Yesterday, during Sunday Kos, I laid out a clip-and-save guide for the bellwethers during each hour of poll closings for the House. As promised, on Election Eve, as it were, we will look at the smaller array of Senate and gubernatorial contests.
These are different animals, of course. With the gubernatorial races, "control" of a particular chamber is not an issue. But their outcomes are critically important, especially in light of the redistricting process that will fire up within six months of the ballots being cast tomorrow.
With the Senate, of course, control of the chamber is at issue, and still very much an open question.
As was the case yesterday, there will be three scenarios listed, with one slight alteration (since we are not worried about control of the House here):
- It is a good night for the Democrats if...
- The critical race to watch is...
- Go the bed NOW if...
There is one other change, as well, and it is a practical one: we won't do "hour-to-hour". Because of the paucity of races in certain time periods, we will break them into three shifts--the Early shift (6 PM-7:30 PM ET), the Swing shift (7:30-9:00 PM), and the Late shift (9:00-12:00 AM ET).
THE EARLY SHIFT: Kentucky, Indiana, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, West Virginia
It is a good night for the Democrats if... they win the Governor's races in Florida and Ohio. These are two hugely populated states, and if the Dems can pick up Florida and hang onto Ohio, it would mean quite a bit in the next round of redistricting. Furthermore, it would add a psychic boost--as our own Chris Bowers has noted repeatedly on Twitter, if both Florida and Ohio go to Dem Governors, more Americans are likely to be represented by a Democratic Governor next year than a Republican one (though the GOP is likely to control more states, in the final analysis).
The critical race to watch is... the West Virginia Senate race. Joe Manchin is no one's idea of a progressive dream (as if blowing a hole through the cap-and-trade bill on TV wouldn't disabuse you of that notion), but the Democrats are a great deal less likely to hold the Senate if he loses. John Raese is an abominable candidate (who doesn't even really live in the state), but it might not matter in a state where dislike of the President has been far from a recent convention. It's not an accident that the GOP is littering the state with black-and-white (no dog whistles there, of course) signs that read "Manchin=Obama".
Go to bed NOW if... Manchin loses. If West Virginia goes down, the Democrats need to win a lot of toss-ups to stay at the "avoiding party switchers" level of comfort with regards to Senate control.
SWING SHIFT: Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, D.C., Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Wyoming
It is a good night for Democrats if... they manage to hang onto two of the following three Senate races: Illinois, Pennsylvania or Colorado. These are three Dem-held Senate seats, and while all are toss-ups, the general consensus is that the Dems are trailing in each of them heading into Election Day. If they get swept, they need to run the tables on the rest of the toss-ups, and that will be a tall order. If they win one, the Dems probably hang onto the Senate, but it is in that low 50s range. If they win two, the Senate control is probably out of danger, barring a shocker elsewhere.
The critical race to watch is... that Colorado Senate race. There was a lot of early voting in Colorado, and it will be interesting to see in what direction the early voters went. Though early voting preferences vary state-to-state, if Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet gets boatraced in the early voting to Ken Buck (especially when polls showed the opposite), it could be a bad sign that any late Dem improvements might have been nullified by the GOP banking early votes.
Go the bed NOW if... the Republicans seize the Colorado Governors race by proxy, with third-party apostate Tom Tancredo beating Democrat John Hickenlooper and Republican Dan Maes. It's one thing for a state to be filled with angry voters, but if you are angry enough to let Tom Tancredo take the lead, then forget going to bed. You ought to hide under the damned thing. For a good, long while.
THE LATE SHIFT: Alaska, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon, Utah, Washington
It will be a good night for Democrats if... the longshot comes across the line first in Alaska. It is a sign of this "theater of the absurd" campaign cycle that, by a landslide, the GOP-held seat in the Senate most likely to change to the Dems is in deep-red Alaska. And it could happen. A myriad of recent polls have hinted the same.
The critical races to watch are... a number at the Senate and statehouse level. Sorry for those insisting of decisiveness, but I couldn't pick just one here. On the Senate side, it is a trio of races: Nevada, California, and Washington. Dems would like to have all three of them, but could probably survive without one of them. If they lose two out of three or (gasp!) all of them, fuhgeddaboutit. On the gubernatorial side of the ledger, a pair of close-to-tossup races could put a late smile on Democratic faces. To salvage something positive out of what might be a disappointing evening, root for John Kitzhaber in Oregon, and Neal Abercrombie in Hawaii. Neither is a lock, but given the caliber of their opposition, both should be.
Go the bed NOW if... either Boxer or Brown lose in California. The Golden State has looked for months like an oasis of blue in what has been forecast to be a red tsunami. If either of them go down, it will kill that small measure of comfort. What's more, it will reward gazillionaire dilettantes, which means you will see many, many more of them in the upcoming cycles, spending eight-to-nine figures to spout meaningless platitudes in months worth of droning saturation TV buys.