MICHAEL BARONE: Democrats’ plight in Senate races revealed.

1. Obama job approval is well below 50 percent in all 14 of these states. In only one state, Michigan, is it above the 42 percent job approval Obama was registering Oct. 1 in the RealClearPolitics average, and it is only slightly higher. This is true even though Obama carried three of these states — Colorado, Iowa and Michigan — in 2008 and 2012, and another, North Carolina, in 2008.

2. None of the Democratic candidates, including the six incumbents, in these 14 states is polling at 50 percent or above. Only one, Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire, is polling above 45 percent, and only two, Kay Hagan in North Carolina and nominal independent Greg Orman in Kansas, are polling at 45 percent. All others are below. Looking back over the past six Senate cycles going back to 2002, using data compiled by Dan McLaughlin at redstate.com, I found that only two incumbent senators who were polling below 45 percent at about this stage in the electoral cycle went on to win — Michael Bennet (chairman of the Senate Democrats’ campaign committee this year) in Colorado in 2010 and Jon Tester in Montana in 2012. Bennet was an appointed senator then, not yet elected to a statewide office; both Bennet and Tester got under 50 percent of the vote and won with pluralities.

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