This kind of pattern is consistent with a deeper reality, which is that the G.O.P. is still a weak party with a weak message, and weak parties with weak messages have a way of underperforming the fundamentals, struggling in races that feature larger electorates and more persuadable voters (hence the Senate-House difference), and losing narrowly where they confidently expect to win.
True, the fact that Republicans could have won control of the Senate already, had a number of winnable races turned out differently, might just be evidence that the party has been unlucky, and that its luck is due to change. But to me, it seems like evidence that fortune favors the politically effective, which (despite recent reformist stirrings) I suspect the G.O.P. of 2014, like the G.O.P. 2012, is not.
Source: The New York Times
