Just how delusional was Mary about this race?

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What the heck happened to Mary Landrieu?

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Remember when the Louisiana runoff between Sen. Mary Landrieu (D) and Rep. Bill Cassidy (R) was going to be the most unforgettable and pivotal contest in modern memory? That with the fate of Senate control hanging in the balance tens of millions of dollars and hundreds upon hundreds of staffers would pour into the Bayou State in advance of the Dec. 6 runoff?

Yeah, not so much. The Nov. 4 election ended all that -- with Republicans netting eight Senate seats and, with it, the majority in the 114th Congress. In the intervening 27 days, you'd be hard-pressed to find a single Democrat in Washington not named "Landrieu" even talking about the race and even fewer (if that's possible) who think she has any chance at winning.

"I don’t know anyone outside of her staff who thinks she has a chance to win next Saturday," said Bob Mann, a longtime aide to former Louisiana Sen. John Breaux (D) and now the chair of the Manship School of Mass Communication at LSU. "The hole is just too deep, the abandonment by white voters so complete. She cannot motivate enough black voters to make up for what she’s losing among whites." (To Mann's point, check out this post by Philip Bump explaining why the math just isn't there for Landrieu.)

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Landrieu, according to these operatives, believed she would win the 50 percent plus one she needed to secure another term on Nov. 4 -- and acted accordingly. "She thought she was going to win in November and spent that way," said one Democratic consultant granted anonymity to speak candidly. The FEC reports bear out that failed strategy. As of Nov. 16, Landrieu had spent $16.4 million and had just $782,000 left in the bank. Cassidy, in his most recent report with the FEC, which covers expenditures through Oct. 15, had spent $7.9 million and had more than $3 million in the bank. Even if you go back to Landrieu's Oct. 15 report -- comparing apples to apples -- you see that Landrieu had spent almost $15 million at that time and had $1.6 million left on hand.

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