Why the Race Between Trump and Clinton Doesn’t Matter

The U.S. Presidential race hash produced incessant media coverage, memes, protests, large crowds, insults and bloodbath Republican debates.

But this is not the race that matters.

Why? Because there are very few competitive states in the Presidential race. I wrote about that as well.

The far more interesting race is for seats in the U.S. Senate. There are a bunch of states that are closely competitive. And every single one matters, unlike the Presidential contest where a candidate could lose one or two swing states and still win the election.

Currently, the Republicans hold 54 seats and the Democrats hold 44 seats, with 2 independent Senators (Bernie Sanders in Vermont, and Angus King in Maine) caucusing with the Democrats. So 54 Republicans, 46 Democrats.

The Democrats need to net 4 seats to retake the Senate.

While there are 34 seats up for re-election, many of these are in safe districts.

However there are fewer close races. Let’s have a look.

The list above indicates 16 races are close. However, the reality is many of these races, states like Louisiana or Arizona, aren't actually close.

However, there is a smaller list of races on this list, that will be close. Currently, there are six seats currently held by Republicans that could tilt Democratic. There’s one seat currently held by a Democrat that could lean Republican.

The six states are where the Republican seats up for re-election are going to be close. These states are:

Florida Marco Rubio (R)
Illinois Mark Kirk (R)
New Hampshire Kelly Ayotte (R)
Ohio Rob Portman (R)
Pennsylvania Pat Toomey (R)
Wisconsin Ron Johnson (R)

Democrats will need to win at least 4 out of these 6 races to regain control of the U.S. Senate (a 50–50 tie, where the Vice President represents the tie-breaker).

Republican held seats in six states — Florida, Illinois, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, are up for grabs.

Let’s take a closer look at each state:

Florida Republican Incumbent Marco Rubio is not running in this race because he can’t appear on the ballot twice (for President and Senator) in the Florida primary, given Florida law. So there’s a new stock of Democratic and Republican challengers for this seat. Unless Rubio wins the Republican primary, I suspect Democrats win this state in the U.S. Presidential race. A win in the presidential category, also should lead to a win for Democrats in the Senate. So, I suspect Democrats will NARROWLY win Florida in the Senate. But it’ll be close.

Illinois will definitely be a Democratic victory. This is a liberal state. It’s probably not going to be close. Tammy Duckworth, a female Iraqi War Veteran, amputee, current U.S. Congresswoman and Asian-American will win this seat.

New Hampshire might be the most interesting Senate race out of the list of competitive races. It’s a toss-up. Two women are vying for this seat, incumbent Republican Kelly Ayotte and challenger and current governor, Democrat Maggie Hassan. The race is fairly close, although polling has Kelly Ayotte leading by about 5% (45% to 40%) with 15% of the electorate undecided. I’m not sure on this one. If I had to guess, I’d go with the incumbent Ayotte, but it’s too early to call.

Ohio Republican incumbent Rob Portman I think will hold on. He won 57.3% of the vote in 2010. His greatest challenge comes from former Governor Ted Strickland, who’s currently neck-and-neck with Portman in the polls. This is going to also be an extremely close race, and there’s a chance Ohio may vote Republican for President, which would be good for Portman.

Pennsylvania Democrat Joe Sestak lost narrowly to Republican Pat Toomey in the 2010 Senate race, 49% to Toomey’s 51%. Sestak lost by 80,229 votes out of nearly 4 million cast. Because 2010 was not a Presidental election year, voter turnout was lower. I believe Republicans benefit in non-Presidential year elections, as I suspect Republican voters more reliably show up to the polls (it’s a fact that these voters skew older, and wealthier, and those demographics are probably more likely to vote every election). Given this is a Presidential election year, expect higher overall turnout and a Democrat to retake the seat.

Wisconsin might be the strangest race this year. Russ Feingold, best known for passing the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002 (which the Supreme Court shat on with the Citizens United decision), lost his Senate seat in 2010 to a Republican challenger, Ron Johnson. Feingold wants his seat back, so he’s running in 2016 for a rematch of 2010. While Feingold is not viewed as very popular among his constituents, he’s still crushing Johnson in early polling by (49% to 37%) with 14% of constituents undecided. I’d expect this seat to return to the Democrats.

These are my predictions for the Senate races:

Democrats will re-take 3 seats in Illinois, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Democrats may re-take 2 seats in Florida, Ohio.
Republicans will keep New Hampshire.

So we’ll see. But I think Democrats will take back at least three seats, probably four seats, a decent chance for five seats, and I could make a case they take all six. Democrats need to net win four seats to have a majority. If they took all six seats, they would have a commanding 52–48 majority in the U.S. Senate.

It’s an election year. I suspect Democrats have higher voter turnout during Presidential election years, which should help Senate candidates. I’d like to see more research here.

One thing I didn’t mention is that there’s currently a Democratic held seat by Harry Reid in Nevada, that is up for grabs by Republicans. Reid, who first won election to the Senate in 1986 and has served for 28 years, is not seeking re-election. This will be a close race, and there’s a chance a Republican steals it away. It’s going to be Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto, Nevada’s former Attorney General, versus U.S. Representative Joe Heck.

I remember in 2010, Nevada polls had a neck-and-neck race between Democratic incumbent Harry Reid and Republican challenger Sharon Angle. I just confirmed this here. Multiple polls had Republican challenger Angle up 3% over Reid days before the election. Reid ended up winning the seat by over 5%. I know Nate Silver had a piece about how Nevada is notoriously difficult to poll. I suspect this seat with stay within the Democrats, although again, it could be close.

Could they win five of the six competitive seats held by Republicans, lose Nevada, and have a net gain of four seats? Sure. The most number of seats they could win is six.

My statistics are rusty. But if I assign a probability of winning to each of these races, I could come up with a number for how likely Democrats are to win all six seats.

I’m sure Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com will do this at some point this year.

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Addendum: Why a Trump nomination bad for Republicans running for U.S. Senate.

A Trump v. Hillary match-up will leave the group of independent voters and Republicans who lean to the center at home. They don’t like Clinton. They don’t like Trump. They will stay home.

Independents and center-leaning Republicans will stay home and not vote.

Because independent voters in a recent election leaned Republican, this bodes poorly for Republicans in Senate races. Republican incumbents will therefore have a difficult time winning their seats off a smaller base, and will be less likely to hold on to their seats in 2016.

Don’t let the media fool you. The U.S. Senate, not the U.S. Presidential race, is the race to follow in 2016.