2014 Republican victories that seem less impressive now?

[Figueira]

I think Joni Ernst and Bruce Poliquin don't look like juggernauts anymore.

[MT Treasurer]

Yeah, 2014 wasn't really a Republican wave on the Senate level. They won all the Romney states, yes, but they barely managed to win CO against a terrible Democrat and underperformed in several Romney states. That's why this idea that 2018 is going to be a Democratic wave year in the Senate is exaggerated. I think the general trend we're seeing is that blue states are electing Democratic Senators and red states are electing Republican Senators (even though red state Democrats are still much better off than blue state Republicans).

[Heisenberg]

Yeah, 2014 wasn't really a Republican wave on the Senate level. They won all the Romney states, yes, but they barely managed to win CO against a terrible Democrat and underperformed in several Romney states. That's why this idea that 2018 is going to be a Democratic wave year in the Senate is exaggerated. I think the general trend we're seeing is that blue states are electing Democratic Senators and red states are electing Republican Senators (even though red state Democrats are still much better off than blue state Republicans).

Of course you also have to remember how retirements hurt Democrats badly. Harkin and Johnson may have won reelection if they wanted to, but Rockefeller and Baucus would have likely still gone down (the former supported the war on coal, the latter wrote much of Obamacare himself). And partisan trends finally caught up to Landrieu and Pryor.

[jamestroll]

Yeah, 2014 wasn't really a Republican wave on the Senate level. They won all the Romney states, yes, but they barely managed to win CO against a terrible Democrat and underperformed in several Romney states. That's why this idea that 2018 is going to be a Democratic wave year in the Senate is exaggerated. I think the general trend we're seeing is that blue states are electing Democratic Senators and red states are electing Republican Senators (even though red state Democrats are still much better off than blue state Republicans).

I do not think anyone thinks 2018 will be a Democratic wave on the Senate level but I do not think every single Trump State democrat will lose either.

[Figueira]

Yeah, 2014 wasn't really a Republican wave on the Senate level. They won all the Romney states, yes, but they barely managed to win CO against a terrible Democrat and underperformed in several Romney states. That's why this idea that 2018 is going to be a Democratic wave year in the Senate is exaggerated. I think the general trend we're seeing is that blue states are electing Democratic Senators and red states are electing Republican Senators (even though red state Democrats are still much better off than blue state Republicans).

I do not think anyone thinks 2018 will be a Democratic wave on the Senate level but I do not think every single Trump State democrat will lose either.

A Democratic wave doesn't mean that the Democrats gain a lot of Senate seats; it means that each state is unusually Democratic. 2012 was a Democratic wave even though few seats changed hands.

[Vega]

Cotton for sure. I know that the beltway establishment loves to anoint a savior of the party or whatever, but Cotton was massively over hyped and thus landed with a massive thud.

[Maxwell]

Cotton seems very overrated now.

[Pandaguineapig]

Cotton seems very overrated now.

I think he seemed strong at the time because Pryor had Manchin-like approvals and many felt that he was a good fit for the state, being a top target during a midterm can cause favorable to tank which is why Heitkamp and Manchin both are looking for escape hatches in a Trump administration

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

The other factor with Pryor was that in 2008, no republican filed to run against him. He won 80%-20% over a green party candidate. Even in these deep red and deep blue states, there will usually be some random person from the out-of-power party who just files for the heck of it, but literally no one did. I think a lot of people saw that and tried to extrapolate from it to 2014.

[libertpaulian]

If Rick Scott wasn't such a Trump-like candidate (without the vulgarity), he probably would have won by 5-8% or so as opposed to his narrow 1%.

[Kingpoleon]

The other factor with Pryor was that in 2008, no republican filed to run against him. He won 80%-20% over a green party candidate. Even in these deep red and deep blue states, there will usually be some random person from the out-of-power party who just files for the heck of it, but literally no one did. I think a lot of people saw that and tried to extrapolate from it to 2014.

I know that many of the Green Party's voters were longtime Republicans.

There only ~74,000 less voters in the Senate race than in the Presidential race. That's roughly a mere 6.8% drop in votes.

[Maxwell]

Cotton seems very overrated now.

I think he seemed strong at the time because Pryor had Manchin-like approvals and many felt that he was a good fit for the state, being a top target during a midterm can cause favorable to tank which is why Heitkamp and Manchin both are looking for escape hatches in a Trump administration

Maybe at the very beginning but the race became very clear pretty quickly.

Pryor was the most obvious lost cause of 2014.