The Republican Party’s path to Senate control runs straight through the South, leaving Democrats fighting not to be wiped out completely in the region.
“You’ve got a number of the key races in the South this year,” said Emory University Professor Alan Abramowitz, who’s studied the region’s political history extensively.
{mosads}Sens. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and Mary Landrieu (D-La.) are all in tough races, as is Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and both parties are contesting the open seat in Georgia.
If Republicans can sweep the South, they’ve already won a Senate majority. The GOP needs to net six seats and is a near-lock to pick up open seats in Montana, South Dakota and West Virginia, leaving it three seats shy of a majority.
But if Democrats can win two or more Southern seats, the GOP’s path to the majority narrows considerably, as it would have to pick off Alaska and Iowa, New Hampshire, Colorado or another swing state to reach the majority.
The region has been trending away from Democrats for decades, as conservative white voters abandon the party that once dominated the South.
But North Carolina, Georgia and other areas with major urban centers have the potential to swing back to the Democratic Party thanks to big growth in those states’ nonwhite populations and an influx of white voters from less conservative parts of the country.
Arguing history is on their side, Republicans are predicting extensive victories in the region.
“We feel we’re in a position to sweep the South,” said National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) spokeswoman Brook Hougesen. “Right now each of the Democrats are spending heavily to tread water, their numbers aren’t moving at all. Undecided voters are likely to move to Republican candidates.”
Democrats say they have the right kind of candidates to win in the tough region, banking on their centrist incumbents with long family history and state ties to bail them out.
“There’s no question the path to the majority runs through the South, where Democratic candidates are running smarter campaigns with better candidates who are out-raising and outworking their Republican opponents,” said Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesman Justin Barasky.
Democrats are feeling best about Hagan’s chances. She has led North Carolina Speaker Thom Tillis (R) in most recent public polling and her lead has stretched outside the margin of error in some of those surveys. Democrats have focused relentlessly on attacking Tillis’s record on education, and there are signs the attacks have gained traction, as Tillis has been on the air pushing back on them with positive education-focused spots.
The state is also the least conservative of the Southern states up this year — President Obama won it in 2008 and came close to winning it again in 2012.
“We’re seeing some divergence across these races. Democrats’ chances are looking pretty good in North Carolina, which is the least red state in that group,” said Abramowitz.
The Tar Heel State could be their best chance though; other states don’t look as good for Democrats.
In Kentucky, McConnell has had a small but steady lead in the polls for months — that lead has expanded outside the margin of error in recent weeks, and Obama is incredibly unpopular there. Opponent Alison Lundergan Grimes’s (D) campaign recently released a survey with her up a point, but that seemed designed more to push back against the hardening conventional wisdom that she’s the underdog against the GOP leader.
Polls have similarly shown Pryor falling behind GOP Rep. Tom Cotton in Arkansas, and while that race remains close, Republicans feel better than Democrats about where they are in the Razorback State.
Louisiana could be the hardest Southern state to predict. There has been almost no reliable public polling there, and Landrieu and Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) more likely than not are heading to a December election runoff because of the state’s unusual all-party jungle primary system.
Democrats believe Landrieu still has a shot at winning the election outright, while Republicans are banking on a runoff — the NRSC already has made a big post-election ad reservation. Landrieu and Cassidy have been neck and neck in the few public polls available.
In Georgia, businessman David Perdue (R) seems to have the edge against former charity executive Michelle Nunn (D) in the heavily Republican but Democratic-trending state. Three of the last four public polls have him with a small lead, though many of those same pollsters missed badly on the open primary.
Democratic groups haven’t spent as heavily in Georgia as in other states, a sign of their reluctance to commit resources to the expensive state. Nunn has a cash edge in the race that she’s been leveraging in recent weeks with harsh attacks on Perdue’s business record.
“I think it’s going to be hard for Democrats to hang on to these seats,” said Abramowitz, of Emory. “These candidates like Grimes and Michelle Nunn, they’re running as more traditional moderate to conservative Democrats distancing themselves from the national party, but it’s much harder to do that now than it was 30 years ago when there were a lot of them down here.”