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Self-identified moderates are the key to Democrats' narrowing chances of holding onto their Senate majority in 20 days time, according to a data analysis conducted by Third Way, a centrist think tank based in Washington.

"In seven of the eleven states which will likely determine control of the Senate, Democrats need to win two-thirds of moderates or more to prevail," writes Michelle Diggles, a senior political analyst at Third Way. "In four of the eight seats currently held by a Democratic Senator, that Democratic incumbent needs two-thirds of moderates or more. In every race except Michigan and New Hampshire, the Republican candidate needs to win less than 40 percent of the moderate vote demonstrating how much more important moderates are to assembling winning Democratic coalitions than Republican ones."

(Before I go further: Yes, it is self-serving for a centrist think tank to conclude that moderates are the key to the election. But the analysis is nonetheless interesting.)

Diggles's analysis presumes that the Democratic candidate in each of the 11 targeted Senate races will win, roughly, 85 percent of self-identified liberals and 15 percent of self-identified conservatives, and that the Republican candidate will do the opposite. (As Diggles notes, this formula is not perfect because it is possible though not probable that some of the Democratic candidates will pull significantly more than 15 percent of the conservative vote.) Assuming the 85/15 split, however, produces a daunting task of wooing moderate voters in the final two-plus weeks of the campaign as broken out race-by-race in the chart below.

Now, it's important to note that these extrapolations of the moderate vote that each Democratic candidate needs to win are based on 2008 exit polling the last time each of the seats was up for election. That was a presidential year. This is not. Writes Diggles:

"A midterm electorate may look slightly different, but if so, it would more likely trend in the conservative direction meaning if anything, these estimates are generous to Democrats. Conversely, Democrats believe they have the superior 'ground game,' and if so, this could make turnout a bit more favorable to Democrats than other mid-term elections."

Assuming that Third Way's calculations are roughly right, it highlights two things: 1. This Senate map is horrendous for Democrats (and always has been) and 2. Getting to 65 percent of moderates is going to be very, very difficult.

Let's take point No.1 first. The battle for the Senate majority is being fought in places like Louisiana, Arkansas, Alaska, Kansas, South Dakota, Georgia and North Carolina. In all of these states, the number of self-identifying conservatives is far in excess of the number of people who call themselves liberal. (In North Carolina in 2012, 40 percent were conservatives, 38 percent moderate and 22 percent liberal, according to exit polling.) These are conservative-leaning states which, even in a neutral political year (and this ain't that) means that a Democrat's path to victory is built on wooing lots and lots of fence-sitters or even conservative leaners.

The problem for Democrats running in these states in 2014 is that the national party is just not very popular. In the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll, 41 percent of moderates approved of the job President Obama is doing, while 50 percent disapproved a virtual mirror of his 40/50 rating among all groups. And that's a national poll. The likelihood of Obama's numbers among moderates being lower maybe a lot lower in states like Louisiana and Alaska is very high.

Now on to point No.2. Look back at six years ago: Of the six incumbents running for reelection this year who were on the ballot then, only one of them Mark Pryor won more than two thirds of the moderate vote. Pryor won 85 percent, which is an amazing number ... until you remember that he did not face a Republican challenger in the 2008 election. (That's still one of the most remarkable factoids of the recent political past.) Kay Hagan in North Carolina won 64 percent of moderates, while Mary Landrieu in Louisiana won 63 percent. Of course, 2008 was also one of the best years in modern history for Democrats, as Barack Obama swept the country at the presidential level driving historic turnout and unity among minority voters and young people.

The rest is here:
The Fix: Democrats need to win 65 percent of moderates to hold Senate