Been getting some requests to do an update thread for the 2016 elections, mainly due to interest in the presidential primaries and Rand Paul/Marco Rubio's campaign(s). There won't be anything of interest until after the 2014 elections happen on 11/4 but the starting point in the President/Senate/Governor races won't change much between now and then. With that:

President: Tilts Democratic - until we know candidates and economic conditions
House: D+? - R+? - determined by 2014 midterms
Senate: D+9 - R+2 - will change when we know retirements and red-state Democratic challengers
Governors: D+2 - R+3

House: This one’s pretty simple. Your pool of competitive races comes from seats that flipped in ‘12/’14, close-calls, seats trending fast towards one party or the other, seats impacted by new redistricting, and seats that weren't contested in 2014 in favor of better conditions in 2016. What is certain to shakeup this range is the wave of retirements you can expect to start building shortly after Election Day.

Senate: As was the case at the start of the 2014 cycle, things appear this lopsided in the beginning due to where the battlegrounds are. The shoe is on the other foot now though, and rather than Democrats having to defend many seats in deep-red states they’ll be playing hardcore offense in blue and purple states against freshmen Republicans who washed ashore in 2010. Expect retirements.

Governor: As per the usual races in IN, NC, NH, and MO will be the top draws. Democrats succeeded in recruiting longtime AG and downballot superstar Roy Cooper to challenge Pat McRory in North Carolina. New Hampshire Governor Maggie Hassan looks to be in strong position this year but she might opt for a Senate bid in 2016. In MO the Democrats will probably turn to AG Chris Koster as their best hope to hold the seat. Mike Pence will run for reelection in IN (if he doesn’t run for president) but he showed in 2012 that he's more vulnerable than he looks. WV, UT, and MT could be unusually competitive also.

This post was edited by Pollster on Oct 19 2014 02:29pm

Well, since "important people" read His Sublimeness, the Pollster's threads, this will be an opportunity for all the rest of us knuckledraggers to communicate directly with them.

Hey Hillary Clinton. Do the country a favor and kill yourself. We'll just chalk it up as a well-deserved retroactive death penalty for all the people whose blood is on your hands.

Hey Elizabeth Warren, how's the Trail of Tears working out for you?

Hey Joe Biden, how come you didn't scare off that fence jumper with a well-placed aerial burst from your shotgun?

Poor Roy, hes going to have a hell of a time washing his hands of all the Moral Monday yuppies.

It's very telling that Cooper, who has several times passed on running for Governor, decided a full three years in advance to challenge McRory in 2016. McRory is incredibly vulnerable and the outrage that his decisions caused that led to the "Moral Monday" protests really speaks to that. By manipulating North Carolina's obscure ballot access laws (and gerrymandering the legislature, of course), the Republicans were theoretically going to be able to usher in continuous Republican control up to or beyond 2020 with McRory's win but they are already at risk of that slipping away due to persistent unpopularity.

McRory's job approval rating has rebounded slightly after the beating he took throughout 2013 but he's not out of the woods. If Thom Tillis loses the Senate election next month then there's a chance it'll be remembered as a referendum on what McRory and the legislature did to the state, and that could be damning for McRory when he has presidential turnout to deal with again.



This thread is no different than the other: please kindly take this kind of nonsense somewhere else. This thread is for serious, reality-based electoral discussion.
If you're not able to clear that bar then you have positively nothing to offer here.

If there's something lacking in reality in my post, by all means point it out.

First off Joe Biden is neither a security guard nor lives at the White House

Touche. Hopefully, he never does either.

Again, the thread is for serious and substantive discussion, because that's what users (and nonusers alike) ask for, expect, and want to see. They don't want to see you herpin' and derpin' with this bubble-babble nonsense and they don't even want to see me smash it into a million pieces; they want commentary that's actually informative.

It's very simple: either bring something useful to this, or don't. You can post stupid things somewhere else, and that would be really appreciated by both me and others. If you'd like to attempt to discuss the electoral aspects of a Clinton or Biden or Warren candidacy then feel free, but there's no appetite for the dumb.

No, this thread is for self-aggrandizement, spin, condescension and the entirely unoriginal walls of text you're so fond of.

I am bringing something useful to the discussion - criticisms of potential Donkey candidates themselves. You're the one interested in analysis of polling numbers, but that in no way makes for the entirety of the topic of discussion - especially when you stray from it so often yourself.