A Bluffer’s Guide To the Midterms

O.K., you: put away that article about 2016/Hillary/Benghazi/Monica Lewinsky/Rand Paul/Rick Perry, and listen up. The Congressional midterms are less than six months away, and this stuff is important. Who would you rather have running the Senate? Mitch (“Let’s make Obama a one-term President”) McConnell or Harry (“Sheldon Adelson’s not such a bad guy”) Reid? Even if you’d rather not answer that question, you need to pay attention. At some point in the next few months, somebody is going to ask you this question: Does Mary Landrieu, Kay Hagan, or Michelle Nunn have the better chance of winning? And you’d better have something to say.

Here, then, is a bluffers’ guide to the over-all contest, the key races, the latest polling data, and the big unknowns. (Next week, I’ll follow up with a post on the models behind the forecasts.)

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