has been weak, and the Democratic money moved not to help the challenge after the races was cut by the DGA leader. Also the money was not moved in support of the now defeated State Land Commissioner Ray Powell. Not as epic failure as in Nevada but the Democratic Party is paying too a local mistake.
Maryland: (2/19) The fall of the Democratic candidate in the last weeks of the race for governor has been also very strong. The Democratic party tried more but failed.
Delaware: (1/19) Again own mistakes leaded to a failure that costed to the Democratic party two statewide offices. In the state it was also a lack of electoral tension. It were not high profile competitive races, but sill the Democratic party moved not enough to reach doable goals. Also it has been a bad management of the situation in the races for state Treasurer and Auditor that leaded to lose both races that were fairly winnable giving the right steps. As example of the lack of electoral tension, DE-ST and DE-SA have not been polled the entire cycle, even when DE-Sen and DE-AL were polled.
Only local mistakes in the own strategies in a 10% of the states are explaining a 68.4% of the most unexpeted loses. And this without to talk about Illinois, another evident case.
For me the signs and the effects of failed strategies for some cases are a lot more evident at this point than the allegued wave. A wave is equally distributed in all the territory, the unexpected loses should be a lot more randomly distributed geographically, but I see not it.
We will see how is the final popular vote for the US House to call this properly as wave or as a year with a moderate Republican lean plus some local failures of the Democratic Party. My impression is that the final data will not be under a 45% of Democratic vote like in 2010. I think it will be more around a 46-47%.
And after these local failures and mistakes is in last term the bad selection of goals done this cycle by the DSCC and the DGA, especially the last. Both are closely related with the local failures in NV, NM, ME and MD. The Democratic Party has been too focused in to wake up low hope races in unfavourable states.
Unfortunately this time the Democratic money has not been where it was needed in order to win many winnable races in the political environment of a year with a moderate Republican lean, or even in the prospect of a year of a political tie. The Democratic party failed badly this year in the Open by D races in D+ territory.