How Hillary Clinton won the 2014 midterms [View all]

[pstokely]

http://news.yahoo.com/how-hillary-clinton-won-the-2014-midterms-075943434.html

"

Let’s start with the map. Sure, the GOP won a remarkable number of races last night. But take another look. How many purple states did Republicans actually pick up? There was Cory Gardner’s victory in Colorado — more on that later. There was Joni Ernst’s victory in Iowa. And there was Thom Tillis’s victory in North Carolina. The rest of the GOP’s Senate flips (Montana, South Dakota, Arkansas, West Virginia) and gubernatorial flips (Arkansas, Maryland, Illinois, Massachusetts) were in states that won’t really be contested in 2016. The Democrats flipped the governorship of Pennsylvania as well.
The GOP’s relative underperformance in swing states is a problem going forward because the 2016 landscape is a lot less favorable for Republicans than the 2014 landscape was. Sixteen of this year’s 20 contested Senate seats were held by Democrats heading into the election — and six of those Democrats were from states that Obama lost in 2012. This gave Republicans a huge advantage. The map was already red.

But that map will be upended in 2016, when 23 of the 33 seats at stake will be held by Republicans. Six of them will be in states that Obama won in 2008 and 2012 (Illinois, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and Wisconsin). Two will be in states Obama won in 2008 (Indiana, North Carolina). Two are held by senators who may be retiring (John McCain in Arizona, Chuck Grassley in Iowa). And two are held by senators who may be running for president, which means they can’t run for re-election (Marco Rubio in Florida, Rand Paul in Kentucky)."

Can Rubio and Paul run in the Repuke primaries and then run for Senate elections if one (or both) isn't the nominee?