Ex-CO governor is all but certain to declare. I'm bumping up CO to Lean D. He's not the strongest but he's "moderate" for a DEM and has half a brain. He'll go work out at a gym, like Josh did, to avoid being damaged in the primary and lean on the vote being split. He'll then pivot like crazy to the center knowing that if the Presidential contest is not competitive Trump loses CO by 10% and it wouldn't matter what he does. If it is competitive the left wing DEMs will vote for him anyway to stop Trump from getting a vote in the Senate (every vote matters a lot, Kav barely passed because the AK Rhino would vote no and no-one wants to be the "one"); while he picks off moderate voters from Gardner and suppresses his turnout.
The situation hasn't really changed anywhere else. Collins approval rating isn't impressive but most of the drop came from Republicans who will vote for her anyway especially with ranked-choice ballot. I'm bumping up KY and VA to solid through. They could flip in a great year but if that happens the rest of my map is wrong. The challengers being weak in those states pushed me over the top. I thought about adding a "safe" category to my ratings to deal with situations like that but that category doesn't make sense because every seat could come into play because it's always possible for something dumb to happen: dumb last-second third party write-in campaign or someone getting caught with $90,000 in the freezer. I will change the descriptor to "all but certain to win" for Solid seats through.
As for my for-fun tilt ratings I'm confident in NC. Don't know where to place AZ in a vacuum but GOP getting a free pass in MT inflates their chances for it goes tilt R (edit: meant tilt D). Bullock is by far the most likely person to be successfully recruited and he would sink MT from solid to tilt R. I also think Kobach is likely to win KS primary due to no runoff but eek out a general election victory because of enthusiasm gap being less, the fact that the only senator that matters is the 50th Senator and the DEM nominee being Pro-Choice will hurt a lot more because of that person having to sit in committee with GOP if they win (they are ether lying about respecting the committee/GOP or they are lying believing that being Pro-Life is unacceptable).
Overall Senate rating: Tossup/Tilt R. If the DEMs have a reasonably good year they win AZ&NC and only have to eek out a victory in only one more state and there's a lot of states up for GOP. The DEMs only needing a reasonably good year is enough to push it below Lean R but nowhere close to Tilt D. GOP has a slight edge still.
Solid: All but certain to win.
Likely: I almost call it.
Lean: Clear edge.
Tossup. Everything else. The tilt rating is just for fun in an attempt to guess everything; too subjective and based on intuition/emotion to be serious.
The situation hasn't really changed anywhere else. Collins approval rating isn't impressive but most of the drop came from Republicans who will vote for her anyway especially with ranked-choice ballot. I'm bumping up KY and VA to solid through. They could flip in a great year but if that happens the rest of my map is wrong. The challengers being weak in those states pushed me over the top. I thought about adding a "safe" category to my ratings to deal with situations like that but that category doesn't make sense because every seat could come into play because it's always possible for something dumb to happen: dumb last-second third party write-in campaign or someone getting caught with $90,000 in the freezer. I will change the descriptor to "all but certain to win" for Solid seats through.
As for my for-fun tilt ratings I'm confident in NC. Don't know where to place AZ in a vacuum but GOP getting a free pass in MT inflates their chances for it goes tilt R (edit: meant tilt D). Bullock is by far the most likely person to be successfully recruited and he would sink MT from solid to tilt R. I also think Kobach is likely to win KS primary due to no runoff but eek out a general election victory because of enthusiasm gap being less, the fact that the only senator that matters is the 50th Senator and the DEM nominee being Pro-Choice will hurt a lot more because of that person having to sit in committee with GOP if they win (they are ether lying about respecting the committee/GOP or they are lying believing that being Pro-Life is unacceptable).
Overall Senate rating: Tossup/Tilt R. If the DEMs have a reasonably good year they win AZ&NC and only have to eek out a victory in only one more state and there's a lot of states up for GOP. The DEMs only needing a reasonably good year is enough to push it below Lean R but nowhere close to Tilt D. GOP has a slight edge still.
Solid: All but certain to win.
Likely: I almost call it.
Lean: Clear edge.
Tossup. Everything else. The tilt rating is just for fun in an attempt to guess everything; too subjective and based on intuition/emotion to be serious.
![[Image: hurricane.jpg]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/1/view/4t2kttistar9200/Public/hurricane.jpg)
