The battle between the parties for control of the closely divided US Senate has become a contest between the exception and the rule.
The rule is that over the past quarter century, it has grown much more difficult for even the most talented Senate candidates to win in states that usually vote for the other party in presidential races. That trend, which is affecting both parties, has created a very narrow balance of power in the Senate — and triggered frequent changes of partisan control — because each side has established a natural advantage at the presidential level in about half the states.
The paradox is that because the balance of power between the two parties is so precarious, the Senate majority now often tips based on the few exceptions to this pattern — the candidates who find ways to win, in effect, behind enemy lines in states that usually back the other party’s presidential nominees. CONT.
Ronald Brownstein, CNN