Revised Senate Math

Just a little update on the utterly post-primary election season. There are 40 Democratic continuing Senators. I consider Democrats likely to win the following races in the fall: New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, New York, New York, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, California, and Nevada. Of those, given the new Republicans in DE and NH, only Washington, California, and Nevada are conventionally considered toss-ups: Reid isn't losing, I don't buy Rossi taking out Murray, and quite honestly I've never been sold on Fiorina beating Whitman. That is thirteen races, which would leave us with 53 nominal Democratic Senators. And then we have Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Florida, and Colorado still left. Frankly, the only one of these races that we're leading now is Wisconsin, and I hope to god Russ Feingold doesn't lose. But I doubt Mark Kirk survives in Illinois; he's a dreadfully weak candidate. And that gets us up to 55, with six races left that are reasonably in play. Now we're not talking about a Republican wave: we're talking about the Democrats doing a damned good job holding their own in a tough environment. And suppose things do genuinely improve a little, and we win three of those remaining six races: that's 58, for a net loss of... one seat. Which would be a pretty effing huge victory. Things may change, my friend, around about the thirteenth... or fourteenth, as the case may be!