AHC: Dems hold Senate in 2014

samcster94

Banned
What can be done for the Democrats to hold the Senate in 2014 with a post Election day 2012 POD??? Them taking the House was ASB, but they could have barely held the Senate in the best of conditions. Bonus points if they win a Governor's race that was close OTL(like Illinois).
 
I find this unlikely considering the unusually high number of red States that Democrats had to defend in 2014. The most they could lose is two seats to maintain control, lose another one and VP Biden would be the tie breaking vote. Lose only four and the GOP is in power, as in OTL. That said, if the Democrats somehow defied expectations and maintained control, it probably wouldn't change anything. McConnell and the GOP would still use Congressional procedure to obstruction everything Obama tries to do. Garland could get a Senate hearing in 2016, but the GOP will just filibuster his nomination. So two more years of gridlock and obstruction. Trump most likely is still elected POTUS.
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
I find this unlikely considering the unusually high number of red States that Democrats had to defend in 2014. The most they could lose is two seats to maintain control, lose another one and VP Biden would be the tie breaking vote. Lose only four and the GOP is in power, as in OTL. That said, if the Democrats somehow defied expectations and maintained control, it probably wouldn't change anything. McConnell and the GOP would still use Congressional procedure to obstruction everything Obama tries to do. Garland could get a Senate hearing in 2016, but the GOP will just filibuster his nomination. So two more years of gridlock and obstruction. Trump most likely is still elected POTUS.
Filibustering Garland wouldn’t work if they changed the Senate rules. And I see no reason they wouldn’t.
 
Filibustering Garland wouldn’t work if they changed the Senate rules. And I see no reason they wouldn’t.

Perhaps. After nuking the filibuster for most nominees in 2013, Reid and Obama may be willing to go all the way in 2016 to confirm Garland. But otherwise Obama's initiatives that require support from both Houses will still be dead in the water.
 
It's possible to achieve this. Move the timing of the ebola crisis to 2013. Create a second shutdown crisis in 2014, or move it from 2013 to 2014. Three Democratic losses in 2014 is within the realm of possibility. And Biden breaking ties means Ds retain the Senate.
 
I could fairly easily see the Democrats retaining Alaska, Colorado, and North Carolina. But that's not enough to hold the Senate, and states like Georgia and Iowa weren't really all that close. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_elections,_2014
Iowa could probably be a lot closer if the Democrats didn't nominate a dude who insulted farmers.

Have Roberts' challenger win in Kansas too, and have the scandal of him illegally passing around patients' x-ray photos explode in late October.
 
Iowa could probably be a lot closer if the Democrats didn't nominate a dude who insulted farmers.

I get the impression, though--from 2016 as well as 2014--that Iowa was very dissatisfied with Obama's second term. (Just as 2006 and 2008 show a dissatisfaction with GW Bush's second term, even before the recession.)
 
I could fairly easily see the Democrats retaining Alaska, Colorado, and North Carolina. But that's not enough to hold the Senate, and states like Georgia and Iowa weren't really all that close. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_elections,_2014

Begich winning another term is borderline ASB. He needed Tubes Stevens to be convicted of corruption a week before the election in 2008....and that conviction was ultimately tainted by layer revelations of gross prosecutorial misconduct.

Colorado should have been winnable. Udall ran a turrible campaign.

Louisiana? Just need the state GOP to nominate an awful candidate like they usually do.
 
Begich winning another term is borderline ASB.

It's hard for me to say that of any race won by 2.13 percentage points (47.96-45.83). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_in_Alaska,_2014 That means you just have to change the minds of 1.07 percent of the voters...

And it's not even totally inconceivable for the Alaska GOP to have nominated Joe Miller instead of Dan Sullivan (Sullivan in OTL got 40.05 percent of the GOP primary vote to 32.14 percent for Miller).
 
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