Dem senate prospects are brigher

[WI_DEM]

Currently Democrats have 44 Senators with one Independent (Jeffords) who votes with us. We need a net gain of 6 seats to gain control of the upper chamber. Independent Jeffords will be swapped with Independent Sanders in VT so no change there. Sanders will, as he has done in the House, caucus with the Democrats.

Democratic incumbents seem strong. Cantwell in Washington seems to have stabilized. We have three open seats: New Jersey, Minnesota, and Maryland--most polls show that the Democrats are favored to retain those seats.

The Republicans seem to have lost ground. Here is a round up:

Pennsylvania: Santorum has picked up some ground because he had a $5 million ad buy without any Democratic response by the Casey campaign, but most polls still show Casey ahead by 7-12 points.

Montana: This state is looking like a good opportunity. Burns is the most unpopular senator in the nation according to Survey USA with a 39% approval rating and has been lagging in recent polls.

Rhode Island: Chafee might lose his primary next month to a RW opponent, who Whitehouse would easily defeat. As it is even if Chafee pulls out a win, a recent Rasmussen poll gives Whitehouse a six-point lead.

Ohio: The GOP in Ohio is in disaray. Taft is the most unpopular governor in the nation. Democrats are heavily favored to win the governorship. Dewine has been regularly running behind Brown by 3-10 points.

Missouri: The Holden-McCaskill race has been tight. Claire leads some polls while others show it a statistical dead heat. But the GOP governor is unpopular and this race may be a referendum on stem cell research.

Those are the five states which are most likely to switch from the GOP to the Democrats, so where do we get the one other seat to give us a majority?

Virginia: Felix "Macaca" Allen's lead has slipped from 19-points to a mere 3-points in a recent Survey USA poll and 5-points in a Rasmussen poll. This seat seems to be ripe for a democratic pick up especially since VA has been becoming increasingly purple over the years.

Tennessee: Harold Ford, Jr. released a new poll giving his campaign a lead--while it is an internal campaign poll, it might be an indication that this race is tightening.

Nevada: Jack Carter was running only seven points behind Ensign in a recent Ras poll--46-39 percent. That is down from a more than twenty-point Ensign lead a couple of months before.

If we win those five and one of those three (VA, TN, NV) we will have the Senate. It seems brighter today than it did a month ago and hopefully the momentum will continue. If it is truly a strongly democratic year we have the opportunity to sweep all 8 races and if we did, we would have a 52-47-1 lead in the Senate.

Then there is CT with two new polls (ARG and RAS, not yet released publicly) showing Lamont gaining ground and a statistical dead heat. If Lieberman loses we replace him with an anti-war democrat which is a gain in itself.

[ginnyinWI]

1. I think things got brighter since *'s speech yesterday

His statement about how he's not leaving Iraq is like a challenge to the nation: okay then the only way to stop him is to elect Dems to Congress. At least I hope that's the conclusion the 61% of us who want to get out of Iraq thought!

[skipos]

2. I agree with your assessment

I hope the Webb bounce continues. It is amazing that Webb has gotten this close to a decently popular incumbent.