2014 Election

The keys to Tuesday's Senate elections, according to the two parties' top strategists

Millions of votes have been cast, the last ads have been cut, and there’s barely a household that remains blessedly untouched by the fight for the U.S. Senate. At some point, there is nothing left to do but wait. So with Election Night days away, the two parties’ top Senate strategists gathered Thursday in Washington to preview the drama that will unfold.

Much of the sparring between Rob Collins, executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and Guy Cecil, his counterpart at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, involved the ritual scramble to manage expectations. (Yes, we know both sides are optimistic about their chances—at least publicly, anyway.) But some big-picture themes emerged from the spin session between two parties’ top strategists. Here are four takeaways:

A tale of two frames

If Republicans retake the Senate, they have Barack Obama to thank. The GOP’s strategy in the battleground states was to make each election a referendum on the President, tying vulnerable Democratic incumbents to the policies of a chief executive whose approval ratings have sagged into the low 40s. “We have framed it through the prism of a group of incumbents voting with the President more than 90% of the time,” Collins said.

In contrast, Democrats have sought to localize these races, framing the contests as a choice between two candidates. “It’s clear the Republicans want to nationalize” the elections, Cecil said. “And it’s clear the Democrats want to make it about the two people on the ballot.”

Candidates matter

Inside the party committees and out, Republicans are gushing about their slate of Senate candidates this cycle. For the first time since 2008, no incumbent GOP Senator was toppled in a primary this year. That means no Todd Akins, no Sharron Angles—no challengers whose verbal missteps or outré positions dented party candidates up and down the ballot. “This is the best recruiting class in 30 years,” Collins said. Democrats are enthused by some of their recruits as well, especially Georgia’s Michelle Nunn, whom Cecil cited as the cycle’s best candidate.

And then there are the duds. Cecil called Nunn’s opponent, Republican businessman David Perdue, perhaps this year’s worst Republican candidate. Perdue’s competition for the ignominious title is Sen. Pat Roberts, the three-term GOP incumbent whose listless campaign cracked open the door for an unknown independent in blood-red Kansas. As for weak Democrats, Collins cited North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan as a candidate whose shortcomings were “hidden behind a big pile of money.”

The bellwethers say plenty about each side’s path to victory

On Election Night, Collins said, the GOP will be looking at North Carolina and New Hampshire as harbingers. Both are close states where the Democratic incumbents—Hagan and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, respectively—have led the whole way, only to see Republican challengers surge at the finish line. In contrast, Democrats are watching states like Alaska, Colorado, Iowa and Georgia. Democrats are even or behind in all of those contests, and just one—the Peach State—is a pickup opportunity for the President’s party. The bellwethers underscore just how much the map favors the GOP this year.

The money involved is massive

The two parties and their allied outside groups have carpet-bombed North Carolina, forking over more than $100 million on the Tar Heel State’s Senate contest. More than $55 million has been dropped on Alaska, a staggering sum in a state with cheap media markets and just 735,000 residents. And if Louisiana and Georgia go to runoffs? Expect the two sides to shell out another $35 million to $45 million apiece, Cecil predicted, if control of the Senate hangs in the balance. The DSCC has already reserved $10 million in television time in Louisiana. Which means the ad blitz may not let up until January after all.

Donors gave millions in races for governor, especially when they were the ones running

At least 29 donors have given $1 million or more to state-level campaigns so far this election, with a dozen of the big givers made up of self-funding candidates, according to an analysis of campaign finance data.

The other big donors to state campaigns in the 2014 election include billionaires, corporate giants, unions and nonprofit political groups. Each donor has shelled out more than 19 times the country’s median household income.

According to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of state records collected by the nonpartisan National Institute on Money in State Politics, top donors include:

• Illinois Republican candidate Bruce Rauner, who has given more than $14 million (* see below), mostly to fund his own campaign for governor;
• Pennsylvania Democrat Tom Wolf, who has used $10 million of his own money in an attempt to unseat unpopular incumbent Gov. Tom Corbett, a Republican;
• The Republican Governors Association, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that has given at least $9.6 million to gubernatorial candidates in at least six states;
• Arizona gubernatorial candidate Christine Jones, who gave more than $5.3 million, nearly all to fund her own campaign, only to lose in the Republican primary;
• And Chicago-based hedge fund manager Ken Griffin, who has given more than $4.7 million, mostly to Rauner in Illinois.

The analysis is preliminary — the totals will only go up as more contribution reports are filed in the states. In addition, the National Institute is still processing reports that have already come in. Less than 80 percent of those reports have been processed thus far this election cycle. Rauner (*) alone, for example, has given at least $12 million more for a total of $26 million, state records show.

Despite those limitations, the Center still identified at least 29 of these million-dollar donors who have given more than $84 million out of the more than $1 billion in the two-year, 2014 election cycle. The Center looked at reports processed by the National Institute through Oct. 29.

While the race for U.S. Senate has grabbed most of the national election headlines this year, much of the action is at the state level. Thirty-six governorships are on the ballot in addition to more than 200 other statewide races and thousands of statehouse contests.

And unlike at the federal level, some states allow unlimited contributions to candidates. In addition, several states also allow direct contributions from the treasuries of corporations and unions.

Seeding their own chances

Rauner, Wolf and Jones are just three of at least 12 candidates for state-level office who have poured at least $1 million into their own campaigns.

States can limit contributions to candidates, but there are no such limitations on how much a candidate can give to his or her own campaign. That gives wealthy individuals with political aspirations an advantage over less wealthy opponents, said Bill Rosenberg, a political science professor at Drexel University.

“If an individual wants to run for public office, and they can be self-financed and the parties view them as reasonable candidates,” Rosenberg said, “a lot of times the party will just step out of the way because they can take those financial resources and put them into other races.”

In the case of Rauner, his early contributions to his campaign may have helped him attract even more cash to his joint campaign with running mate Evelyn Sanguinetti, including at least $4.5 million from Griffin and $7 million from the Republican Governors Association.

“The millions reassured prospective donors that the Republican Party wasn’t going to have a flash in the pan here, that he was going to be in until the end, that he wasn’t going to get outspent,” said Brian Gaines, a political science professor at the University of Illinois.

Limitations on influence

But other donors who give directly to candidates often face strict limits.

In 21 states, corporations cannot give money to candidates’ campaigns, and 16 states ban unions from giving, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. (Unions and corporations can give through their political action committees, though contributions may be limited.)

Thirty-eight states cap the amount a person or group can give to a single candidate.

And until recently, donors in more than a dozen states were limited in how much money they could give overall in an election cycle. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down aggregate limits at the federal level in April, with its ruling in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission. States such as Connecticut and Wisconsin have pledged to not enforce the limits in state elections this year.

It’s not yet clear how far-reaching the impact of the decision may be on this election. Still, the existing contribution limits largely shape the way money pours into elections.

The two states seeing the highest number of donations to candidates from the mega-donors so far are Texas, where individuals and political action committees can give candidates as much as they want, and Illinois, whose governor’s race allows unlimited contributions this cycle.

Six-figure donations are the norm in marquee races in Texas.

This cycle, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican running for governor, received at least $900,000 from Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons, who died in December 2013. Energy tycoon Kelcy Warren has given Abbott at least $450,000, while telecommunications executive Kenny Troutt along with his wife, Lisa, has given him at least $350,000.

Such large-scale giving does not carry a stigma in Texas of trying to buy access, according to Mark P. Jones, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston. Instead, he said, it is “simply par for the course” in the Lone Star State.

“Large donations have little to no political blowback,” Jones said.

Under Illinois rules, if a candidate for statewide office contributes more than $250,000 to his or her own campaign, or if an outside group spends that amount supporting a candidate in the race, caps for contributions to a single candidate are thrown out in that race.

At first Rauner, the Republican gubernatorial candidate, avoided giving his opponent the chance for limitless fundraising by injecting $249,000, just below the threshold, into his campaign in March 2013.

But before the end of that year, Rauner gave his campaign another $1 million, pulling the plug on caps in the race. By now, the Republican nominee has contributed more than $26 million of his own money to his campaign, according to Illinois campaign finance records.

Rauner’s campaign did not respond to the Center’s request for comment.

His self-funding also cleared the path for incumbent Gov. Pat Quinn and his running mate to accept more than $3.6 million from the Democratic Governors Association, more than $755,000 from Chicago media mogul Fred Eychaner and millions from unions, including more than $1.2 million from a branch of the Service Employees International Union.

Getting around the limits

Even in states with contribution restrictions, well-heeled donors have found ways to give generously — and legally — to the candidates they favor.

In Pennsylvania, for example, corporations and unions can’t give directly to candidates, but they can give unlimited amounts of money if they establish a political action committee in the organization’s name. That’s how the Pennsylvania State Education Association, a state teachers union, gave $500,000 to Wolf’s gubernatorial campaign.

In New York, wealthy individuals can donate through multiple limited liability corporations to dodge the state’s $60,800 per cycle contribution limit for such businesses. Real estate magnate Leonard Litwin, for example, has given at least $1 million to Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo using this method, according to a recent report by the New York Public Interest Research Group. The original sources of such contributions, though, are not reflected in the National Institute on Money in State Politics’ data.

A representative for Litwin did not respond to requests for comment.

Sometimes the best way around the rules is to avoid them altogether by giving to independent groups instead of candidate campaigns. Thanks to the 2010 Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, and subsequent rulings, there is no limit to what a person, corporation or union can give to independently acting political organizations.

The tactic is widespread this election. Roughly a fifth of the television ads airing in state-level races this cycle were paid for by groups that operate independently from candidates’ official campaigns, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of data from media tracking firm Kantar Media/CMAG.

But many donors this cycle have given directly to candidates and helped fund outside political efforts beyond state-level races.

Eychaner, for example, may not make a list of million-dollar donors to candidates for state-level office this election. He has so far given at least $755,000 to Quinn in Illinois. But he has also given about $8 million to federal super PACs this year, according to the Federal Election Commission. In 2012, he was the largest Democratic donor to independent spending groups, having given $14 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

A representative for Eychaner declined to comment.

On the other side, Griffin was one of the five largest donors to the Washington, D.C.-based Republican Governors Association in the first nine months of this year, according to the group’s latest tax filing.

A representative for Griffin declined to comment.

Why do they give?

For individual donors, there are several likely reasons why they may give to candidates’ campaigns, said Loyola Law School Professor Justin Levitt.

For some, political ideology is a motivating factor, Levitt said. For others, large contributions are a way for donors to thrust themselves into the public consciousness. Still others are looking to gain favor with the people who could end up regulating their business interests. Sometimes, it’s a combination of the three.

Though some corporations are ideologically motivated, most businesses’ political donations are effectively “bet hedging,” he said.

Cable television giant Comcast Corp. parceled out at least $1.2 million in donations to candidates for state-level office in 36 states, often with as little as $100 given to the campaign of a legislative candidate.

“We believe that it’s important to be involved in the political process,” said Comcast spokeswoman Sena Fitzmaurice. “There are probably thousands of bills and regulatory state actions every year that affect the company.”

Fitzmaurice said the company tends to give across party lines and mostly to incumbents.

The company gave to Democrats in 28 states, Republicans in 31 states and at least one independent in Alabama, the Center’s analysis shows.

Where the company directs its political donations could depend on factors such as whether an election could shift party control of a state legislature or whether a state is considering regulatory action, Fitzmaurice said.

“For a corporation, making a donation may well be laying a bed of good will for legislators or regulators down the line, either to prevent unfavorable legislation or to try and get favorable legislation,” Levitt said. “It’s not uncommon at all for legislators, at least, to do a mental check of whether they’ve received a contribution before they decide exactly how badly they want to schedule a particular meeting.”

Liz Essley Whyte contributed to this report.

Sen. Angus King now backs the Democrat, saying the independent candidate can't win

Maine’s independent voters are being urged by two of their own to support the Democratic gubernatorial candidate in order to stave off the re-election of the state’s conservative Republican governor.

Independent Sen. Angus King switched his endorsement from independent Eliot Cutler to Democratic Rep. Mike Michaud in the state’s three-way race for the governor’s mansion. The announcement followed a Cutler press conference Wednesday in which he said Mainers should “vote their conscience” in the Nov. 4 election, a seeming admission that he can’t win.

King, who served two terms as governor, said he still likes Cutler, but he cited realpolitik as the reason for his switch.

“My feelings about Eliot on these matters have not changed since I endorsed his candidacy four years ago and again this past August,” said King. “But, like Eliot, I too am a realist. After many months considering the issues and getting to know the candidates, it is clear that the voters of Maine are not prepared to elect Eliot in 2014.”

King said that he had worked with Michaud for 20 years and that he has “what it takes to be Maine’s next governor.”

The moves Wednesday will likely shore up support for Michaud even though Cutler has not dropped out of the race. On Tuesday, the Republican Governor’s Association released an ad reminding voters that King didn’t endorse Michaud. LePage has struggled in his bid for reelection and is in a neck and neck race with Michaud. Cutler, who lost to LePage by less than two points in another three-way race four years ago, has done even worse, polling recently between seven and 16 percent, according to Real Clear Politics.

“This was not an easy decision, but I think the circumstances require that those of us who have supported Eliot look realistically at the options before us at this critical moment in Maine history,” said King.

The race is not the only one in the nation where the top two candidates have been trying to edge out a potential spoiler. Chad Taylor, the Kansas Democrat running for Senate, announced last month that he would withdraw from the race, boosting independent Greg Orman’s bid to unseat Republican Sen. Pat Roberts. And in South Dakota, Democrat Rick Weiland complained this week that national party members failed him in focusing their attacks on Republican Mike Rounds—giving Independent Larry Pressler a reprieve—instead of fueling his own candidacy.

Both of their shows will broadcast and livestream on Election Night

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are not only broadcasting live episodes of their shows on Election Day, but the specials have—hands down—the best names.

CNN’s “Election Night in America” sounds downright boring when compared to The Daily Show’s “Democalypse 2014: America Remembers It Forgot to Vote” and The Colbert Report’s “Midterms ‘014: Detour to Gridlock: An Exciting Thing That I Am Totally Interested In—Wait! Don’t Change the Channel. Look at this Video of a Duckling Following a Cat Dressed Like a Shark Riding a Roomba! ‘014!”

No, seriously. That’s what it’s called.

The coverage will air back-to-back on election night on Comedy Central. Viewers can also stream coverage on Comedy Central’s website and mobile app. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus is scheduled to appear on The Daily Show.

Campaign says "there is no scandal here”

The Republican Senate candidate in Iowa copied-and-pasted large portions of her op-eds in local newspapers from other sources, according to a new report.

BuzzFeed, citing side-by-side comparisons of the offending articles and source material, reports that many of the op-eds Joni Ernst wrote for local papers as a state Senator contained large swaths of text from summaries sent to many state legislators. Some of Ernst’s work also reportedly contains lines from speeches and news releases by Gov. Terry Brandstand. BuzzFeed presents several of the passages containing nearly identical text for comparison.

The Ernst campaign told BuzzFeed these instances are taken from pieces created “for the express purpose of reproduction” and they are “no different than what virtually every state lawmaker in the nation does, including Iowa Democrats.”

“Despite BuzzFeed’s every effort, there is no scandal here,” the campaign said.

Ernst, who’s facing Democratic Rep. Bruce Braley in a tight Senate race in the state, is just the latest politician to be caught up in allegations of plagiarism. In recent years at least three politicians have been accused of lifting other people’s words and calling them their own, including Republican Sen. Rand Paul. Earlier in October, Democratic Sen. John Walsh had his master’s degree revoked after the U.S. Army War College found he plagiarized an important academic paper.

[BuzzFeed]

Haters are gonna hate hate hate, but everyone likes Taylor Swift

It can be pretty exhausting to go on Facebook these days. Your Republican friends are arguing about Ebola, while your Democratic friends are posting angry comments about voter ID. And there’s still another week of gaffes, controversies and debates until Election Day.

Here’s the solution: Talk about Taylor Swift.

According to data released by Facebook on Tuesday, the pop phenom is almost equally liked by supporters of both Republican and Democratic candidates. To do the study, Facebook looked at the favorite books, landmarks, bands, TV shows and authors of people who liked specific political candidates.

The results weren’t surprising for hardened partisans. Democrats like The Color Purple, the Empire State Building, the Beatles, The Daily Show and Maya Angelou. Republicans like Atlas Shrugged, George Washington’s Mount Vernon plantation, George Strait, Duck Dynasty and Dr. Ben Carson.

But it was surprising which cultural interests managed to hit the sweet spot right in the middle. Supporters of Republican and Democratic candidates both tended to like the Old Farmer’s Almanac, the Jersey Shore, AC/DC, The Big Bang Theory and mystery novelist James Patterson.

TV was the great equalizer. Pretty much everyone equally liked shows as diverse as House, Sons of Anarchy and Grey’s Anatomy.

So if you want to change the subject from politics as the days tick down to the midterm elections, just talk about television or Taylor Swift instead and you’ll be fine.

His leadership of a bipartisan group just led him into a sticky situation in Colorado

As a rule, Sen. Joe Manchin will not campaign against a sitting Republican senator. A month ago, the West Virginia Democrat called the practice a “horrible precedent,” according to Politico, saying it would hurt his ability to cross the aisle if he were out there on the campaign trail tossing red meat to the crowd.

But thanks to his co-chairmanship of No Labels, a bipartisan group of lawmakers, Manchin is now in charge of a get-out-the-vote operation against a sitting senator from his own party.

On Monday, Real Clear Politics reported that No Labels “will be staging independent Get Out The Vote efforts to support our Problem Solver members,” including Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), who is trying to unseat Colorado Democratic Sen. Mark Udall in one of the tightest races this year. Gardner, who was ranked as one of the most conservative members of Congress last year, has received the group’s “Seal of Approval” and touted his endorsement as a shorthand for his ability to work with Democrats.

Manchin’s spokesman says he was caught by surprise by No Labels recent efforts to back Gardner, even though the group endorsed the Colorado candidate back in April.

“Senator Manchin 100 percent supports Senator Udall and will do anything he can do to help him win his election, because he believes that moderates like Senator Udall can help move this country forward,” says Manchin communications director Jonathan Kott. “Senator Manchin just learned about the actions of No Labels and does not agree with this approach. He is going to discuss this with No Labels and will take the appropriate actions.”

Udall’s campaign was not fazed, however.

“We’ve opened 24 field offices, hired 100 organizers and recruited more than 5,000 volunteers,” says Chris Harris, a spokesman for the Udall campaign. “Let’s just say we’re not too concerned about anything resembling a field effort that can be cobbled together in the final week of the campaign.”

Gardner is ahead by around 3 points, according to a Real Clear Politics aggregation of polls.

The GOP has won the last five statewide runoffs in the Peach State

If Georgia’s Senate race goes into overtime, the safe bet is on the Republicans. But if that runoff election will determine control of the Senate, it’s anyone’s game.

Elections handicappers are increasingly confident that the contest between Republican businessman David Perdue and Democratic philanthropist Michelle Nunn won’t be decided on November 4. History favors Republicans in a rematch, which would be held on January 6, three days after lawmakers take their oaths of office.

Republicans have won the past five statewide runoff contests by doing a better job turning out their base in the conservative-leaning state.

In 2008—the last Senate runoff in the state—Republican Saxby Chambliss won the first ballot by three percent of the vote, and then a month later trounced his Democratic opponent Jim Martin in the runoff by 15 points. Republicans were boosted in part by the lower turnout, which was around 57 percent of the number of voters who cast ballots in the same Senate race a month earlier.

“I think Michelle needs to win on November 4,” says University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock. “I think it’s going to be really difficult for her afterwards.”

To win, Bullock says that Nunn would have to have “strong mobilization” from the African-American community and improve her support from white women, who are much more likely to vote for a Democrat than white men. Bullock sees white voters as the group that could doom Nunn.

“Overall from all the projections I’m seeing from the polls, none of that show her getting 30% of the white vote,” says Bullock. “So if she can’t do that I don’t think there’s any way she can pull it out.”

Another reason Nunn would fare worse in a runoff is Libertarian Amanda Swafford, who recently has been polling between one and six percent. Swafford’s support has been strong enough to keep Nunn and Perdue below the majority threshold needed to win outright on the first ballot. Andra Gillespie, a political science professor at Emory University says that Republicans would likely benefit from Libertarians coming to their side in a runoff, on top of the “party ID advantage” they already have in the state.

But both Gillespie and Bullock see a path forward for Nunn, as the media spotlight could turn to Georgia if it turns out to hold the key to a Senate majority. A recent CNN poll even showed Nunn with a 51% to 47% edge over Perdue in a hypothetical runoff, although the polling model took into account a November electorate instead of a likely smaller one.

“Both parties will pull out all the stops to win Georgia, and the outcome would be anyone’s guess,” says Gillespie of a runoff race for the Senate majority.

Democrats remain hopeful that Nunn—a political neophyte with the backing of her father, former Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn—will win in November despite the state’s reddish cast.

“Her best chance is to win it outright,” says the former Senate Democratic candidate Martin, who now works as an adjunct faculty member at Georgia State University College of Law. “[But] Georgia’s changed and the political environment has changed … A young, energetic, new leader both in the gubernatorial race [Democratic candidate Jason Carter] and in the Senate race attracts people no matter what their age. People like youth and enthusiasm and optimism.”

He is not the only Democrat in trouble with the one demographic Democrats bet would save them the midterms

If you live in Colorado, you might be forgiven for thinking the 2014 midterm elections are about one thing: abortion. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee on Monday released a new television ad hitting GOP Rep. Cory Gardner, who is challenging Sen. Mark Udall for his Colorado seat, for not “being honest with women.”

“Cory Gardner is trying to hide that he is sponsoring a new law to make all abortions illegal, even for victims of rape or incest,” says the DSCC release. The ad features OB-GYN Dr. Eliza Buyers, who slams Gardner: “Cory Gardner is wrong to make abortion illegal and just as wrong not to tell the truth about it.”

Udall himself has two other ads up targeting female voters. In one, another Colorado OB-GYN talks about Gardner’s “long record of fighting to roll back women’s access to health care.” And a second ad calls out Gardner “for personhood lies.” About half the ads he has run again Gardner have highlighted what Democrats call Gardner’s extreme stances on women’s reproductive rights.

The problem is Gardner refuses to play along. In March, he retracted his support for a measure on so-called personhood, or the belief that life begins at the moment of conception, and has since backed making contraception—though not all forms of it—available over the counter.

Now, with a week to go before the election, Udall is down 2.8 percentage points in polls, according to an average of Colorado polls by Real Clear Politics. More troublingly he’s down amongst female voters in at least two polls. If Udall loses women, he’s lost his seat.

Udall’s narrow focus helped cost him the support of the Denver Post, the state’s largest paper. “Rather than run on his record, Udall’s campaign has devoted a shocking amount of energy and money trying to convince voters that Gardner seeks to outlaw birth control despite the congressman’s call for over-the-counter sales of contraceptives,” the Post said in its endorsement of Gardner. “Udall is trying to frighten voters rather than inspire them with a hopeful vision. His obnoxious one-issue campaign is an insult to those he seeks to convince.”

And Udall isn’t the only Democrat struggling to turn the focus on women into a winning strategy. In Kentucky, Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes is even with Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell with women, as is Sen. Mark Pryor, a Democrat fending off a strong GOP challenge from Rep. Tom Cotton in Arkansas. Like Udall, both Grimes and Pryor have invested heavily in turning out the women’s vote.

The “War on Women” is a playbook Democrats ran successfully in 2012, with significant assists from GOP senatorial candidates Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock whose inopportune remarks on women and rape helped paint the party as out-of-touch on female issues. Unfortunately for Democrats, there have been no Akin and Murdoch repeats and candidates like Gardner have been much savvier in their messaging on women’s issues.

“A myopic focus on reproductive freedom and the ‘War on the Women’ does not seem to be an effective way to mobilize and motivate women in a year when the economy and jobs are at the forefront of voters’ minds, and GOP candidates have not made the same kinds of mistakes that Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock did in 2012,” says Jennifer Lawless, director of American University’s Women & Politics Institute. “In other words, courting the women’s vote is a smart move; the way several Democrats have gone about doing it has been not so smart.”

To be fair, the strategy is clearly working in other states like North Carolina, Georgia and New Hampshire where Democrats hold double-digit leads with women. And Colorado is notoriously difficult to poll. A Democratic poll released Monday showed Udall up by 9 points amongst female voters. Matt Canter, a spokesman for the DSCC, says that Colorado’s move to an all-mail voting system this cycle favors Democrats. Canter also noted that in the early voting returns thus far many female voters who did not vote in 2010 but did in 2012 are already turning out for Udall. “Public polls in Colorado were wrong in 2012 on Mitt Romney and they were wrong in 2010 on failed GOP Senate contender] Ken Buck,” says Canter. “We believe we maintain a strong advantage with women and that advantage is important for all these races.”

Certainly, Democrat Michael Bennet’s race against Buck is the template for Udall’s tough reelection. “In 2010 Michael Bennet was able to survive a midterm election in which Democrats lost their House majority in what Obama called a shellacking losing a record 63 seats and they barely hung onto Senate control because of his strength with women voters,” says Michele Swers, an associate professor at Georgetown University who specializes in women in U.S. politics. “Udall is trying to replicate that.”

The problem is, unless Udall’s polls are to be believed, “the gender gap in this race isn’t as great as it has been in past Senate races, notably 2008 and 2010,” says Jennifer Duffy, who follows Senate races for the non-partisan Cook Political Report.

Arguably, the focus on turning out the women’s vote has kept 2014 from being a wave year: the only seats in play are in purple or red states, not blue ones. Progressive Sen. Al Franken, for example, is sailing through to reelection in Minnesota.

But unmarried women, the demographic Udall is targeting, are notoriously bad drop off voters in non-presidential years and clearly they seem to be motivated in some states more so than others. Udall has bet his race on turning them out. If they fail to materialize, Democrats will have to ask themselves: Was winning women the right strategy for all of their races? And when does it work and when doesn’t it and why?