There's been a lot of talk about film and TV actor Ashley Judd's possible run for US Senate in Kentucky. My friends Nate Cohn and Steve Kornacki do a good job dissecting her chances. They're not good.
But it's not that Judd is some sort of political liability, more that she's a victim of circumstance: the chances are quite low that any Democratic challenger can beat an incumbent Republican in the upcoming Senate races.
For a long time, Senate seats have increasingly become a reflection of a state's presidential inclinations. When George HW Bush was running for president, 20 years ago, 49% of the Senate's Democratic seats came from states where Bush did better than his national average. That percentage is down to 25% today. Republicans, meanwhile, have lost seats in blue states, dropping from 25% to 16% over those two decades.
In 2014, Republicans will be defending 14 seats, all except one being in states that Mitt Romney won in 2012. Of those 13, Romney's slimmest margin of victory was in Georgia, which he won by a still handsome 8pt. The only blue state with an incumbent Republican in 2014 is Maine, and there, the GOP will have a problem if she doesn't run. Susan Collins is a heavy favorite to win there: she holds a 63% approval rating and leads her closest hypothetical opponent by 25pt.
This state math, however, likely undersells Republicans chances of holding onto their seats. There's often talk of a midterm penalty in House races, which is the notion that the party in the White House suffers in midterm elections. That rule did not apply so severely in Senate races prior to 1980: the White House's party gained seats in the 1962 and 1970 midterms, for instance.
As polarization in Congress has reached record levels over the last 30 years, though, midterm elections have increasingly reflected the midterm penalty rule. Since 1980, the opposition party has found a silver lining in being stuck outside the White House: during midterms, only once have they lost more congressional seats than they won.
That exception took place in 2002: the Democrats lost seats in both the Senate and House – as a reflection of President Bush's post-9/11 +60% approval rating. President Obama hasn't hit 60% approval since 2009.
You might wonder whether this rule operates for individual seats, rather than net gain. Well, it pretty much holds. The opposition party successfully defended 18 of 19 seats in 1982; 11 of 12 in 1986; 17 of 17 in 1990; 13 of 13 in 1994; 13 of 16 in 1998; 11 of 14 in 2002; 16 for 16 in 2006; and 18 for 18 in 2010.
That's a grand total of eight seats out of 125, just 6%, changing hands in the past eight midterms. In years when the president's approval rating was lower than 60%, the opposing party succeeded in holding 93 out of 95 seats, a success rate of 98%.
And if we focus on candidates running where their party did well in the presidential race? This category would include all 2014 Republican seats, except for the one held by Susan Collins. Since 1982, the opposition party has lost only three of 77 seats – a little less than 4%.
Let's narrow it down further, to only races in which the incumbent ran for re-election. Except for Georgia's Saxby Chambliss and Nebraska's Mike Johanns, all Republican incumbents are running for re-election, at least at this point. The incumbents include, of course, Mitch McConnell, who has to defend his seat in Kentucky.
Of these senators, only one incumbent out of 63 has gone down since 1982: Lauch Faircloth, in 1998. For those who don't remember, Faircloth was a protege of the very conservative Jesse Helms. He lost to John Edwards, who was then a trial lawyer.
Without controlling for incumbency, the odds get even worse for the president's party when he can't break a 60% approval rating. Since 1982, there have been 57 elections in which the opposition held a seat in a state more partial to their party's presidential candidate than the national vote. The opposition party lost none of those 57 elections.
None of these numbers should comfort Democrat challengers in 2014. The chances for any Democrat to win a red state (or for a Republican to win in a blue one) have decreased dramatically over the past 20 years. If you're challenging a candidate from the opposition party in a midterm, your chances drop to around 4%. If you're also facing an incumbent, your odds inch even closer to nil.
Only two states with Republican senators should look at all appetizing to the Democrats in 2014: Maine – and then, only if Susan Collins retires – and Georgia, which is the least red of the Romney states that will voting in 2014, and where Senator Saxby Chambliss is bidding farewell to his seat. Thus, should she choose to run, don't expect Ashley Judd to win. But I also don't think any Democrat could win.