Nate Silver analyzes the latest Senate fundraising totals:
Among the most hopeful signs for Democrats this year have been the strong fundraising totals for their Senate candidates. Through June 30, the Democratic incumbent Mark Udall of Colorado had raised $7.9 million in individual contributions to $3.2 million for his Republican opponent, Cory Gardner. In Iowa through the same date, Democrat Bruce Braley had raised almost three times as much ($5.6 million) as his opponent, Republican Joni Ernst ($2.1 million).
But the latest numbers show Republican fundraising catching up with, and sometimes surpassing, Democratic totals in Iowa, Colorado and other key states. … FiveThirtyEight’s Senate forecast model uses fundraising totals as one of the “fundamentals” factors it analyzes along with the polls. The fundamentals receive little weight in the model at this stage of the race, but they nevertheless help to explain some of the polling movement we’ve seen in certain states.
At this point, should the Democrats pull off an upset, Charlie Cook will largely credit their ground game:
There is no question that while the 2004 Bush-Cheney reelection campaign had the most sophisticated voter-identification and get-out-the-vote presidential campaign operation in history, the GOP’s state-of-the-art capabilities atrophied over the next eight years, with the Obama-Biden campaign outgunning the Republicans greatly in both 2008 and 2012. Earlier this year, Senate Democrats announced a $60 million voter-ID and GOTV program (labeled the Bannock Street Project) with the goal of paying 4,000 workers to use techniques employed by DSCC Chairman Bennet in his 2010 race in Colorado—techniques that were greatly expanded by the Obama campaign in 2012. While some Republicans have scoffed at Democrats’ ability to mount such an effort, they concede that the Democratic ground game was superior two years ago and that, in midterm elections, if Democrats can crank up turnout among young, female, and minority voters—with young, single women a prime target—their chances of success increase.
Short of some “black swan” event that changes the dynamics, the result of this election may come down to whether Democrats can replicate their past successes in midterm elections—in many cases in non-swing states, with candidates who, for all their fine qualities, are not inspirational, aspirational, or charismatic.
The Dish 