It is often said the nobody is more likely to form a circular firing squad the Democrats. But for sheer self-destructiveness, it would be hard to beat but what Deleware Republicans did last night. Indeed, there is a diary on the reclist that is essentially about Karl Rove going belistic after O’Donnel won the nomination.
Let’s start by looking at the Delaware race itself. Rasmussen’s last poll, taken September 2-5 showed Coons, the Democratic nominee leading O’Donnel 47-36. Coons trailed Castle in the same poll 48-37. Moreover, consider the favorables:
Coon: 49-35 positive
Castle: 67-30 positive
O’Donnel: 39-44 negative
So the Delaware Republicans have chosen to nominate someone who trails by 11, and has higher unfavorables than favorables over a candidate with a 67-30 positive rating who lead the Democrat in the last poll by 11.
And these are Rasmussen numbers we are talking about here.
But to understand how stupid the Delaware GOP was last night, you have to view their actions in the context of the overall fight for the Senate. Let’s take a look at Chris’s Senate projection onSeptember 3rd. In that post he put the the odds of a GOP of the Senate at 18.7%. Now I actually think his numbers are too optimistic. Chris uses the margin of error in prior years to predict the outcome of the Senate race if the election were held today. However, if you look at 2006 you find that there were a number of incumbents below 50 but who lead at this point who wound up losing. As a result, I think the GOP odds in places like California and Wisconsin are better than his odds relfect. Nevetheless, in his projection he gave the Democrats a zero percent chance of holding the seat in Deleware. But that same projection shows the GOP chances of winning 52 seats was less than 3%.
On September 13th Chris updated the snapshot to reflect polling showing a likely O’Donnell victory. The GOP odds of taking the Senate in his projection fell to .1%! The same thing this morning happened in the Real Clear Politics Senate averages, which went from a 51-49 to 52-48.
Take a step and realize the significance of this. A 52-48 Democratic margin means Holy Joe and his pal Ben Nelson can’t threaten to bolt the Democrats and hand the chamber to the GOP, because in a 50-50 Senate Biden would break the tie. So the difference in a four seat majority and a two seat majority is pretty important (though not much is getting out of the Senate in any event, alas). Moreover, look at the current state of the races:
The Dems have 59 seats. To take the Senate the GOP needs to win 10 seats. Right now the GOP is the clear favorite in four seats: Arkansas, Indiana, North Dakota and Pennsylvania (though it might be too early to write Sestak off).
So where are the other 6 going to come from? Let’s look at the tossups:
California: The RCP average has her ahead by 1.4%, but at 46.7. At this point the race looks like a coin toss.
Nevada: Reid’s numbers are almost identical to Boxer’s. Angle is an idiot, but this is essentially a coin flip too.
Wisconsin: Feingold leds by about a point, but his numbers are actually a little lower than either Reid’s or Boxer’s. This is a coin flip.
Colorado: Bennet trails Buck at this point, and he polls only in the low 40’s. The GOP odds are probably around 75% here.
Washington: The last poll had Murray up by 9. My guess is she is the safest of the 6 seats listed here.
Illinois: This seat is a tossup, But Obama has a 53% approval rating even in the last Rasmussen poll in Illinois. The last Rasmussen poll had the Green Party candidate at 12% - I kind of doubt that will actually happen. So the Democrats may be more likely than not to win the seat, but lets call it a tossup.
Based on these odds, the GOP has a 1.1% chance of taking the Senate. Winning all of these races is unlikely, though in 2006 the Democrats won all but one of the close races.
Absent the GOP putting either West Virginia or Connecticut in play (which seems unlikely) the GOP chances of taking the Senate are essentially dead.
Thank you Tea Party Republicans!!