Just a simple observation today as the week gets going and congressional elections heat up again with typical vitriol. Remember that the Senate this year is an idiosyncratic map because only 1/3 of the Senate is up in any given year. This is the same set of seats that came up in 2012, and 2006, both of which were big years for the Democratic Party. The obstacle to the Democrats getting control of the Senate, then, is that the seats that are up just don't give them much room to expand. They already won the seats that could be won from among this set. Yet, they don't really look much like they are in terrible danger of losing seats, with the glaring exception of North Dakota. Heitkamp is down by 8.7 points in the
RCP average. That's very limited polling, but given the magnitude of that deficit, Heidi should be pretty scared. Heitkamp, though, had no business at all winning in 2012, and pretty much nobody saw that one coming. Tell me Heitkamp is losing and my reaction is... what was she doing there in the first place? Usher! Someone's in this seat without a ticket! McCaskill is in a squeaker, and I wouldn't put money in anything other than a diversified portfolio, but only suckers bet
against her. Really, though, even Donnelly is pulling ahead in Indiana by 3 points in the
RCP average, and the only reason he is in the Senate is that in 2012, he was running against Richard rape-babies-are-god's-plan Mourdock. This isn't just Democrats doing well in a Democratic year, if Donnelly is doing well in Indiana without Mourdock as his opponent.
What's going on is a simple phenomenon. Incumbents have an advantage. Name recognition, among other things, but incumbents tend to win. That means if one party gains a bunch of seats in a partisan wave, they can usually keep those seats even after the circumstances that put them in office change. Sometimes long after. Incumbency matters.
Just ask Joe Donnelly next year after he defeats not-Richard Mourdock.
