Hey all! Reporting to you all from Madrid. Had a moment to check out the final polls and PPP has been shooting out the final polls on these Senate races. Here are my predictions so far on who is going to win:
Ohio:
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Sherrod Brown, Democratic Hold. Josh Mandel (R) is a terrible candidate and despite the high spending on this race, Brown has run an excellent campaign and weathered the negative ads.
Pennsylvania:
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Bob Casey, Democratic Hold. Casey may have started campaigning late in the game and being outspent by Tea Party Tom Smith (R) but his name recognition, ground game and Obama being on the ballot are weathering the negative attack ads. Plus Casey has the better attack ads than Smith
Florida:
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Bill Nelson., Democratic Hold Connie Mack IV (R) turned out to be a bad candidate and Nelson is one of the few Democratic candidates with a big lead among white voters. Florida may be a toss up in the Presidential race but not in the Senate race.
Montana:
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Jon Tester, Democratic Hold. Despite Mason-Dixon recently giving Denny Rehberg (R) a 4 point lead, PPP recently released it's new poll showing Tester with a two point lead which has been consistent with PPP's other polls. Tester also has a 13 point lead with independents and the latest attack ad against Rehberg supporting Libertarian candidate, Dan Cox, is eating away his support. Plus Rehberg had to recently release details on drunk boat driving incident.
Missouri:
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Claire McCaskill, Democratic Hold. Despite the negative attacks and the recent death of her mother, McCaskill is still going strong. Todd Akin (R)'s insane rape and lady-like comments are hurting him and real conservatives are going to vote for the Libertarian candidate over him.
New Mexico:
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Martin Heinrich, Democratic Hold. Despite Heather Wilson's (R) internal polling showing the race is tied, all other polling has Heinrich with a healthy lead. Plus environmental issues are big issues for New Mexico voters and they trust Heinrich more than Wilson with their drinking water.
Indiana:
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Joe Donnelly, Democratic Pick Up. Both internal and independent local polls show Donnely with a healthy lead. He'll pull off a narrow victory thanks to Richard Mourdock's rape comments. Donnelly will win moderate Republican Dick Lugar supporters to help him win this race despite Mitt Romney winning it in the Presidential election.
North Dakota:
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Heidi Heitkamp, Democratic Hold. Despite North Dakota being a red state, Rick Berg (R) has turned out to be not a spectacular candidate. His only way of campaigning is trying to tie Heitkamp to Obama even though Heitkamp has better name recognition, done a great job at distancing herself from President Obama and has made GOTV efforts in North Dakota's Native American communities a serious strategy to help her win.
Maine:
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Angus King, Independent/Democratic Pick Up. Moderate Republican Senator Olympia Snowe's retirement was a guaranteed kick in the balls to Mitch McConnell and the GOP's hopes of winning the Senate. King is well-known and well-liked and has endorsed President Obama for re-election and will have to caucus with the Democrats.
Massachusetts:
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Elizabeth Warren, Democratic Pick Up. It looked like Scott Brown (R) would be hard to defeat because he was convincing MA voters that he's an independent voice. Warren has succeeded and proving those claims to be untrue plus Brown did miserably in all of the debates and chickened out of the last one. Warren has united her party and because MA voters want the Senate to be in the Democrats hands, she has made Senate control a serious issue.
Connecticut:
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Chris Murphy, REAL Democratic Pick Up. Murphy may have taken a hit for a while from WWE CEO's Linda McMahon's negative ads but Murphy has campaigned and fought back hard, exposing McMahon as a self-serving right-winger and crushing her in the debates. Plus like MA, CT voters want the Senate in the Democrats control.
Virginia:
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Tim Kaine, Democratic Hold. Tim Kaine has been a top target in this race by Karl Rove and the Koch Brothers but Kaine made the right decision to align himself with President Obama who looks destined to win Virginia again. Also, Kaine is very popular with Virginia's African American community due to his great work helping African Americans find affordable housing as a lawyer and mayor of Richmond and governor of VA. Plus it also helps when your opponent is George "Macca" Allen, a well-known racist.
Wisconsin:
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Tammy Baldwin, Democratic Hold. It looked like for a while that former governor, Tommy Thompson (R), would win retiring Democratic Senator Herb Kohl's seat but Thompson was broke right after narrowly winning the GOP primary and fighting off two Tea Party backed candidates. Thompson couldn't afford to make a lot of campaign appearances after the primary while Baldwin who had no primary challenger has been campaigning all over Wisconsin. Thompson's campaign has taken a mean and negative turn from attacking Tammy Baldwin's sexual orientation and his son making a birther joke about President Obama who is still popular in the state. It's a mixture of Thompson trying to appeal to the teabaggers while flip flopping on his more moderate stances and Baldwin has just run an excellent campaign. She's been predominantly positive and has had the more effective attack ads against Thompson.
Texas:
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Ted Cruz, Republican Hold. I don't think I need to really explain why.
Seats I'm not sure about yet:
Arizona:
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PPP has Jeff Flake (R) leading Dr. Richard Carmona (D) by five. Carmona was pulling a decent chuck of Republican voters from Flake but Flake's attack ads are working, falsely claiming that Carmona has a bad relationship working with women and keeps tying him to Obama. Senators McCain and Kyl were angry that Carmona's ad showcased McCain and Kyl are praising Carmona for Surgeon General in 2002. Both Senators have endorsed Flake and helped bring party unification. Now PPP's party identification breakdown in this poll is 41% Republican, 34% Democrat and 25% Independent plus only 16% of respondents were Hispanic out of 1,080 likely voters polled. Romney is easily winning the state but Carmona still leads with both Independents and Latinos. Whether or not it will help him still win is not known yet.
Nevada:
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Polls, outside of PPP and Mellman Group, have Dean Heller (R) ahead of Shelley Berkley (D) but Ralston Reports says that the high early voting and higher voter Democratic registration along with undecideds going towards President Obama could be enough to help give Berkley a narrow win. This might be the closest race this year and could trigger a recount.
Nebraska:
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For a along time, it looked like Republican Deb Fischer was going to win retiring Senator Ben Nelson's (D) old seat but Bob Kerrey's (D) latest attack ad about Fischer using her power in the state Senate to evict an elderly couple in a land grab scandal is hurting her. Plus former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel has recently endorsed Kerrey and could help him. The only other polling to come recently to show Fischer with a big lead is her internal polling.
Seats Democrats will hold onto:
Mazie Hirono, Hawaii
Washington, Maria Cantwell
California, Dianne Feinstein
Minnesota, Amy Klobuchar
Michigan, Debbie Stabenow
West Virginia, Joe Mancin
Maryland, Ben Cardin
New York, Kristen Gillibrand
New Jersey, Bob Menendez
Delaware, Tom Carper
Vermont, Bernie Sanders
Rhode Island, Sheldon Whitehouse
I sent in my absentee ballot a few weeks ago. If you haven't voted yet, please do so tomorrow.