For months, Missouri barely registered in the 2016 battle for Senate control: It’s a conservative state with a solid Republican incumbent in Sen. Roy Blunt. But an unexpectedly strong Democratic recruit, Jason Kander, has put the state in play — prompting a Karl Rove-backed group to spend $800,000 to keep the seat in GOP hands.

Across the border in Kentucky, things haven’t gone as well for Democrats. The party’s best hope of unseating Republican Sen. Rand Paul evaporated last week when the Democratic state auditor lost his reelection campaign.


One year out from Election Day, neither party claims a clear upper hand in the showdown for the Senate. Democrats have an early edge in Illinois and Wisconsin, while some Republican incumbents who expected serious primary or general election challenges are still breathing easy. The biggest battlegrounds remain the same as at the outset of the election cycle: Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Nevada and New Hampshire.

The real drama now is in the search for quality candidates.

Democrats notched early recruitment successes across the board, even as they’ve come up painfully empty in other places where they should be competitive. Efforts in the coming weeks to land top-flight candidates — in states like North Carolina for Democrats, and Colorado for Republicans — are critical.





Democrats need to pick up five seats (or four if they win the White House) and are working aggressively to expand the map and capitalize on what they hope will be a Hillary Clinton wave. Republicans acknowledge the landscape tilts heavily against them but believe most of their incumbents are well positioned.

“I’m feeling very, very good. But we’re a year out,” said Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, who leads the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm. “A year is an eternity in politics.”

The stakes are high for both parties, but particularly for Democrats. In 2016, Republicans are defending 24 seats vs. Democrats’ 10. In 2018, a midterm year that generally favors the GOP, Democrats will play defense in 25 states. Only eight Republican-held seats will be on the ballot.

So even if Democrats win control next year, unless it’s by a big margin, Republicans will be favored to win it back in 2018.

The issues that will animate 2016 general election races won’t crystallize for months, after voters pick presidential nominees. Today, both parties are focused on getting the right candidates, raising loads of money and, for Republicans, hoping their presidential standard-bearer is someone with purple-state appeal.

“In 2012, one reason that we weren’t successful in picking up the majority … was the top of the ticket was a drag,” Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, a former National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman, said of Mitt Romney. “I’m hoping to reverse that.”

Democrats have five incumbents at the top of their target list — GOP Sens. Mark Kirk of Illinois, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Rob Portman of Ohio, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire — as well as open seats in Nevada and Florida.

From there, they’re hoping to put longer-shot states in play.

In Arkansas, they believe they have a strong candidate in former U.S. Attorney Conner Eldridge to take on Republican Sen. John Boozman. In Arizona, they’re optimistic that Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick can give Republican Sen. John McCain a tough challenge.

But Democrats have whiffed so far in North Carolina, failing to land a strong challenger to take on Republican Sen. Richard Burr. And in Indiana, Democratic former Rep. Baron Hill has failed to impress D.C. insiders.

For now, Iowa, Alaska and Georgia are, glaringly, off the board entirely, safely in the GOP column.

Republicans scoff at the idea that Democrats are assembling an impressive candidate slate, labeling the opposition’s lineup as a group of “rookies” — like the 34-year-old Kander, Missouri’s secretary of state, and Eldridge — and “retreads” like former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland and former Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold, who are attempting comebacks after losing in 2010.

It’s also unlikely all the red-state recruits Democrats are touting will be able to mount credible campaigns.

But the Democratic strategy is clear: Create enough competitive races that Republicans feel forced to spend all over the country. Democrats tried the same tack unsuccessfully in 2014, but they hope it works better if Clinton is on the ballot.

“I don’t blame ’em one bit,” said Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), chairman of the NRSC. “We take every state seriously. So no, you’ll never hear me saying we’re a lock in a certain geographic area or a certain state.”

Republicans have precious few opportunities to win Democratic-held seats. In the race for retiring Minority Leader Harry Reid’s seat in Nevada, GOP Rep. Joe Heck is seen as a strong recruit to go up against former Democratic state Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, whom Reid is going all-out to elect.

But the GOP hasn’t landed a candidate against Sen. Michael Bennet in Colorado, their best shot at putting Democrats on the defensive. Wicker pledged to find “someone who is every bit as electable as [GOP Sen.] Cory Gardner,” the party’s best Senate recruit last year who defeated Democratic incumbent Mark Udall.

The biggest surprise for Democrats so far is Kander.

He’s drawing attention from both sides. Republicans call him Jason “Pander” and have a staffer in a panda suit following him around. After Reid attended a joint event in late October with five Democratic hopefuls — Kander, Cortez Masto, Strickland, and Reps. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and Patrick Murphy of Florida — the Democratic leader singled out Kander.

“I love all five of them — but the man that was stunning in his approach and in his speech was Jason Kander,” Reid said in an interview. “That guy is good.”

One top Missouri Democrat gave Kander a 45 percent chance of unseating Blunt, a skilled legislator and fundraiser with decades-deep connections to national Republicans. Senate Majority PAC, a big-spending Democratic group, is also taking interest in Kander, who has sought to distance himself from President Barack Obama by opposing some of his environmental policies and the nuclear deal with Iran.





Blunt declined to discuss the race, perhaps not wanting to further elevate Kander by showing concern. But to hear Kander tell it, the GOP is already running scared.

“[That] Republicans have started to spend an awful lot of money a year before the election means that I’m probably making some pretty good progress,” said Kander, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan.

McCain showed no such reluctance discussing his likely Democratic foe. In an interview, he spoke glowingly of Kirkpatrick, calling her a “formidable candidate and well-qualified.” And he admitted that the pitchforks are out for longtime members of Congress.

“There’s tremendous dissatisfaction out there,” said McCain, who remains a clear favorite to keep his seat. “You’ve got to be nervous.”

At a recent Democratic Party dinner in Phoenix alongside liberal icon Nancy Pelosi, Kirkpatrick suggested she won’t distance herself from her party to improve her chances in the Republican-leaning state.

“You won’t see me on the Sunday morning talk shows bashing our president,” she said.

But Democrats trying to play in conservative states will probably need to show some daylight from Obama. Tester won’t say whether he is urging the president to campaign with his candidates.

Arkansas also strongly favors the GOP, but Democrats believe they can make it competitive. Boozman has been privately criticized by Republicans for lackluster fundraising, especially after Eldridge outraised him over the summer. In an interview, the soft-spoken Boozman said Eldridge is too close to Obama and state Democrats. But the first-term senator acknowledged he’s likely to be outspent because of Eldridge’s wealthy father-in-law.

“It makes it much easier now to raise money because people didn’t realize that I had an opponent and really didn’t feel like I was vulnerable,” Boozman said.

The Eldridge campaign believes anti-establishment sentiment and the likely presence of a Clinton on the ballot help its cause. It also sees Boozman as underwhelming, far less impressive than Tom Cotton, who beat Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor by 17 percentage points last year.

But in other, far more winnable states, the Democrats are falling short. Burr, the North Carolina Republican, has low approval ratings and could be vulnerable against a strong Democrat. But former Sen. Kay Hagan, former Rep. Heath Shuler and Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx have all passed on the race.

And in Georgia, where Sen. Johnny Isakson is up for reelection, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee failed to persuade state House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams to get into the contest. The Rev. Raphael Warnock, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, also opted not to run. Michelle Nunn, once viewed as a strong voice in the party, is wounded after losing in 2014 and appears unlikely to run again.

The defeat of Kentucky state Auditor Adam Edelen, once thought to be a tough opponent for Paul, could forecast an easy reelection campaign and spoil Democratic hopes of forcing Paul out of the presidential race. The Democratic bench in the state is thin, but D.C. Republicans were nervous about Paul’s standing.

“It was a completely concocted story in Washington,” Paul said of the idea he could face a competitive reelection bid. “We’ve never perceived a problem.”

Other than Nevada, the GOP has few pickup opportunities and it shows: Its candidate to challenge Sen. Patty Murray in Washington state, former state party chairman Chris Vance, was outraised $1.2 million to $14,000 in the third quarter of the year. The NRSC has talked to CNBC host Larry Kudlow about challenging Sen. Richard Blumenthal in Connecticut, but early polls have shown Blumenthal crushing the former Reagan economic official.

Lauren French contributed to this report.

