The GOP's Government Shutdown Has Hurt Their Chances Of Taking The Senate

Just a few weeks ago, the Republicans were still talking about their chances of flipping the U.S. Senate in the 2014 election, and taking control of both parts of Congress. To do that, they would need to win six seats and hold on to all the seats they currently have. They thought they had a very good chance of winning all of the states in the chart above -- Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, Louisiana, Arkansas, and North Carolina. If they did, they would be well on the way to taking control of the Senate.

But then their ideology got in the way of their desires. To appease the ultra-right-wing elements of their own party, which controls the GOP in many states, they shut down the United States government in an effort to kill the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) by defunding it. They were sure the public would support their action. They were wrong, and now it looks like that shutdown may have hurt their chances to win the Senate. Note that the general public in all six of the above states have a significant majority opposing the shutdown of the government.

A new survey of those six states has been taken by Public Policy Polling on October 14th and 15th. The survey polled 955 voters in Arkansas (moe 3.2 points), 707 voters in Georgia (moe 3.7 points), 634 voters in Iowa (moe 3.9 points), 632 voters in Louisiana (moe 3.9 points), 642 voters in Michigan (moe 3.9 points), and 837 voters in North Carolina (moe 3.4 points).

The results of that survey will not make the GOP happy. They are trailing in five of the states, and tied in the other (Georgia, which they expected to win easily). Here are the results:

GEORGIA
Michelle Nunn (D)...............42%
Republican...............42%
Unsure...............15%

ARKANSAS
Mark Pryor (D)...............44%
Tom Cotton (R)...............41%
Unsure...............15%

IOWA
Bruce Braley (D)...............45%
Republican...............41%
Unsure...............14%

LOUISIANA
Mary Landrieu (D)...............48%
Bill Cassidy (R)...............41%
Unsure...............11%

MICHIGAN
Gary Peters (D)...............43%
Terri Lynn Land (R)...............36%
Unsure...............21%

NORTH CAROLINA
Kay Hagan (D)...............47%
Republican...............42%
Unsure...............11%

Those numbers are bad enough for Republicans, considering these were all states they thought they had an excellent chance of winning. But it gets even worse for them. When informed that the likely GOP candidates had supported the shutdown of the federal government, the numbers got better for the Democrats (and you can bet the Democrats will be reminding voters of that during the campaign). Here are those numbers:

GEORGIA
Nunn (D)...............48%
Republican...............42%
Unsure...............10%

ARKANSAS
Pryor (D)...............45%
Cotton (R)...............42%
Unsure...............13%

IOWA
Braley (D)...............46%
Republican...............39%
Unsure...............15%

LOUISIANA
Landrieu (D)...............52%
Cassidy (R)...............42%
Unsure...............6%

MICHIGAN
Peters (D)...............50%
Land (R)...............36%
Unsure...............13%

NORTH CAROLINA
Hagan (D)...............49%
Republican...............41%
Unsure...............9%