My head has been spinning ever since I put together the latest Senate Forecast this morning. Looking only at Republican-held seats:
- Democrats currently lead by 18-24% in New Mexico
Hampshire and Virginia;
- By 6-10% in Colorado and New Hampshire;
- By 2-4% in Alaska and Mississippi-B;
- Additionally, Democrats are within 3-5% in Kentucky, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oregon and Texas;
- Democrats are also within 10-15% in Idaho, Kansas, Maine, and Nebraska
By contrast, Republicans are within 20% in only two Democratic held seats, Louisiana (Dems +14%) and New Jersey (Dems +18%). To top it all off, the DSCC has a $20.5M cash advantage on the NRSC. With so many advantages, there is now a very real possibility that Democrats can reach 60 Senate seats in the next Congress, not even including Lieberman.
As incredible as it may seem, the huge number of Democratic advantages actually gives Democrats a big opportunity to improve the Senate picture further. We have so many advantages to spare, that we can invest some of them to build even more advantages. Specifically, the DSCC could use its enormous financial advantage to start running high saturation cable and Internet ads in thirteen of the fifteen Republican held states listed above (New Mexico and Virginia look fine on their own). The ads could run from mid-June (say, the week after the end of the Democratic primary on June 9th) through the start of the Olympics on August 8th.
Hitting paid media early should result in Democratic candidates taking the lead in all five of the states where they currently trail by 3-5%, build decent leads in the two states where we already have narrow leads, put both Colorado and New Hampshire well out of reach, and maybe even move a couple of the long shot seats in tier five inside the margin of error. In this way, the ads could pay for themselves, by presenting Republicans with way too many targets to defend, giving far more of our candidates credibility to free media and donors, and also by framing the message of the campaign before Republicans go on the air. From that point, if the DSCC can credibly and accurately argue that a 10-12 seat pickup is within reach, its own coffers should go through the roof.
So, as crazy as it may sound, spending $15M on paid media over the next two months now could not only pay for itself, but it could turn an already mouthwatering Senate picture into a truly historic rout by mid-August. We have so many advantages right now, I would love to see us press further. If we spend early and wide, we can potentially end Republicans as a functioning political party in the Senate for the next four years.
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