SENATE: NEBRASKA
Everyone wants to describe the results of the May 13 Nebraska primary as a "tea party victory."
ABC News writes:
Ben Sasse, president of Midland University, is the winner in the Nebraska GOP Senate Primary, according to the Associated Press. […]
This is a clear victory for the tea party and it is their best shot in a Senate race this primary season. Jordan Gehrke, a senior advisor to the campaign said Sasse will go to the Senate and get to work on "day one."
The Washington Post similarly notes:
Republican Ben Sasse comfortably won his party's nomination for U.S. Senate in Nebraska Tuesday, handing the national tea party groups that backed him a much-needed victory headed into the heart of a congressional primary season offering few opportunities for success.
I always think the media inflates this intra-party rift, and as a writer I understand. Telling the story of how the tea party beat the establishment is much more interesting than "here's the winner of the GOP primary."
But this was a win for Ben Sasse—and it was not a loss for the "establishment."
Many have argued that Sasse wasn't a typical "tea party" candidate, but that doesn't seem to matter when establishing a race as the tea party vs. the establishment. It seems that the label gets ascribed depending on the outside politicians and groups that choose to endorse a candidate. If we use that definition, the Nebraska primary still should not be categorized as the tea party vs. the establishment.
The national, D.C. tea party was involved in the Nebraska primary and for the most part backed Sasse (though local tea party groups did not endorse him), but where was the establishment in this race to suggest they were against Sasse? Nowhere. No establishment figure came out, like we saw in North Carolina, to endorse Osborn or Dinsdale. For the most part so-called establishment figures and groups stayed out of this primary.
Sasse won. He'll most likely win the seat. Good for him. I have no opinion on who should have won the primary, but I find it inane to equate Sasse's win with a loss for the establishment or a victory for the tea party.
It's not. It's just a plain old win for a candidate who happened to be preferred by a couple key tea party figures.
SENATE: NORTH CAROLINA
To date I have not seen any candidate in a toss up race position themselves to run on Obamacare. They're running on being the candidate who thinks it’s good, but needs improvements and promise they will continue to work toward "fixing" it. That’s not the same as running on the law. However, some are arguing that Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan is embracing it more strongly than other candidates.
News Observer contends:
Not only did Hagan not wither, she defended her support of the ACA and noted how many people, and how many North Carolinians, were already benefiting from it. She also nailed the Republicans for their callous denial of Medicaid expansion to North Carolina families. […]
One, as she said, she talks to North Carolina constituents every day, and what she hears about the ACA isn’t what the polls say.
And she notes that North Carolina has the fifth-highest number of enrollees—people who have acquired insurance through a federal government website marketplace—in the United States. That, she said, "shows the need for affordable health care in our state."
The Daily Kos made a similar argument this week, because Hagan "came out in full support of the Medicaid Expansion to Obamacare."
I’m hesitant to accept an embrace of the Medicaid expansion as anything significant. Medicaid, though it was expanded under the Affordable Care Act, is still a separate program. Most voters likely look at Medicaid as its own entity and at best we could say an embrace of the expansion is a tepid embrace of the law itself.
North Carolina is a critical race for Republicans. There are few, if any, feasible routes for a GOP controlled Senate that do not include winning North Carolina. If this report is correct, and Hagan decides to embrace Obamacare without the disclaimer of planning to "fix" it, this race could become the clearest referendum on the health care law. I don’t think it will go well for Hagan, but that’s a different debate.
SENATE/HOUSE: IN GENERAL
My favorite game right now is to speculate who will win what race in November, but right now it’s just that—a (probably obnoxious and certainly nerdy) game. Sometimes it’s good to remember that while it’s a worthwhile game, in politics there’s no such thing as a sure thing, and that’s half of what makes following it fun.
Amy Walters at the Cook Political Report put that in perspective with a post earlier this week, writing:
I know it’s hard for many people in the DC campaign-industrial complex to believe, but we are still 173 days away from Election Day. While the rate of spending in some of these battleground states is at fall levels, voter engagement is not. Take all of these early polls with a grain of salt: A registered voter in April and May is not the same as a likely voter in September and October.
Ultimately, the two sides are counting on two very different things happening this fall. Republicans are counting on the national political environment to sweep the GOP to victory. A recent post by the GOP polling firm Public Opinion Strategies suggests that Democrats are headed for a disastrous midterm by pointing out that on five of six "key national measures" such as perceptions of the economy and the president’s approval ratings, the "results are worse for the president and Democrats than the comparable findings on the last weekend heading into the 2010 election."
Democrats, meanwhile, are counting on making this an "all politics is local" election. Touting a strong targeting and turnout operation, as well as a tarnished GOP brand, Democrats argue that their candidates will be able to overcome the drag coming from President Obama and DC.
So, who’s right?
No one can or should answer that question in May. But, we do know four issues that will ultimately determine which side will have the advantage this fall.
Those four issues, Walters notes, are Obamacare, technology and turnout, Obama drag, and unforced errors.
The ones that are having the biggest impact, right now, seem to be Obamacare and the Obama drag, and in large part because of those two, Republicans are currently well-positioned for November. But we still have more than 170 days until the elections. There’s a lot of time for mistakes, sometimes it’s good to have a reminder of that.