What will The Senate Look Like In January 2019? The Map Predicts A Huge GOP Win-- But Voters Have Other Ideas

Schumer has chosen a handful of especially bad recruits as candidates for November. Keep in mind the DSCC did not recruit Beto O'Rourke and until very recently when they started seeing his eye-popping contributions and his even more eye-popping polling, they completely ignored him. Beto should hope Schumer keeps away; his race to replace Cruz is too close to call now. Cruz would like nothing more than to be able to equate Beto with Schumer.

Schumer's recruits-- Phil Bredensen in Tennessee, Jacky Rosen in Nevada and Kyrsten Sinema in Arizona are all very conservative. Bredensen is probably the only Democrat who could win in Tennessee (a state where he is universally known and liked-- and with an R+14 PVI). But Nevada didn't need a wretched conservative like Rosen. Hillary beat Trump there and the statewide PVI is D+1. And Arizona? The PVI is R+5. And Sinema is so far to the right that there's a danger the Democratic base could sit out the midterm rather than vote for her. She's unquestionably Schumer's worse recruit-- ever.

That said, the Republicans have their own Arizona problem. The GOP wants the race to come down to a race between mainstream conservative Martha McSally, who independent voters like, and far right Blue Dog Sinema, who many Democrats hate. But the Republicans might not get what they want. A new poll from the local ABC affiliate asked GOP voters who they prefer in the August primary and Republican strategists are ready to slit their wrists, McSally doesn't appear to be winning-- even though she's up against two far right lunatics who are splitting the far right lunatic vote:

• Kelli Ward (far right lunatic)- 36%
• Martha McSally (mainstream conservative)- 27%
• Joe Arpaio (far right lunatic)- 22%

This is disastrous news for the GOP, since independents are likely to rejected Ward for Sinema in November.

These latest numbers show a huge swing since a January poll, conducted the same day Arpaio announced his Senate run, which had the former Maricopa County sheriff in a dead heat with then-front-runner McSally. In the January 9 results, Ward came in with the lowest percentage of the three candidates.

So how does Sinema stack up against all of the Republican candidates in a head-to-head race in November?

According to the ABC15/OHPI polling data, the Democrat is out in front to fill the seat previously held by Republican Jeff Flake, and is outpacing her GOP rivals in each of their potential races.

In an election facing Ward, Sinema holds a 10% lead, but 10% of likely voters remain undecided. A matchup against McSally is slightly closer, with Sinema ahead by 6% and another 10% of voters still undecided.

When paired up in a race against Arpaio, Sinema takes a huge lead, with 59% to Arpaio's 33%, and only 8% of voters undecided.

In a historically red-leaning state, a Democrat in the lead may seem surprising. But OHPI polling expert Mike Noble says there are a couple factors boosting Sinema's standing.

“The issue we are consistently seeing in the numbers is that Democrats are unified, Republicans are less united, and the all-important Independent voters are trending anti-Republican/Trump” said Noble, managing partner and chief pollster at OHPI.

These polling numbers would be bad enough in any year for the Republicans. But in a wave year? Wrist slitting time! McConnell is ready to dump millions of dollars into the race for McSally, but not for Ward and Arpaio. As of the March 31 FEC reporting deadline Sinema had raised $6,370,867, spent $1,945,831 and is sitting on $6,688,670. McSally had raised $4,155,612, spent $3,893,324 and is sitting on $605,712. Arpaio reported nothing and Ward had raised $1,438,804, spent $1,140,730, and has just $350,002 cash on hand. (Neo-Nazi elements have spent $576,984 on behalf of Ward.)

It's now conceivable that the Democrats will hold onto vulnerable red-state seats (West Virginia, Indiana, North Dakota, Missouri) as well as purple state seats like Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania and win red-held Tennessee, Arizona, Nevada and even Texas. That would give the Democrats a bigger majority in the Senate than the Republicans have now. McConnell would be eating crow-- and paying for his authoritarian procedural way of running the Senate as Schumer takes over... looking for vengeance. Conceivable.