Republicans Will Need a Wave to Take Senate in 2014

Larry Sabato notes that in 2010 Republicans “probably threw away three seats when they nominated weak candidates in Colorado, Delaware and Nevada. Then, in the just-concluded election, they threw away, at a minimum, two more seats in Indiana and Missouri… So instead of having a tied Senate, or a tiny majority for one side or the other, Republicans are in the unenviable position of needing to levitate out of a deep hole they’ve dug for themselves.”

Despite a favorable Senate map in 2014 — Republicans only have to defend 13 seat while Democrats have to defend 20 — he concludes Republicans “will need a national wave, along the lines of what they had in November 2010… For a net six close races to tip to the GOP in two years, it will take more than good candidates and favorable geography; the atmospherics of 2014 will have to be clearly Republican.”

However, National Memo notes the GOP divide that cost Republicans seats in the last two elections is already emerging in the 2014 Senate race in West Virginia.