Addendum to Senate Math

I took a look at the 538 projections for margins of victory in the various Senate contests. If you assume that the most likely candidates win all their primaries, which mainly means Delaware and New Hampshire, then the 50th seat, the way things currently stand, is California: in other words, if Democrats win California and all races currently looking better than California, they'd have 50 seats. We're leading California by 1 point. The 60th seat is New Hampshire, which we're trailing by 7 points, assuming Ayotte is the nominee. If we win all seats we're leading, that's only 51. A 3-point uniform national shift toward the Democrats, however, would leave us with 54 seats. And a 9-point shift would give us 62 seats; I know that isn't going to happen, I'm just sayin'. By contrast, a 9-point further shift to the Republicans would give them just 52 seats; they're currently projected to win 49. So they're really, really close to tapped out: the only marginally close races we're leading are Wisconsin, California, and Nevada. To win 56 seats, which is right about where I figure Democrats would need to be to have a good chance of governing next Congress (by ditching the filibuster), we'd need to win North Carolina, which is currently -6.

Now, what if Delaware and New Hampshire give us some nice surprises with their nominees? If we replace Castle with O'Donnell, and Ayotte with Lamontagne, each of those races becomes a genuine Democratic advantage. And now the math is different: the 50th seat becomes New Hampshire, +4, instead of California, +1. We'd be leading 53 seats. Only a three-point swing would be required for 56 votes, and only a 7-point swing for 60 votes. So those two states' Republican primaries will make a big, big difference in the math for this upcoming Senate race. If the Tea Party wants to make the Democrats' math a hell of a lot easier, they can be my guest!