Midterm elections and campaigns can make or break the future of Congress for the next few years. Following the election of of Barack Obama in 2008, there was a national lashback which flipped the House during the 2010 midterm elections. During the 2014 midterm elections, Republicans gained control of the Senate. Midterms are crucial moments in American politics, but they don’t usually get the respect and attention they deserve. As such, it is important to analyze some challenging midterm races for the 2018 election cycle and look at the factors that can make or break a particular campaign. Perhaps the strongest factor in the 2018 elections will be the impact of Donald Trump on various midterm races, and the re-election of Dean Heller in Nevada is no exception. His re-election campaign is looking to be a long …show more content…
He also enjoyed the backing of the Republican campaign and fundraising base which raised him a whopping nine million dollars for the 2012 campaign cycle, nearly all of which was spent (OpenSecrets.Org 2012). The only aspect of incumbents that Heller didn’t enjoy was previous campaign experience specifically on Senate races. While he was a member of the United States House of Representatives, he did not come to be a Senator initially through elections. Instead, he was appointed to the position by the Governor following the resignation of the sitting Senator, John Ensign, following a sex scandal (Cillizza and Kane 2011). While Heller certainly had years of campaign experience before the 2012 re-election effort, there seems to be a considerable difference between House races and Senate races, with Senate races being significantly more competitive (Nice 1984). He may have been able to build off of previous campaign experience, but the United States Senate is a whole other