2014 Will Be A VERY Bad Year For The Democrats. [View all]

[Alva Goldbook]

Don't get me wrong. I'm not happy to report this. If the GOP crazies in the House are any indication, we're gong to be looking at tough times ahead. But the reality is that after some careful analysis, I believe that the GOP will take control of the Senate in 2014.

Here is why: No other issue has historically brought Republican voters to the polls like gun control. I gotta think that after Bush, many Republicans stayed home, being demoralized by the mess Bush left in his wake. How many stayed home, I don't know. I also suspect that not many Republicans were inspired to go to the polls voting for a guy like Romney.

Additionally, we have to realize that Obama is one hell of a fine campaigner. His team revolutionized how elections are done. But we saw in 2010, when that team wasn't in place, the Democrats suffered major losses.

This is why I think it was a massive strategic blunder for Dems in the Senate to push gun control. With the GOP controlling the House, it was impossible to get any gun control legislation passed. And while many care about gun control, priority polling has found that only 4% of voters believe that gun control is the most important issue. There may be 90% support for gun control, but it is weak support. On the flip side of the coin, the pro-gun folks are very dedicated to that issue.

I should note that Senators serve 6 year terms, and only one-third of the Senate is up for election every 2 years. This means that if there is a major shift in power in the Senate in one election year, than 6 years later, another major shift can happen. 6 years before 2014 was the 2008 election, where Democrats in the Senate won a two-thirds majority.

Given all this, we need to look at how the Senate elections will break down. We need to ask ourselves three questions.

1) How many Republicans and Democratic Senators are retiring, and what states are they from?
2) How many Republican incumbents will be defending their Senate seats in blue states?
3) How many Democratic incumbents will be defending their Senate seats in red states?

Let's take a look: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_elections,_2014

On the Republican side, only 2 Republicans will be retiring, in Kansas and Georgia. Both states are solidly red. These open seats will likely stay red. Every other Republican incumbent will be defending their seats from very red states, with the sole exception of Susan Collins of Maine.

And here is where things get bad. On the Democratic side, Democrats will be retiring in Montana, South Dakota, Iowa, Michigan, West Virginia, and New Jersey. These will be open seats, so no one will have an incumbent advantage.

Democrats will be defending their Senate seats in Colorado, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Arkansas, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Virginia.

Democrats will be defending other seats as well, but these are solidly blue states, which I doubt will flip.

What this means, however, is that there is very little chance that the GOP will lose very many Senate seats in 2014. However, Democrats could lose as many as 10 Senate seats. Republicans only need to pick up 4 seats to retake the Senate.

This is why I say that pushing gun control in the Senate was a very bad idea. It had zero chance of passing the House, and it would create a ton of risk for Democrats. A ton of risk and zero payoff is a bad gamble to make in politics. And if you think the GOP crazies in the House are bad now, imagine what they'll be like without a Democratic Senate to block their insanity.