Reading this straight, the Democrats have given up on Kentucky.

Democratic committees and outside groups, yes. As far as the Grimes campaign itself goes, no. Even with positively no contribution from the former, 40% of the spending currently slated to air in Kentucky from now until Election Day will be from Democrats, meaning the campaign. That's why outside groups are interested in moving on to other targets: Grimes herself can soak up 40% of the airwaves just with her own money. Her campaign took in $4.9 million last quarter and still has $4.4 million left in the bank, so they'd much rather shift money into Iowa, Colorado, Georgia, and Louisiana where their odds of a strong showing on November 4th are much better.

Because Kentucky has been lost

Not at all, the contest is very clearly still a live race. For a time this fall the race had moved towards McConnell but the brief period of favorable polling for Grimes has made this race stick around on the table. The competitiveness isn't the only thing that drives the decisions in this and every other race. There are simply 12 races that demand funds and most of them have a higher demand from the Democrats than this one does. The party knows that it's close to its saturation point, and the fundamentals of the state as one that doesn't have robust early voting and that has no need for a GOTV investment causes there to be little demand for investment here beyond what's been spent.

The Democrats are trying to hold 48-51 Senate seats this cycle. The path to do that runs through New Hampshire, Michigan, Colorado, Iowa, and North Carolina, and holding as many of them as possible. From there, the party wants to retain as many incumbents as they can in Alaska, Louisiana, and Arkansas. Among their three targets, Kentucky is the least critical because Georgia will likely be in their column at the end of this decade and they might win 67% of the Kansas seat at least by investing far fewer resources (meaning if Orman wins, he could caucus with the Democrats for four of the six years of his term). There's just no reason to throw away money here. The GOP is mortgaging their chances in 2016 to try to benefit this year but the Democrats are just not going to do that.

...Obama is being perceived as incapable of managing the Ebola crisis just in time for the midterm elections . Don't be surprised if this is the issue that secures Republican victory .

LOLNO.

That said, some updates to the ranges:

House: D+0 - R+7 - [Shift: ->] (CA-07, CO-06, VA-10)
Senate: R+2 - R+8 - [Shift: ->] (IA-SEN, CO-SEN)
Governors: D/I +6 - R+1

House: The general trend here is that the Democrats are shifting money from some of their pickup opportunities to some of their second-tier incumbents, essentially trying to build a firewall that'll result in a net Republican gain of 5 seats or so on Election Day but that will create entrenched Democratic incumbents for future cycles. Seats like CO-06, MI-01, NE-02, NJ-03, and VA-10 that are currently Republican-held that the Democrats hoped to narrowly win this year can now be expected to be narrowly won by the Republicans, leaving Democrats to try to target them in 2016 instead if they predictably come up 2-5 points short this year.

Senate: This just reflects the shift in Colorado and Iowa from Democratic-tilting toss-up races to pure tossup races. Previously one had to assume a Democratic edge in Colorado that would be exhibited in the new vote-by-mail system and the persistent failure of state polling to account for Democratic-leaning constituencies like Hispanic/Latinos and college students, but a narrow polling lead for Gardner means that neither he nor Udall really has an advantage. The polling has moved towards Braley in Iowa but that's almost entirely the result of more-accurate surveys from the Register and Quinnipiac replacing previous outliers which showed absurd 6-point leads for Ernst. There's no advantage for anyone here, either, but there might be in a week or so if a clear picture can be ascertained from early voting that's already underway.

Governors: No shift here, just some tightening that pushes the likely outcome toward the center of the range. Republican-held seats in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Florida are getting more competitive (read: a slightly higher likelihood of a Democratic win in each than previously) just as Democratic-held seats in Massachusetts and Colorado are on the other side. The Independent-led fusion ticket in Alaska still looks primed to score a pickup, which will cost the GOP a seat. The GOP looks poised to scrap by in Arizona to hold what should be a safe seat, while the Democrats are trying to do the same in Hawaii, Connecticut, and Illinois.

Another vapid statement on your part that ignores reality.

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/220774-ebola-is-2014-october-surprise



And what happens to the governing party when the public's mood sours? They get punished by voters. Sometimes justly, sometimes unjustly.

Thanks for the laugh, but correctly discounting the possibility that these elections will turn on the Ebola issue (regarding the issue's potency to "secure Republican victory") is really what's required because such a claim is plainly absurd. Not only is it obviously not borne out by any statistical analysis but it completely cuts against what we've long known to be true about the midterm elections and what, if anything, the likely electorate cares about. There's simply no substantive reason to believe it'll have any noticeable effect anywhere. To put it charitably, it screams of overfitting (a less charitable judgment would be that it sounds like utter bullshit). Either way.

We don't have one "governing party" for voters to punish, on this or any other issue. Despite the fact that only one party is actually serious about governing both parties control a chamber of Congress and have long accepted ownership of their prospective chamber's successes and failures. Were voters to punish the Democrats for inaction or ineffectiveness dealing with Ebola then they'd punish the Republicans for it all the same, because the federal government's failure to insulate the country from Ebola belongs jointly to a Democratic White House and Senate and a Republican House.

Beyond that macro analysis the micro is no more favorable to such a silly assertion: Ebola is not unlike ISIS in that it hasn't budged voter enthusiasm a noticeable degree from where the levels have been among Democrats, Republicans, and Independents since the end of the 2012 cycle. There's no "souring" beyond the same antipathy that has been present for well over a year. A plane going down in Ukraine didn't systematically change attitudes, neither has Ebola, neither would some marginal increases to healthcare premiums that will be lower than recent years but that will still be erroneously characterized by stupid people as being some major cost increase. There's also the nagging fact that Obama's job approval has actually seen a slight uptick, and the White House is currently focusing more on "the optics" of this situation than it did regarding previous nothingburgers. What little press reaction that has occurred to this point has been favorable (see: the White House canceling fundraising events in order to host a meeting today). There's nothing to this.

The cake is almost fully baked on this election, and it wasn't cooked by issues. This is not an issue election. It's a standard partisanship election where the only thing that will matter is turnout.

This post was edited by Pollster on Oct 15 2014 06:58pm

To expand on what's mentioned above: President Obama's improving job approval numbers could be important. It's one of the two data points used by most prognosticators (the other being the GCB standing) to try to model turnout and predictions. Obama's job approval has been incredibly stable since last October, bouncing around between a range of -6 to -15. There were some small periods where his standing improved (late January, throughout May) but also some small periods where it worsened (mid-August, mid-September). Recently it's been on the upswing again; improving by about 4 points down to around a -10 net rating.

This change is being reflected in virtually every single polling firm. Since the beginning of the month NBC/WSJ, CBS, CNN/OPR, McClatchy/Marist, Faux News, YouGov, AP/GfK, and Reason-Rupe have all shown Obama doing better in their recent surveys compared to previous polls. There are only a few exceptions. Obama's approval ticking up to 42% and disapproval rating ticking down to 52% might suggest that Democratic-leaning constituencies who tend to skip midterm elections are returning to the fold. It has also confirmed something that's been true for a while: there's noticeable disapproval of Obama from Democrats who will obviously show up to back Democrats on the ballot, leading people to assume that Democrats will outperform Obama's popularity.

The other metric, the GCB, doesn't have as clear a picture. The Democrats narrowly led for most of the year but the GOP took a small lead when pollsters switched to their Likely Voter models due to the prevailing belief that this midterm electorate will be a replica of 2010 (it won't be). The GOP currently has about a 3-point lead in the GCB but it's being juiced by two outliers. 2 questions need to be answered here: what will the GCB look like on November 3rd, and how close will it be to the national House vote on November 4th? The last 3 elections had a GCB figure that was biased towards the Republicans, though by different degrees. I anticipate the same thing happening this year, probably in the form of a 4-point GCB lead for the GOP but only a 1-point win in the national House vote on Election Day. That's likely to cause the 5-6 seat GOP net pickup mentioned in this post. Things can and probably will change, though.

Most people in Kentucky have given up on Kentucky.

I live on the border of Northern Kentucky and it is like living above Mexico....high crime, gangs, epidemic heroin use, prolific poverty...

They are getting mad at us too because Kasich has recruited all of their major employers to North of the river.