Edward Markey (D)/ Gabriel Gomez (R)
The highly accurate Cook Political Report shifted it's prediction for the Massachusetts Senate race for June 25, 2013, from leaning-Democrat to Toss-up for a variety of reasons, including the fact that it isn't an election year and turnout is expected to be low and highly partisan.The prediction comes as a surprise since the Democratic candidate, Edward Markey, holds an average 10 point lead against his Republican rival Gabriel Gomez, in polling conducted to date.
“In truth, we have had a difficult time accepting the idea that this race might get close,” wrote Cook’s Jennifer Duffy. “At the same time, Democrats nominated a long-serving member of Congress at a time when Congress is an almost universally unpopular institution. It doesn’t help that Markey has not had a competitive race in decades.”
Democratic Markey's Advantages
• Registered Democrats outflank their GOP counterparts in Massachusetts by a margin of 3 to 1.
• Markey is a known entity, having served in Congress for 18 terms, the Christian Science Monitor reports.
• Marekey has consistently polled ahead of Gomez, holding a 10 point average advantage, according to Real Clear Politics.
• Gomez, a retired Navy SEAL, has never run for elected office before.
• This is Massachusetts, one of the bluest of blue, Democratic states.
Republican Gomez's Advantages
• More than half of Massachusetts voters are registered as Independents and according to Democratic leaning Public Policy Polling, Gomez saw a nine-point jump with Independents, from 47 percent to 56 percent, with only 35 percent holding a favorable view of Markey. (Source)
• While this is not a midterm election, per se, it is not a presidential election year, so turnout, as explained yesterday, gives Republicans the "simple demographic math" built-in advantage, where the typical turnout in years that do not have a president on the ballot, is more conservative.
• Midterm elections during a president's second term, historically shows a loss of seats in both the House and Senate.
• Scandal ridden Democratic White House taints Democrats across the board. Non-partisan political analyst/handicapper, Stu Rothenberg, asserts the " IRS scandal, along with controversies involving the attack in Benghazi and the Justice Department’s collecting of journalists’ telephone records," has changed the political narrative.
Note- His changes referred to the 2014 midterms, when the recent scandals may very well have died down by then, but the Massachusetts race is occurring on June 25, 2013, in the midst of emerging details each week, making it more likely that they will negatively affect this particular race.
• Last but not least, the same Markey advantage of Gomez being relatively unknown in politics, could also be a Gomez advantage with the negative view Americans hold for Congress at the moment.
Quote:
Marc Landy, a political scientist at Boston College, says "it’s all about turnout," he continues "If Gomez were even to come close to Markey, that would indicate some real displeasure with the [Obama] administration in Massachusetts"
The Cook Political Report has a good track record for accuracy: In an academic paper, Dr. James E. Campbell, Chairman of the Political Science Department at the State University of New York- Buffalo has analyzed The Cook Political Report's pre-Labor Day House ratings going back to the Report's founding in 1984. In 11 of the 13 elections in which the Cook Political Report published new ratings between July 1 and then end of August (all except 1986 and 1990), 99.8 percent of the 3,387 races rated by the Cook Political Report as Solid Republican or Solid Democratic in July or August of an election year went by way of that party, 94.9 percent of the 641 races rated as Likely Democratic or Likely Republican fell the way the Cook Political Report predicted, and 85.7 percent of the 441 races rated Lean Democratic or Lean Republican broke in favor of the leaning party. Of the 130 Democratic-held seats rated as Toss Up, 49.2 percent went for Democrats, and 55.0 percent of the 160 Republican held seats rated as Toss Up were won by the GOP.
