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Obama Fights for Relevance

November 5, 2014 at 6:44 am EST By Taegan Goddard 3 Comments

New York Times: “The Republican capture of the Senate culminated a season of discontent for the president — and may yet open a period of even deeper frustration. Sagging in the polls and unwelcome in most competitive races across the country, Mr. Obama bristled as the last campaign that would influence his presidency played out while he sat largely on the sidelines. He privately complained that it should not be a judgment on him.”

“But in a hyperactive, deeply polarized time in history, Mr. Obama now faces a daunting challenge in reasserting his relevance in a capital that will soon enough shift its attention to the battle to succeed him. If the hope-and-change phase of his presidency is long over, he wants at least to produce a period of progress and consolidation to complete his time in the White House.”

Wall Street Journal: “The president now finds himself seeking to rebound with a public that, however they voted Tuesday, is deeply dissatisfied with his leadership.”

Axelrod Predicts White House Shake Up

November 5, 2014 at 5:00 am EST By Taegan Goddard 13 Comments

Former Obama adviser David Axelrod told MSNBC that he predicts changes at the White House in the aftermath of the midterm elections.

Said Axelrod: “Washington always wants you to throw out bodies after a bad election, so you’ll hear that hew and cry. But it’s also been a turbulent couple of years — a lot of his team has been there since the beginning. It’s a natural time to evaluate whether you’ve got all the pieces in place that you need, and he should do that.”

When asked if that should include a staff shake-up, Axelrod responded: “Oh, I think so. I mean, I think he will.”

2014 Midterm Election Results

November 4, 2014 at 7:22 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 454 Comments

I’ll be tracking the key races here:

KY-Sen: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will defeat Alison Lundergan Grimes (D) in Kentucky, according to NBC News projections.

VA-Sen: In a race that almost no one thought was close, there has been no projection of a winner yet.

NH-Sen: Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) will defeat Scott Brown (R)  in New Hampshire, according to ABC News.  In violation of the rules, Fox News broadcast exit polls from the New Hampshire almost two hours before polls closed in that state, Politico reports.

AR-Sen: Tom Cotton (R) will beat Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) in Arkansas

SD-Sen: Mike Rounds (R) will win the three-way race against Larry Pressler (I) and Rick Weiland (D).

LA-Sen: Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Bill Cassidy (R) will head to a December run off.

CO-Sen: Cory Gardner (R) will defeat Sen. Mark Udall (D), according to Fox News and AP.

FL-Gov: Gov. Rick Scott (R) will defeat Charlie Crist (D) for governor.

IA-Sen: Joni Ernst (R) will beat Bruce Braley (R), according to WHO.

WI-Gov: Scott Walker (R) will defeat Mary Burke (D) in the race for governor, according to ABC News and Fox News.

MI-Gov: Rick Snyder (R) will defeat challenger Mark Schauer (D) for governor, says NBC News.

GA-Sen: David Perdue (R) will defeat Michelle Nunn (D) in the Senate race, according to CNN and NBC News.

KS-Sen: Sen. Pat Roberts (R) has fended off a challenge from Greg Orman (I), CBS News reports.

IL-Gov: Bruce Rauner (D) has defeated Gov. Pat Quinn, NBC News reports.

NC-Sen: Thom Tillis (R) will defeat Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC).

Bottom line: This was a wave election. Nearly every close race was won solidly by Republicans. Republicans are likely to end up with 53 or 54 seats in the Senate and may have more if a couple others — Angus King, Joe Manchin — cross party lines.


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Live Election Models

November 4, 2014 at 5:48 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 11 Comments

The Upshot: “To provide a better gauge of results than the raw vote count, The Upshot is adjusting Senate returns, based on where those returns come from and which parts of a state have not yet reported their votes. If we know the vote from a Democratic-leaning city is outstanding, for example, we will adjust the count toward the Democrat.”

FiveThirtyEight: “Throughout the evening on our live blog, we’ll be publishing an updated probability that Republicans or Democrats win the Senate, along with their probabilities of winning the key Senate races. These probabilities will use FiveThirtyEight’s final pre-election forecast as a baseline, which gave Republicans a 76 percent chance of winning the Senate. But they’ll deviate from them as our partners at ABC News project winners in each state.”

Quote of the Day

November 4, 2014 at 5:22 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 6 Comments

“Absent a strike of lightning, I do not believe we’re going to pick up the House tonight.”

— Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY), quoted by Politico, on the Democratic campaign efforts.

The Senate Could Have 3 Independents

November 4, 2014 at 4:28 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 13 Comments

New York Times: “If Greg Orman wins in Kansas, there will be three officially independent senators, an unprecedented moment, except for one thing: Bernie Sanders, the independent from Vermont is not a centrist but a liberal to the left of most Democrats. Mr. Orman could make a powerful ally for the other independent, Angus King of Maine, who could try to build a voting block in the center that would influence both parties. Both Mr. Orman and Mr. King, who currently caucuses with Democrats, have hinted that they are open to aligning with whichever party is in the majority.”

Someone Will Be Wrong Tonight

November 4, 2014 at 2:53 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 52 Comments

Sam Wang: “From 2004 to 2012, only thirteen Senate races have had margins of less than three percentage points in the week before the election. Of these, four were won by the trailing candidate. One more, the Florida 2004 race, was tied in the polls, and was eventually won by the Republican, Mel Martinez, by 2 percentage points. Scoring that one as half correct, the overall rate of wins by a front-runner is 65%, a bit better than chance.”

“In light of that, the probability that all six close Senate races (AK, CO, IA, KS, NH, and NC) will be won by the candidate in the lead is only 7%. A wrong call is almost inevitable.”

Why Democrats Aren’t Voting

November 4, 2014 at 1:44 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 64 Comments

Marc Ambinder says it’s a myth “that Democrats do poorly in midterm elections generally. In 1998, they did not. In 2006, they did not. In 2002 and 2010, Republicans gained seats in both chambers. Setting aside the structural engineering of politics — the gerrymandering of districts, for example — there are some things the Democrats did, and did not do, that hurt them.”

“The first is that they broke their promise on immigration. To be sure, Republicans win the obstructionist trophy on immigration reform. But Obama all but promised to act in their stead. He did not… Had Obama made some big gesture accompanied by strong executive action to pull out of the shadows millions of Latinos, his party might well have rewarded him. Not just Hispanic voters, but other Democratic voters who supported his position. If you don’t give someone a concrete reason to vote, something they can hang their minds around, then they’ve got to be persuaded by an appeal to their fears.”

“Democrats know that President Obama remains in charge. They know that the GOP can’t do anything awful for the next two years. Democrats tend not be motivated by judges and cultural issues; their base was not set up that way, the Republicans were. Democrats are also confident that they’ll keep the presidency in 2016, and if they pay attention to politics, they know that 2016 is cyclically shaping up to be a better year for them. So — really — why vote? Or, put another way, why go out of your way to vote?”

What Will Tonight’s Results Tell Us About 2016?

November 4, 2014 at 1:04 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 28 Comments

New York Times: “Republicans are closely watching Colorado, where Senator Mark Udall and Gov. John W. Hickenlooper, both Democrats, are in danger of losing. Mr. Obama won the state twice, and with a younger, increasingly progressive population, Colorado has been trending Democratic. If Representative Cory Gardner can defeat Mr. Udall, who made his campaign almost exclusively about abortion rights and contraception, it will demonstrate that Republicans still have strength in a state that could be essential to regaining the presidency.”

“Democrats are hoping their Georgia candidates, Michelle Nunn for the Senate and Jason Carter for governor, can either win or at least post strong showings. Of the states that the two parties did not compete for in the 2012 presidential race, Georgia was the closest (Mr. Obama lost by seven points), and it is gradually becoming more of a polyglot hub than an Old South vestige. If Ms. Nunn or Mr. Carter wins or loses narrowly while drawing less than 30 percent of the white vote, it suggests that Georgia will be a competitive presidential state sooner than many observers expected.”

Wall Street Journal: “Members of both parties, however, caution against reading too much into Tuesday’s results. The complexion of the electorate is expected to be markedly different in 2016. Turnout by Democratic-friendly voting blocs, including minorities, young people and unmarried women, tends to drop off in midterm elections and surge in presidential election years.”

Your Guide to Election Night

November 4, 2014 at 12:54 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Morning Line has an excellent hour-by-hour Election Night cheat sheet which gives you a good guide of what races to watch.

Also, check out the 2014 PBS Election Briefing Book.

An Exciting Election Day

November 4, 2014 at 12:25 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 8 Comments

Jonathan Bernstein: “I love Election Day. And this is a good one, with lots of great stories. We have a former senator from Massachusetts trying to make a comeback in New Hampshire, and a former Republican senator running as an independent in South Dakota. In Kansas, an independent has an excellent chance of winning. As for gubernatorial elections, there are more toss-ups than you can shake a stick at, including a race in Alaska where the independent candidate is supported by both Democrats and former Governor Sarah Palin. The career of at least one Republican presidential candidate, Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, hangs in the balance; at least one other, John Kasich of Ohio, would get a boost from an expected big win.”

“We’ll probably get a new Senate majority, though there’s still an unusual amount of uncertainty. We could get a Republican gubernatorial landslide — in New England of all places. Or we could have a Republican sweep in the Senate, and major Democratic gains in governors along with large Republican pickups in state legislatures, despite all the talk of polarization and party voting. And we’ll get the usual mix of new legislators in Washington and the states, all sorts of serious aspiring lawmakers and total crackpots.”

The Possibility of Recounts Loom

November 4, 2014 at 12:23 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 4 Comments

Rick Hasen: “The real action will come in the evening as the polls close. There will be delays in some places with reporting of votes, which will lead some people to suspect some kind of chicanery (especially if the late reporting areas are from one’s opposing party). Only later in the evening (or the following morning) will it become clear enough if an election is within the margin of litigation.”

“To be close enough to go to a recount or litigation, generally we are talking votes within the hundreds or less (or perhaps a few thousand in a larger jurisdiction). That could happen anywhere. I fear it most happening in the Florida governor’s race—not only because of Florida’s politicized electoral system. Thanks to changes after 2000, the Secretary of State is a political appointee of the governor. A recipe for disaster.”

Many elections officials are probably saying the Election Administrator’s prayer.

Maybe Both Parties are Going Extinct

November 4, 2014 at 11:13 am EST By Taegan Goddard 66 Comments

Nick Gillespie: “It’s safe to say that by the end of today, a large chunk of Americans will be bitterly disappointed. If Republicans win big, Democrats will hang their heads and cuss the Koch brothers. If the GOP fails to snag the Senate and a fistful of statehouses, its partisans will mope around and blame Ebola-infected illegal immigrants for the loss.”

“But whichever side emerges victorious, both Republicans and Democrats should face up to a much bigger truth: Neither party as currently constituted has a real future. Fewer and fewer Americans identify as either Republican or Democratic according to Gallup, and both parties are at recent or all-time lows when it comes to approval ratings. Just 39 percent give Democrats a favorable rating and just 33 percent do the same for Republicans. Not coincidentally, each party has also recently had a clear shot at implementing its vision of the good society. If you want to drive down your adversary’s approval rating, just give him the reins of power for a few years.”

6 House Races to Watch

November 4, 2014 at 11:08 am EST By Taegan Goddard 3 Comments

Roll Call: “House Democrats are bracing for losses on Election Day, but just how bad of a night will it be?”

How Big an Election for Republicans?

November 4, 2014 at 11:03 am EST By Taegan Goddard 23 Comments

Charlie Cook: “The odds of Republicans winning a Senate majority are obviously getting very high. Indeed, it would be a real shocker if Democrats held the GOP to a net gain of five seats or less, preventing a takeover of the majority. Unresolved, however, remains the question of just how big a night Republicans will have, and in turn, how to best interpret the results. At this point, at least in the Senate, this election seems to be a whole lot about the map, with more than a little political environment, including President Obama’s current unpopularity, thrown in for good measure.”

“If Republicans take the Senate, but their gains are limited to the six states that Mitt Romney carried by at least 14 points—open seats in Montana, South Dakota, and West Virginia, along with the defeat of Mark Begich in Alaska, Mark Pryor in Arkansas, and Mary Landrieu in Louisiana (though this would not likely happen until a December 6 runoff)—that would be a good but hardly extraordinary night for the GOP. This would be a map election.”

The Final Forecasts

November 4, 2014 at 10:48 am EST By Taegan Goddard 29 Comments

After months of forecasting — and debating their methodologies — every one of the most reputable forecasters says that Republicans are favored to win the U.S. Senate.

Here are the odds each gives to Republicans for taking control of the upper chamber:

Election Lab: 98%

FiveThirtyEight: 76%

The Upshot: 70%

Princeton: 61%

Let us know what you think in the comments.

Welcome to the New Political Wire!

November 4, 2014 at 10:12 am EST By Taegan Goddard 47 Comments

Here’s a quick overview of what’s new:

  • A completely responsive design which adapts to the device you’re using — phone, tablet or desktop.
  • A clean, easily readable layout.
  • A more accessible archive of past stories.
  • A much faster load time.
  • A completely new back end which will allow many new features over the coming weeks.

Transitioning the site was enormous task. After 15 years and more than 100,000 posts, there will be bugs in this transition. Some things are still missing. Thanks in advance for your patience.

In the meantime, enjoy the new site and let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Two States to Watch

November 4, 2014 at 9:56 am EST By Taegan Goddard 41 Comments

First Read: “We’ll have a good idea early in the evening of how Election Night is going to break. The two states to watch — North Carolina (where final polling places close at 7:30 am ET) and New Hampshire (where they close at 8:00 pm ET). Every scenario of Democrats holding on to the Senate assumes they win those two states. If we’re able to put those two in the Democratic column, then we’re going to have to wait for Alaska, especially if Georgia goes to a runoff. But if Republicans win one or both of North Carolina and New Hampshire, then Katy bar the door. It’s going to be an ugly night for Democrats. Here is the list of our other states to watch by final poll-closing time.”

“Indeed, if any state has been a bellwether of the nation’s political mood over the past decade, it’s been New Hampshire. Consider: Democrat Jeanne Shaheen lost the state’s Senate contest in the pro-GOP year of 2002; Democrats swept the state in 2006 and 2008; Republicans made gains there in 2010; and Democrats won them back in 2012. The only exception here was in 2004, when John Kerry (who was from neighboring Massachusetts) won New Hampshire, despite the GOP’s narrow wins that year. So for Democrats to have a good night, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Gov. Maggie Hassan (D) are going to need to buck history. “

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About Political Wire

goddard-bw-snapshotTaegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.

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