Republicans, hungry for a positive narrative after six years of Barack Obama, are crowing that 2014 is poised to be a wave election. But polling shows that Democrats are likely to win key seats in red states, even as the GOP is positioned to pick up a few surprise wins in blue states. Far from a wave, this November is shaping up to be a mixed bag that defies tidy conclusions.
In the Senate, Democrats are defending their majority in heavily Republican territory: Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Montana, South Dakota, West Virginia. Republicans might well win any or all of those seats, and Democratic seats in Colorado, Iowa and Michigan are still in play. But Democrats are putting up spirited defenses in many of the races, while keeping GOP seats in Kentucky and Georgia competitive.
{mosads}But none of those hard-fought Senate races is as surprising as Kansas’s, where long-time Republican incumbent Sen. Pat Roberts is poised to lose his reelection bid in a state Mitt Romney won 60 percent to 38 percent in the 2012 presidential race. While challenger Greg Orman is an independent, he’s become the de facto Democrat in the race — something Republicans have repeatedly hammered in their campaign messaging. Yet polling continues to consistently show Roberts mired in the mid- to high-30s in head-to-head polling.
It would be ironic if Democrats hold the Senate because of Kansas, but even if they come up short, it will be because of the hostile map, not because of any broader national shift toward the GOP. The governor’s map confirms that.
In a true Republican wave year, incumbent Republicans would be sailing in closely matched battleground states like Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, particularly given the inevitable nonpresidential-year drop-off in Democratic base voter turnout. But they’re not. Pennsylvania’s Tom Corbett is a GOP lost cause, and Republicans in Florida, Wisconsin and Michigan are facing the fights of their lives.
But even in red Kansas, incumbent Republican Gov. Sam Brownback enacted a dream conservative agenda — and ended up alienating his electorate. His Democratic challenger has a real chance of pulling off a major upset. Apparently, not even conservatives like conservative governance.
In blood-red Alaska, a new fusion Independent-Democratic ticket has reshuffled the race, with those two candidates no longer splitting up the anti-Republican vote. That’s important, given that incumbent Republican Gov. Sean Parnell has been stuck in the high-30s. Meanwhile, Arizona polling shows a tied race, while Georgia and South Carolina Republicans still haven’t been able to lock up their governor races.
To be clear, it’s not all doom and gloom for the GOP’s gubernatorial aspirations. The party has a clear (if eroding) lead in the Illinois governor race, a state President Obama won by 17 points in 2012, and it’s led all cycle in Connecticut, another state Obama won by 17. Incumbent Republicans appear headed toward easy reelection victory in several more Obama states, including Iowa, Ohio and New Mexico.
Republicans also appear competitive in Hawaii’s governor’s race, a state Obama won 71 percent to 28 percent in 2012, helped by an independent candidate splitting the vote on the left. And in indigo-blue Massachusetts, current polling shows a neck-and-neck race in a state that hasn’t shied from electing Republicans to the governorship in the past.
Nevertheless, Democrats are likely to notch a net gain in governorships, clawing back the GOP’s big gains from 2010. What do you call such an election? With so many seats potentially switching sides, it’s not status quo. But it sure isn’t a wave.
Moulitsas is the founder and publisher of Daily Kos.