The simple fact of the 2014 election is that its basic structure is a disaster for Democrats.
It is a perfect storm.
Here is the first basic truth.
Midterm elections simply favor Republicans.
The electorate is older and it is whiter than it is in presidential elections.
The Republican-leaning portion of the electorate also happens to be older and whiter, so you
get more Republicans and fewer Democrats.
The next simple fact is that midterm elections favor the part that does not have the White
House.
It almost always is a huge boon for the minority party.
In the last century there have only been three midterm elections - three - where the minority
party has actually lost seats.
And those were extraordinary moments in American history.
That was 1934 during the Great Depression, it was 1998 after Republicans tried to impeach
and remove President Clinton, and it was 2002 after 9/11.
This is not like one of those elections.
Third, both in the House and the Senate, the map itself favors Republicans in a very, very
big way.
Part of that is because of where democrats live - they're clustered in urban areas.
And part of it is because after 2010 when Republicans took over a lot of state legislatures,
they gerrymandered the hell out of a lot of the maps.
In 2012, Democrats won 1.4 million House votes more than Republicans, but they got beat by
Republicans by 33 seats in the house.
Winning more votes is not enough for Democrats to win back the House.
The Senate is totally another story.
Unlike in the House where everybody is up for re-election in every election, in the
Senate roughly a third is up in any given year.
This election is coming in cycle from 2008.
Democrats had a great year in '08.
They won a lot of Senate seats, and so now they are defending a lot more than Republicans
are.
Of the 36 seats up this year, Democrats are defending 21 of them.
Republicans are only defending 15.
That just flatly means Republicans have a lot more opportunities to win seats this year
than the Democrats do.
But Republicans shouldn't get too excited, because the 2016 election – it's basic shape
is going to favor the Democrats.
It is an election where the electorate will be younger and more non-white.
It is an election where Democrats will have many more opportunities to win Senate seats
than Republicans.
It is a presidential election, where the President's party often has some advantage around fundraising.
This year is likely to go very bad for Democrats.
But one reason you do not see them freaking out the way you might normally is that they
figure, even if they lose the Senate this year, they're probably just going to take
it back 2 years from now.
And how much harm can be done in 2 years?