Talk Elections

Asking this because I saw this term used a lot going into the midterm - 'dead on arrival' meaning 'didn't have a realistic chance of winning from the start of the campaign, regardless of a realistically different strategy' - or any other definition, if you have one. I have liberally defined 'competitive' here to mean all races closer than TN, so to include it while maintaining a regular standard.

de Leon (CA)         -
James (MI)         
Heller (NV)         
Hugin (NJ)         
Vukmir (WI)

With hindsight:
de Leon
Donnelly
James
McCaskill
Espy
Heller
Hugin
Heitkamp
Bredesen
Vukmir

Without hindsight:
Same list as above but without Donnelly/McCaskill.

I said all except McSally, Nelson, James, Rosendale, Beto and Morrissey.
McSally: I think she might have won without that horrible primary.
Nelson: The guy lost by 0.1%. Of course his race was winnable, and frankly, he screwed his party because his loss puts them in a deeper hole for the Senate.
James: Unheralded, but he got the first single digit Senate race in Michigan since 2000. With more investment it might have happened.
Rosendale: If only he'd been more populist.
Beto: Beto was a fantastic candidate, and Lupe Valdez was a weak one. He just might have been pushed over the edge if the Democrats had a stronger gubernatorial nominee.
Morrissey: The Libertarian did get 4% in this race. This seat will almost certainly go R in 2024.

Hugin
Heller
Bredesen
Heitkamp
Donnelly
McCaskill (didn't appear so for these two, but they lost by enough that it was clear)
Espy
James
Vukmir

All of them except McSally, Nelson, Rosendale, O'Rourke, and Morrisey.

James Heller and Bredesen.

All of the D incumbents who lost (except for Bill Nelson), plus Heller and McSally.

I only voted for Vukmir. A lot can happen in politics. Even a 5% chance is still a chance to win, but Heitkamp, Bredesen, De Leon, Renacci and Hugin were all longshots. James, Donnelly and McCaskill were unlikely. I'm surprised Heller got 25 votes to be honest, but the political environment made it hard for him too, yes, but he wasn't DOA.

Lol, @that one voter who voted Nelson. He lost by 10.000 votes.

How did I miss hugin and Vukmir

Voted this list except not O'Rourke. I never thought he had a chance, even if he did run a flawless campaign.

Pretty much this. I always believed that Texas was Lean Republican, at the minimum. And I always expected O'Rourke to lose, though I thought it would be by a margin of ~5-6 points rather than the 3 point margin that it ended up being. McSally probably could have beaten Sinema if she had run like she had when she was elected to the House in 2014 and 2016: as a moderate or establishment Republican, in the mold of John McCain. She would have also won if Sinema had somehow not obtained the Democratic nomination, and someone weaker had been nominated.

Nelson could have won if he had taken Rick Scott seriously from the start and had run a more vigorous campaign. He relied too much on Gillum, believing that he would turnout the base, and that it would be enough to get him across the finish line. That, along with Scott's decent approval ratings (which, I believe, were higher than Nelson's by Election Day), proved to be his undoing. Rosendale might have won if more resources had been invested into his race. However, he let Tester define him early, and he did not run an effective advertising campaign or do well in the debates. Tester also focused in on the Democratic base, while doing enough to win over swing voters. He pulled off a strategy that Donnelly, Heitkamp, and McCaskill failed to replicate.

Finally, I honestly believe that Manchin was saved by the Kavanaugh vote. He almost certainly would have lost if he had voted against Kavanaugh. Another factor that saved him was Morrisey's horrendous approval ratings, which were -20 on Election Day. Manchin's approvals were -1 or even, so voters basically chose the lesser of two evils. If Morrisey had been a better and more competent candidate, or if Jenkins had won the nomination, West Virginia too, probably would have flipped.

All of the other electoral losers were doomed. Heller could not survive Nevada's Democratic lean. James, although he did impressively well for a Republican in Michigan, likewise could not overcome Stabenow's incumbency status and the political environment. Bredesen never had a chance in so heavily Republican a state as Tennessee, and the Kavanaugh debacle sealed his fate, by rallying Republican voters behind Blackburn. The first factor was true for Espy in Mississippi, and the reverse was true for Hugin in New Jersey (running in a heavily Democratic state).

Vukmir was a weak candidate and Baldwin had decent approval ratings; moreover, she was disadvantaged by the environment. The same was true for Barletta. Renacci was a uniquely weak candidate, and Brown was a very strong incumbent. And Feinstein was too entrenched in California for DeLeon to win. Finally, the margins of defeat for Donnelly and McCaskill make it clear that they never stood a chance. They also hurt themselves by not mobilizing the base, and by attempting to win over voters who they stood no chance of carrying. Heitkamp was the most doomed, and never had a realistic chance.

All of them except McSally, Nelson, Renacci, Rosendale and Morrisey

McSally : she could have won without the brutal primary

Nelson : he ran a bad campaign, he slept until August, Scott was able to define him early.
Besides Nelson didn’t do anything to improve his relationship with Hispanic voters which proved fatal in the end

Renacci : probaly the worst campaign of all, the guy is personnaly wealthy but contrary to Braun and Scott he didn’t self-fund his campaign and was outspent in the airwaves by 23 millions. Had Jim Renacci loaned his campaign 13 millions dollars like Braun and run a good campaign, talking about his experience as a small business owner for example, he would be a senator as of now

Rosendale : he should have expected attacks from Tester painting him as a foreigner and he should have prepared a response, something like ,, I moved from Maryland to Montana because I wanted to live in a state where freedom is still a reality, but unfortunately Senator Tester is working hard with Schumer in order to destroy this freedom and turn our state into the next California, Senator Tester who spent the past twelve past years in Washington has forgotten us and is now a stranger to our state . ,,

Morrisey : he should have raised more funds and should have attacked Manchin on his support for the background check bill in 2013

James, Espy, Heller, and Vukmir

Vulkmir, James,De leon, Hugin, Espy, and Heitkamp post-Kavanaugh.

Heitkamp was DOA even before Kavanaugh.

De Leon, Donnelly, James, McCaskill, Espy, Hugin, Heitkamp, Renacci, Bredesen, and Vukmir.

Honestly most of these people. My final predictions this time around were pretty good. I got Florida and Arizona wrong.

de Leon (CA)         -
James (MI)    
Heller (NV)         
Heitkamp (ND)        
Vukmir (WI)

This

All but Espy [wasn't truly DOA until he ended up behind CHS in the first run rather than ahead by a few points], McSally, Beto, & the incumbents [sans Heitkamp who was DOA even before Kavanaugh].

Donnelly/Claire had a chance, a small chance, but they utterly blew it and in the case of the latter, Nicole Galloway is proof of that.

Nelson had all the chance in the world, and to say completely blew it would be an understatement, and took Gillum with him.

Of course, I based my predictions on the patterns of every f()king midterm since Bush's re-election, so yeah, things went wrong. That this midterm could be so split up was a bit unfathomable.

If Anthony Kennedy hadn't retired, I think there's a good chance McCaskill would still be a Senator. Is that something that we can categorize as baked in no matter what?

I’m doubtful that she would have survived even without the Kavanaugh circus, it’s just that Hawley is a fantastic candidate and would have defeated her no matter what, quality matters.

Agreed

Hawley was not "fantastic", in the sense that he wasn't that exciting of a speaker or that inspirational.  He was young, he stopped saying stupid sh**t, and let Trump carry him to a win.