It's Probably Over: Susan Collins and the Decline of Opposition Party Senators
History tells us Collins is in big trouble
No matter how well and how long something happens, it can end suddenly. And for Susan Collins—a fourth term Senator who won her last two races by a combined 50 points—the ending will probably come in November.
Collins’ probable demise has little to do with her record. Despite opposition to her vote for Brett Kavanaugh, Collins’ legislative record remains nearly the same as it has in past sessions.
DW-NOMINATE scores show Collins’ ideology has remained consistent. Those scores attempt to classify a Senators’ voting record based on roll-call votes in the particular session. Throughout her time in the Senate, Collins’ has been one of the chambers’ most moderate members.
Here is her DW-NOMINATE voting record (red dot) in the most recent session, the 116th Congress:
Not much difference in the 113th Congress, which is the cycle before the 2014 election, which she won by 27 points:
And to comply with the rule of threes, she had a similar ideological score in the 110th Congress, which is the cycle before the 2008 election, which she won by 23 points:
If Collins has won her last two races by 20+ points, and she has the same voting record, then shouldn’t we presume she’s a solid favorite again? Unfortunately for Collins, partisanship and the decline of opposition-party senators puts her in a devastating spot.
The decline in opposite party Senators
42 states voted for the same party in the last three presidential elections (what I call streak states). Those are mapped below:
There are 84 Senators that represent those states. And of those 84 Senators, just six are from the opposite party. That means 93% of Senators have the same party as the state’s presidential vote in the last three cycles. That’s perhaps best exemplified by all 2016 Senate races matching the presidential winner.
In the 20 states that voted for Obama twice and Clinton, 38-of-40 Senators are Democrats. Cory Gardner in Colorado and Collins in Maine are the two exceptions. But Gardner trails by double digits in the three most recent polls of the state. Which means that if Collins’ wins reelection, she will be the only Republican Senator from those states.
The other four Senators show the difficulty in winning in unfriendly terrain. Doug Jones won thanks to Roy Moore. He’s a heavy underdog against Tommy Tuberville in the general election (I’ll cover that race after Jeff Sessions’ loses the primary on Tuesday). If Jones and Gardner lose, we’ll have at least 95% of senators from those streak states representing the same party as the presidential victor.
The other three Senators are also unique situations. Kyrsten Sinema won in Arizona in 2018. Arizona is the most likely state to leave the streak states in 2020 because Biden has an excellent shot to win it. Trump won Arizona by just 3.5 points in 2016, which was a 5.5 point decline from Romney’s margin over Obama in 2012.
Then we’re left with just two candidates that have managed to hold oppositional seats: John Tester in Montana and Joe Manchin in West Virginia.
Since 2010, 15 Senators (and Joe Donnelly in Indiana—a state Obama barely won in 2008, but Romney and Trump easily won in 2012 and 2016) have run for reelection in those states. Incumbents have won just 6-of-16 races. And five-of-six featured John Tester, Joe Manchin or Todd Akin as an opponent. Claire McCaskill went from winning in 2012 against Todd Akin—the second worst Senate candidate in modern history due to his repugnant comments about rape and abortion—to losing to Josh Hawley by six points in 2018.
The national environment really hurts opposite party Senators
Things get even worse for opposite party incumbents when the national environment is working against them. All six times an oppositional candidate has won reelection, it’s been a favorable cycle for them. If we look at which party won the House popular vote in the election cycle, 14-of-16 races match that winner. The two losers were incumbents, which adds to Collins’ headwinds. The two exceptions are Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota, who represented a state that voted for Trump by 35 points, and McCaskill, who probably would have lost to a quality opponent in 2012 and represented a state that went for Trump by 23 points in 2016.
Susan Collins is running in a Democratic year
Democrats lead by 11 points in the RealClearPolitics average of what party voters would prefer to see control the House. That’s a bigger lead than Democrats have had in 119 of the last 120 months (January 2018—an election the Democrats ended up winning the popular vote by 8.4 points—is the only exception).
A phalanx of other measures favor the Democrats nationally. Joe Biden outraised Donald Trump in the most recent reporting period. He’s a 90% favorite in the Economist’s model, and as I argued in my first newsletter, he’s a substantial favorite even if things revert back to the pre-coronavirus environment. Democrats have outraised Republicans in a series of red states, including Kentucky, South Carolina and Kansas.
So there isn’t much reason to think things will suddenly turn around for Republicans. A vaccine remains months away. Florida just had the highest daily coronavirus numbers. And the economy remains anemic.
We should believe what the metrics tell us when they line up with the national environment
There are two giant warning flags for Collins: the polls and fundraising.
The surviving oppositional incumbents polled well. In 2018, Tester led all 10 polls of his race from June to the election in 2018. Manchin led in the nine nonpartisan polls in 2018 too.
But Collins trails in the two polls from 2020 in the RealClearPolitics database, and perhaps even worse, she garners just 42% support.
Then there’s fundraising. Sara Gideon, Collin’s opponent, has raised over $6 million more than Collins and has more cash on hand, per open secrets. Collins outraised her opponent in the last three cycles.
Being outraised is a bad omen for the oppositional incumbents. In only 5-of-16 races has the incumbent been outraised by the challenger. That makes sense because incumbents in oppositional races understand they’re at risk of defeat every election, so they do a good job raising money early. But in all five cases where the incumbent raised less than the the challenger, the challenger won. Mark Kirk was outraised by Tammy Duckworth. Dean Heller was outraised by Jacky Rosen. Joe Donnelly was outraised by Mike Braun in Indiana. Kelly Ayotte was slightly outraised by Maggie Hassan. Tom Cotton outraised Mark Pryor in Arkansas.
Collins faces monumental odds
If Collins wins, history tells us she either needs Gideon to self-immolate (ala McCaskill’s win over Akin) or the national environment to rapidly improve. Absent that, she’ll have to make history as the only oppositional incumbent to ever win reelection in a year where their party losses the House popular vote.
Collins path reminds me of Roy Hibbert’s. The Indiana Pacers center was an all-star who led the 49 win Pacers to a decisive game 7 against the Miami Heat—a team that won 27 games, which is the second longest streak in NBA history. The former Georgetown Hoya adeptly blocked shots near the hoop and limited LeBron James, and the Miami Heat’s ability to score near the hoop.
But Hibbert was perfect for the Pacers until he wasn’t. In 2014, the environment changed. Teams started forcing him to the perimeter by playing centers that could make threes. The NBA’s environment changed. Gone were the days of every center hanging out in the paint so Hibbert could leave his man. Hibbert was perfect when the environment didn’t favor spacing. Similarly, Collins was perfect when she ran in cycles with ticket-splitting and favorable Republican climates.
Nothing is guaranteed in life, but history tells us that if Collins wins in November, she’ll have pulled off a number of unique feats for oppositional candidates: first to win reelection in a bad year for her party, first to win reelection when outraised and first to win reelection when polls show her losing. Maybe Collins can do that. But like her campaign donors, I wouldn’t invest in that.
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