Where we can move the needle right to left in 2014

Likely D	Lean D	Tossup	Lean R	Likely R
MN-Sen: Franken -.487 OR-Sen: Merkley -.432 NH-Sen: Shaheen -.338 VA-Sen: Warner -.266 NH-Sen: Brown .097 (112th Sen., in MA)	MI-Sen: Peters -.250 (in House)	IA-Sen: Braley -.323 (in House) AK-Sen: Begich -.282 CO-Sen: Udall -.279 LA-Sen: Landrieu -.257 NC-Sen: Hagan -.236 AR-Sen: Pryor -.189 KS-Sen: Roberts .560 IA-Sen: Ernst .724 (in IA St. Sen.) LA-Sen: Cassidy .726 (in House) CO-Sen: Gardner .789 (in House) AR-Sen: Cotton .954 (in House) NC-Sen: Tillis .997 (in NC St. House)	KY-Sen: McConnell .572	MT-Sen: Curtis -1.162 (in MT St. House) WV-Sen: Capito .521 (in House) MT-Sen: Daines .712 (in House)

"I want to contribute money to some candidates, but who's the most progressive candidate (or at least the most progressive candidate who's in a competitive race)? I don't want to give my money to somebody who'll just be another Blue Dog..." It's a pretty common refrain around these parts, and it's particularly important right now, because Sept. 30 is the last quarterly reporting date before the election. If you want to contribute, you should do it before then, not after; the 3rd quarter FEC report (along with polling, of course) is when the national committees and the third-party groups take stock of who's performing well, and make their funding decisions. Our money is just a drop in the bucket compared to their money, which is what will get candidates over the finish line, but we can put down markers that help them decide where to allocate money.

"Progressiveness" is pretty hard to quantify, but there are vote aggregators that do that for you, eliminating a lot of the guesswork. Granted, there's a lot more to ideology than simply which way you vote on the floor in Congress ... there's what you do in committee, what you say in the media and how you say it, and whose egos you massage ... but votes are really the core of what they do. And the DW-Nominate system is probably the best method for aggregating votes; it's designed to be generalizable between Senate and House, and between different points in time.

So, what I've done in the table above is to take the current Daily Kos Elections race ratings for the Senate, and, within each category, taken each candidate in each race for whom there's a score available, and ordered them from most to least progressive. This way, you can direct your money to the most progressive candidate ... or, if you're thinking in terms of defense, to the opponent of the most objectionable candidate. DW-N scores run generally from -1 to 1, with the lowest scores being most liberal and the highest scores being most conservative. (If this looks familiar, I did the same thing in the run-up to the 2012 election, and then did a retroactive look after the 2012 election on just how we fared at meeting our goals.)

Bear in mind, though, that not all races are created equal. The chart above tells you that Al Franken is the most progressive of the incumbent Dem senators running for re-election in a competitive race this year. (He's not the most progressive overall; that, of course, is Bernie Sanders, with a score of - .693. Franken clocks in at 13th overall. Nor is he the most progressive senator up for re-election this year, which is Ed Markey at -.575, but he's in an utterly safe race.) Even though Franken's on the table, though, doesn't mean he's necessarily the best use of your money; the Daily Kos Elections Poll Explorer still gives Franken a 99 percent chance of winning his race. I'm sure he'd appreciate your help, but he doesn't need it badly.

Where the real battle for control of the Senate is being fought is the Tossup races, in the middle column. There, Rep. Bruce Braley, running in the open seat in Iowa, is the most progressive option, with a score of -.323. ("Progressive" is relatively speaking, of course; as you can probably infer by linking the scores with the names, capital-P Progressives tend to score -.400 or lower, New Dems tend to score in the -.200 to -.400 range, and Blue Dogs are in the -.200 to 0 range. Moreover, even if Braley wins, the needle has still moved a bit to the right; he's replacing Tom Harkin, a liberal lion with a score of -.497.)

Also worth considering is that Mark Begich from Alaska is only slightly behind Braley on the DW-Nominate measure, and could be considered more of a "value" pick in two ways. One, Begich is from a much redder state; in terms of his voting record, he "overperforms" the lean of his state more than just about any other Democrat in the Senate. And two, he's from one of the least populous states, and accordingly, one of the cheapest places to advertise; a dollar for Begich gets stretched much further, in terms of what advertising it can purchase, than a dollar given to someone in a much more populous state.

We'll discuss the Senate in a little more depth, and then discuss the House, over the fold:

You've probably noticed that not every candidate shows up on the list. DW-Nominate scores are useful only to the extent that someone has served in the Senate or House, and has a voting record to be quantified. You'll notice that there are a few state legislators on the list; political scientist Boris Shor has recently developed a system that plugs into the DW-N system, bridging the gap so state legislators can be given similar scores. That helps us add challengers like Joni Ernst and Thom Tillis. (You'll notice that Amanda Curtis, the Montana House member who's filling in for John Walsh in MT-Sen, has a score below -1. Legislators who are deep in the minority in states with particularly polarized legislatures tend to be so far from the median that they bend the usual -1 to 1 continuum; you'll see some even more extreme numbers from Republicans from the California legislature when we look at House candidates. So it's still not a perfect correspondence.)

That doesn't leave us with a lot of states where we can do a side-by-side comparison and see which races would move the needle in the right or left direction the most. But for those seven races, here you go:

Montana: Daines .712 vs. Curtis -1.162 = 1.874
North Carolina: Tillis .997 vs. Hagan -.236 = 1.233
Arkansas: Cotton .954 vs. Pryor -.189 = 1.143
Colorado: Gardner .789 vs. Udall -.279 = 1.068
Iowa: Ernst .724 vs. Braley -.323 = 1.047
Louisiana: Cassidy .726 vs. Landrieu .257 = .983
New Hampshire: Brown .097 vs. Shaheen -.338 = .435

As you can see, Montana comes way out ahead; I'd take it with a grain of salt because of how Curtis's score is distorted, though. It also may not be such a wise choice for where to put your money since it's an almost-certain Republican pickup and a few dollars isn't likely to change that at this point. Beyond that, North Carolina comes in second, not so much because Kay Hagan is strongly liberal but because Thom Tillis is so far to the right.

Unfortunately, we're left without scores for people who've never served in Congress or a state legislature; this includes candidates who've come straight from the private sector, like Michelle Nunn, or candidates who've held statewide executive office but not been legislators, like Natalie Tennant. There is, however, a new and totally different system that lets us explore a little deeper by scoring these candidates too. Political scientist Adam Bonica has created CF Scores, which don't rely on legislative votes at all, but rather on campaign donors. It builds linkages by looking at one candidate's donors and then what other candidates those same donors have given to; these associations work almost as well as DW-Nominate scores in terms of figuring out who's liberal, centrist, or conservative, while encompassing people who've never been elected before.

CF scores run from 10L (liberal) to 10C (conservative); although it's the same general principle, they are not directly translatable to DW-N scores, so I'll create an entirely separate table for them, again running from the largest to smallest disparity between opponents. (There's no score for Montana, since Curtis is too new to the race to have a score yet.)

Minnesota: Franken 8.2L vs. McFadden 6.4C = 14.6
Iowa: Braley 6.8L vs. Ernst 7.0C = 13.8
Colorado: Udall 6.9L vs. Gardner 6.8C = 13.7
Oregon: Merkley 8.1L vs. Wehby 5.1C = 13.2
South Dakota: Weiland 6.4L vs. Rounds 6.2C = 12.6
Michigan: Peters 5.8L vs. Land 6.4C = 12.2
Georgia: Nunn 5.7L vs. Perdue 6.2C = 11.9
Alaska: Begich 6.2L vs. Sullivan 5.6C = 11.8
New Hampshire: Shaheen 6.9L vs. Brown 4.0C = 10.9
Arkansas: Pryor 4.0L vs. Cotton 6.6C = 10.6
Virginia: Warner 4.5L vs. Gillespie 6.0C = 10.5
West Virginia: Tennant 6.1L vs. Capito 4.3C = 10.4
Kansas: Orman 4.5L vs. Roberts 5.7C = 10.2
Kentucky: Grimes 5.4L vs. McConnell 4.7C = 10.1
North Carolina: Hagan 5.2L vs. Tillis 4.8C = 10.0
Louisiana: Landrieu 2.6L vs. Cassidy 5.7C = 8.3

You'll notice some similarities to the DW-N scores here; Franken comes out most liberal, and also with the biggest disparity with his opponent. Among the Tossup races, again Braley comes out on top, just barely ahead of Mark Udall. Interestingly, though, here North Carolina has one of the lowest disparities; the difference here isn't with Hagan but with Tillis, who looks less objectionable when you look at his donors as opposed to his votes.

Now let's look at the more complicated House chart for DW-Nominate scores:

Likely D	Lean D	Tossup	Lean R	Likely R
CA-03: Garamendi -.362 NV-04: Horsford -.327 NH-02: Kuster -.308 IA-02: Loebsack -.292 OR-05: Schrader -.258 CT-04: Himes -.254 IL-11: Foster -.248 MN-07: Peterson -.194 NY-24: Maffei -.179 IL-11: Senger .335 (in IL St. House) CT-04: Debicella .439 (in CT St. Sen.) OR-05: Smith .746 (in OR St. House) NV-04: Hardy .872 (in NV St. Asm.) MN-07: Westrom .871 (in MN St. Sen.) NH-02: Garcia .957 (in NH St. House) CA-03: Logue 1.821 (in CA St. Asm.)	IA-01: Murphy -.668 (in IA St. House) CT-05: Esty -.352 CA-26: Brownley -.336 IL-12: Enyart -.292 IL-17: Bustos -.216 TX-23: Gallego -.208 CA-07: Bera -.207 NY-18: Maloney -.176 FL-18: Murphy -.165 MA-06: Tisei -.159 (in MA St. Sen.) IL-12: Bost -.157 (in IL St. House) GA-12: Barrow -.155 AZ-09: Sinema -.137 FL-18: Domino .243 (in FL St. House) CA-07: Ose .456 (108th House) NY-18: Hayworth .601 (112th House) IL-17: Schilling .686 (112th House) CA-26: Gorell 1.061 (in CA St. Asm.)	IA-03: Appel -1.021 (in IA St. Sen.) CO-06: Romanoff -.813 (in CO St. House) MN-08: Nolan -.447 NH-01: Shea-Porter -.331 WV-03: Rahall -.318 NY-01: Bishop -.310 CA-36: Ruiz -.206 IL-10: Schneider -.199 FL-26: Garcia -.177 CA-52: Peters -.164 AZ-01: Kirkpatrick -.161 AZ-02: Barber -.115 WV-03: Jenkins .115 (in WV St. Sen.) NY-01: Zeldin .298 (in NY St. Sen.) NY-11: Grimm .344 IL-10: Dold! .556 (112th House) NH-01: Guinta .653 (112th House) AZ-01: Tobin .760 (in AZ St. House) CO-06: Coffman .827 CA-36: Nestande 1.042 (in CA St. Asm.)	NE-02: Ashford .478 CA-21: Valadao .598 NY-23: Reed .642 NV-03: Heck .654 VA-10: Comstock .679 (in VA St. House) IL-13: Davis .732 NE-02: Terry .737 FL-02: Southerland .831 MI-08: Bishop .920 (in MI St. Sen.) WV-02: Mooney 1.504 (in MD St. Sen.)	CO-03: Tapia -.902 (in CO St. Sen.) MI-07: Byrnes -.881 (in MI St. House) OH-06: Garrison -.560 (in OH St. House) MN-02: Obermueller -.461 (in MN St. House) NJ-02: LoBiondo .489 WV-01: McKinley .499 OH-14: Joyce .508 PA-08: Fitzpatrick .512 NY-19: Gibson .560 NC-02: Ellmers .571 IN-02: Walorski .597 CA-10: Denham .658 MT-AL: Zinke .688 (in MT St. Sen.) CO-03: Tipton .711 IA-04: King .738 MN-02: Kline .748 OH-06: Johnson .761 MI-07: Walberg .775 VA-02: Rigell .779 NM-02: Pearce .806 MI-01: Benishek .900 WI-06: Grothman .903 (in WI St. Sen.) AR-04: Westerman 1.493 (in AR St. Sen.)

Two names really stand out here, not just as far as the Tossup column is concerned, but in terms of the whole thing: Staci Appel and Andrew Romanoff have some of the top scores overall. Now bear in mind that they're both state legislators, so those scores aren't good apples-to-apples comparisons; they'd probably clock in much lower in a U.S. House (partly because they'd be voting on what Republican leadership brings up, rather than what the Democratic leadership in their respective legislatures brings up, but also because they'd be voting more defensively in their swingy House districts than they did in their bluer legislative districts). These are two of the Dems' best opportunities for pickups, and, yet, as far as we can tell, are coming from pretty progressive backgrounds.

Now let's switch over to the table where we can do a side-by-side comparison in those races where we have a score for both candidates:

CA-03: Garamendi -.362 vs. Logue 1.821 = 2.183
MI-07: Byrnes -.881 vs. Walberg .775 = 1.656
CO-06: Romanoff -.813 vs. Coffman .827 = 1.640
CO-03: Tapia -.902 vs. Tipton .711 = 1.613
CA-26: Brownley -.336 vs. Gorell 1.061 = 1.397
OH-06: Garrison -.560 vs. Johnson .761 = 1.321
NH-02: Kuster -.308 vs. Garcia .957 = 1.265
CA-36: Ruiz -.206 vs. Nestande 1.042 = 1.248
MN-02: Obermueller -.461 vs. Kline .748 = 1.209
NV-04: Horsford -.327 vs. Hardy .782 = 1.109
MN-07: Peterson -.194 vs. Westrom .871 = 1.065
OR-05: Schrader -.258 vs. Smith .746 = 1.004
NH-01: Shea-Porter -.331 vs. Guinta .653 = .984
AZ-01: Kirkpatrick -.161 vs. Tobin .760 = .921
IL-17: Bustos -.216 vs. Schilling .686 = .902
NY-18: Maloney -.176 vs. Hayworth .601 = .777
IL-10: Schneider -.199 vs. Dold .556 = .755
CT-04: Himes -.254 vs. Debicella .439 = .693
CA-07: Bera -.207 vs. Ose .456 = .663
NY-01: Bishop -.310 vs. Zeldin .298 = .608
IL-11: Foster -.248 vs. Senger .335 = .583
WV-03: Rahall -.318 vs. Jenkins .115 = .433
FL-18: Murphy -.165 vs. Domino .243 = .408
NE-02: Ashford .478 vs. Terry .737 = .259
IL-12: Enyart -.292 vs. Bost -.157 = .157

While the race in CA-03 is at the top (more thanks to Dan Logue's crazy score, from being on the right flank of a California state Assembly controlled by a Democratic supermajority, than John Garamendi's liberalness), that race is very sleepy; it's on hardly anyone's watch list, and we may well upgrade it to Safe Democratic before long. Instead, note that CO-06, one of the most hotly-contested House races in the country, is right behind it; again, you not only have the fairly progressive Andrew Romanoff, but also Mike Coffman, who used to represent a dark-red district but got redistricted into a swing district in 2012 and hasn't quite learned how to adapt to it yet. Of any truly competitive House race, this is the one where we have the best chance to move the needle a lot.

As for defensive races, Julia Brownley's attempt to hold CA-26 is the biggest difference-maker, though again, her opponent's score may be distorted by how polarized the California state legislature is. Another key defensive race that's a tossup and that has a huge disparity is NH-02, where the always-endangered Carol Shea-Porter faces Frank Guinta for a third time, after losing to him in 2010 but winning her seat back from him in 2012.

Finally, that still leaves us with a number of House races where one or both candidates don't have a DW-Nominate score. For that, we can turn to CF scores. (I'm going to limit this to Tossup and Lean races, just to keep the list a manageable length.)

CT-05: Esty 7.3L vs. Greenberg 10.0C = 17.3
CO-06: Romanoff 9.0L vs. Coffman 6.7C = 15.7
IA-01: Murphy 6.4L vs. Blum 8.3C = 14.7
MN-08: Nolan 7.5L vs. Mills 7.0C = 14.5
AZ-02: Barber 6.9L vs. McSally 7.4C = 14.3
CA-21: Renteria 8.5L vs. Valadao 5.4C = 13.9
NH-01: Shea-Porter 9.3L vs. Guinta 4.4C = 13.7
PA-06: Trivedi 9.0L vs. Costello 4.6C = 13.6
VA-10: Foust 7.4L vs. Comstock 5.8C = 13.2
NY-23: Robertson 9.3L vs. Reed 3.7C = 13.0
IL-17: Bustos 6.3L vs. Schilling 6.6C = 12.9
CA-07: Bera 8.1L vs. Ose 4.7C = 12.8
FL-02: Graham 6.2L vs. Southerland 6.6C = 12.8
AZ-09: Sinema 5.3L vs. Rogers 7.2C = 12.5
CA-52: Peters 7.0L vs. DeMaio 5.5C = 12.5
AZ-01: Kirkpatrick 6.6L vs. Tobin 5.8C = 12.4
IA-03: Appel 6.6L vs. Young 5.8C = 12.4
CA-26: Brownley 8.3L vs. Gorrell 4.0C = 12.3
NY-21: Woolf 6.2L vs. Stefanik 6.1C = 12.3
CA-36: Ruiz 8.0L vs. Nestande 4.2C = 12.2
IL-12: Enyart 7.3L vs. Bost 4.4C = 11.7
NJ-03: Belgard 7.5L vs. MacArthur 4.0C = 11.5
ME-02: Cain 8.4L vs. Poliquin 3.0C = 11.4
NY-18: Maloney 7.1L vs. Hayworth 4.3C = 11.4
IL-13: Callis 7.1L vs. Davis 4.0C = 11.1
NV-03: Bilbray 6.3L vs. Heck 4.5C = 10.8
MI-08: Schertzing 6.0L vs. Bishop 4.7C = 10.7
IL-10: Schneider 6.1L vs. Dold 4.4C = 10.5
FL-18: Murphy 5.8L vs. Domino 4.2C = 10.0
GA-12: Barrow 2.4L vs. Allen 7.1C = 9.5
AR-02: Hays 4.7L vs. Hill 4.7C = 9.4
WV-02: Casey 2.9L vs. Mooney 6.4C = 9.3
MA-06: Moulton 6.5L vs. Tisei 2.7C = 9.2
NY-01: Bishop 6.0L vs. Zeldin 2.9C = 8.9
TX-23: Gallego 1.2L vs. Hurd 6.7C = 7.9
NY-11: Recchia 4.8L vs. Grimm 2.7C = 7.5
FL-26: Garcia 3.6L vs. Curbelo 3.8C = 7.4
NE-02: Ashford 1.2C vs. Terry 6.0C = 4.8
WV-03: Rahall 2.8L vs. Jenkins 1.6C = 4.4

Rather than call your attention to the CT-05 and IA-01 races, which are Lean Democratic races (and barely even that), I'd point to, again, CO-06, as well as MN-08, another one of the most hotly contested House races. You'll remember that Rick Nolan in MN-08 had by far the highest DW-Nominate score of any incumbent Dem in the Tossup category above. The CF Scores also accurately capture him as being on the Dems' left flank; he's an old-school labor liberal in rural Minnesota, and he's facing a challenge from Stewart Mills, a self-funding sporting goods store heir.

Finally, while I said I wasn't going to include matchups from the Likely Dem or Likely Republican categories, I will give a brief mention to two that have particularly large disparities. One is IA-04, where Jim Mowrer (8.3L) is facing off against perennial GOP boogeyman Steve King (7.7C), with a disparity of 16.0. And the other is WI-06, where Mark Harris (9.6L) faces Republican state Sen. Glen Grothman (7.8C, who'll probably join King and Louie Gohmert in the village idiot caucus), with the largest disparity of any race, 17.4. What do these races have in common? Well, Mowrer has been endorsed by Daily Kos, while Harris was the recipient of a recent informal but successful moneybomb here as well. Since the CF Scores are calculated by aggregating donors and who else they donate to, you can see a whole lot of Kossacks driving up Mowrer and Harris's unusually high "L" scores with their small-dollar donations!