Senate seats in play in 2016

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There is an interconnection in North Carolina (1972), Ohio (1992), and Wisconsin (1976): Same-party carriage at presidential and senatorial levels.

The Democrats have no business not flipping Illinois. No Republican has won a U.S. Senate race in a presidential year from this former bellwether, now Democratic base, state since Richard Nixon's 49-state re-election in 1972. (Nixon won on such a grand scale that he even won a Republican pickup from a heavily Democratic Cook County.)

The Democratic Party, if they were smart, would stop sacrificing one U.S. Senate seat, to the Republicans, from the party's base state Pennsylvania. (Arlen Specter is gone for some time! Pat Toomey is not strong as Specter was.)

The results will be tied in with the presidential outcome; meaning, which party wins the presidency. I would anticipate that about 25 to 27 states will deliver same-party carriage at both the presidential and senatorial levels. That played out over the last three election cycles. The rate is about 80 percent.

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One important thing is that historically, the Presidential Election did not give us much hint about the Senate result. In 1972, 1976, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000 elections, the party that won the White House failed to increase their number of seats in the Senate. 

Following 2000, and beginning with 2004, there have been around 25 to 27 states which carried for the same political party at both the presidential and senatorial levels. It's an emerging pattern which basically says that people are conscious of the two major political parties. They are delivering same-party outcomes. Numerous states, in 2012, saw the margins for same-party winners very closely connected (five percentage points or less). California, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin spring to mind. (There may have been additional states.)