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The Political Edge: New Ratings And “Second-Chance” Candidates

In the last week, more political forecasters began releasing their ratings for the 2020 elections. Not only are these ratings helpful in getting a sense for what the political battlefield will look like next year, but they also usually provide some bits of analysis that often get overlooked. In this week’s Political Edge, we recap two ratings from top forecasters.

First, we take a look at Cook Political Report’s initial ratings for the Presidential contest, drilling down to the states that are most likely to determine the winner. Second, we review Nathan Gonzalez’s initial ratings for next year’s Senate races. And we close out this week’s edition with a new FiveThirtyEight piece that provides historical context for Sen. Martha McSally’s (R-AZ) odds of re-election as a “second-chance” candidate.

The Cook Political Report: Electoral College Rankings

Cook Political Report released their first rankings of the 2020 Presidential race, rating each state (and its Electoral College votes) by how it may break for the GOP and Democrats next year. Below is a recap of their ratings and some intel on why the state received that rating.

Cook rates 5 states as “Toss Up;” AZ, FL, MI, PA, and WI. These states account for 86 Electoral College votes.

  • MI, PA, WI: “These states are the most tenuous for Trump. Not only did he fail to reach 50% in any of them in 2016, but in 2018 GOP Senate and gubernatorial candidates in all three states were defeated.”

  • FL: “As pure of a Toss Up as one can get. Trump won it with 49%. Obama carried it in 2012 with 50%. In 2018, GOP Gov. Rick Scott won the Senate race by less than one-point.”

  • AZ: “One of the new entrants to the Toss-Up category. It is one of the few states where Clinton outperformed Obama (by 1 point). Moreover, 2018 Democratic Senate nominee Kyrsten Sinema improved on Clinton’s performance by five points and took more than 200,000 more votes than Clinton.”

Cook rates 4 states as “Lean Democrat;” ME, MN, NH, and NV. These states account for 22 Electoral College votes.

  • ME, MN, NH: “Trump narrowly lost both Minnesota and New Hampshire in 2016, but his showing wasn’t all that much stronger than Romney’s….[These states] are overwhelmingly white and have significant rural and small town populations where Trump remains popular. Democrats won statewide races in 2018 in Maine and Minnesota, but struggled in House races that were centered in more rural parts of the state.”

  • NV: “Not only did Clinton narrowly carry the state, but in 2018, the winning Democratic nominee for Governor took just 49% of the vote and the Democratic Senate nominee barely cracked 50%.”

Cook rates 5 states as “Lean Republican;” GA, IA, NC, ME-02, and NE-02. These states account for 39 Electoral College votes.

  • GA: “In 2016, Clinton narrowly improved on Obama’s 2012 performance [in GA], but still came up five points short of winning the state. In 2018, Democrat Stacey Abrams took more than 45,000 more votes than Clinton, yet still came up short.”

  • IA: “Clinton underperformed Obama’s 2012 showing [in IA] by 10 points and over 100,000 votes. Results in 2018 were a mixed bag for both sides. Democrats picked up two House seats but GOP Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds won the open gubernatorial contest by a little over 2 points.”

  • NC: “Obama’s 2008 win in North Carolina was the last time that a statewide federal Democratic candidate won here. In fact, even counting 2008, no Democratic candidate for Senate or president has taken more than 49.7% of the vote since 2008.”

  • ME-02, NE-02: Maine and Nebraska use the ‘congressional district method,’ meaning they allocate two electoral votes to the state popular vote winner, and then one electoral vote to the popular vote winner in each Congressional district (2 in Maine, 3 in Nebraska). Cook notes “in 2016, Trump carried [ME-02] by 10 points, marking the first time in the state’s history that the state split its electoral votes.”

Roll Call’s Senate Ratings

While other forecasters have already rolled out 2020 race ratings following last year’s midterm, Roll Call’s Nathan Gonzalez has avoided releasing any. This week, however, he posted his initial Senate ratings. Below is a recap of Gonzalez’s observations and a review of his ratings. As a reminder, Democrats need to gain 4 seats for a majority, but a gain of three seats would be enough for control if there is a new Democratic vice president to break a 50-50 tie.

  • Last cycle, Democrats were defending 26 Senate seats compared to just 9 for the Republicans. In 2020, the GOP will be defending 22 seats to the Democrats’ 12.

  • In 2018, there were 10 Democratic senators running for re-election in states President Trump won. In 2020, there are just two: Doug Jones (D-AL) and Gary Peters (D-MI). There was just 1 Republican senator running for re-election in 2018 in a state Clinton carried, and there are just 2 in 2020: Cory Gardner (R-CO) and Susan Collins (R-ME).

  • 2016 was the first time in history that Senate results matched the presidential outcomes in every state. In 2020, a similar dynamic — and presidential result to 2016 — would produce no net gain for Democrats.

  • Gonzalez: “8 races will take place in competitive presidential states: ME, IA, CO, AZ, NC, NH, MI, and MN. Republican Sens. Martha McSally, Thom Tillis, and Joni Ernst, and David Perdue are likely to have competitive races. Democrats Tina Smith and Jeanne Shaheen could also face competitive challenges.”

Sen. Martha McSally’s Reelection Odds As A “Second Chance” Candidate

Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ), who was appointed to fill the late-Sen. John McCain’s Senate seat, has a tough road ahead. Having just run a Senate race last year, she must run again in 2020 (and then once again in 2022 if she wins). Assuming she runs and wins her party’s nomination, McSally would be the 12th major-party candidate since 1984 to contest a Senate general election just two years after losing a race. This week, FiveThirtyEight pulled the data on the 12 other “second-chance” candidates to see what it might tell us about McSally’s chances next year.

  • Although almost all of the 12 second-chance candidates improved upon their previous performance, only 4 of them won on the second try. The author notes, however, “we shouldn’t project too much about McSally’s chances from this data set, since this is a small sample — 12 elections across almost 35 years — and several of these candidates ran under unusual circumstances.”

  • “Appointed incumbents have a mediocre re-election record compared to their elected counterparts: Prior to the 2018 election, 53% of appointed senators who ran for another term had won re-election, compared to 78% of elected senators.”

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