State of the Senate Races

With Olympia Snowe's godsend of a retirement, and Bob Kerrey's apparent decision to jump back into the race, I think it's worth taking a fresh look at the upcoming batch of Senate elections. There are ten Republican-held seats. Of these, Maine is favored for a Democratic takeover, Massachusetts is no worse than a toss-up for the Democrats, Nevada is no worse than Leans Republican and is probably just a pure toss-up, and Arizona, though a stretch, is possible. It's unlikely that Indiana Republicans are sufficiently idiotic to ditch Richard Lugar, but if they do, that's also a potentially competitive race. In other words, on a good night it would be easy for the Democrats to win three (of ten!) Republican-held seats. If things go extremely well between now and November, we could conceivably win five.

As for Democratic-held seats, of which there are twenty-three, I think one can safely say that California, Delaware, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia are pretty much safe holds. It looks very much like Bob Casey and Sherrod Brown will hold on in Pennsylvania and Ohio; likewise Debbie Stabenow in Michigan. I'd say Bill Nelson's a modest favorite to hold on to Florida. Meanwhile, I'd say we're noticeably favored to win open seats in Connecticut (which will be a net gain from the Connecticut for Lieberman Party), Hawaii, and New Mexico. Now, Virginia, Wisconsin, Missouri, and Montana are distinct toss-ups, and in North Dakota and Nebraska you'd have to say we're favored to lose. But if Kerrey is really running, then we've got strong candidates in both those states, Kerrey in Nebraska and Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota. There aren't, in other words, any Safe Republican pick-ups. A short while ago it seemed very much like there were. I'm not sure either NE or ND is more than Leans Republican.

One thing this means is that it's not inconceivable that the Democrats could actually hold on to all twenty-three of their seats. If they do, incidentally, those twenty-three Democratic Senate seats will get a lot more liberal, with Chris Murphy (probably) replacing Lieberman and Kerrey replacing Nelson. Now it would certainly be impressive if we manage to do this, and it would take quite a good night indeed, but recent elections have tended to be very good for one side or the other, and I honestly don't think 2012 is going to be a Very Good Night for the Republicans.

At the very least, it looks like the Republican effort to take back the Senate is a lot harder than it used to be. I'd estimate two seats where Democrats are favored to pick up a Republican seat, and also two where Republicans are favored to pick up a Democratic seat. That leaves five toss-ups, of which four are Democratic-held. A very rough estimate of expected results, then, might be Republicans +1.5 seats on the night, which would not be enough to make Mitch McConnell majority leader.

It's a pretty good week so far, in other words. And Santorum hasn't even won Michigan thereby throwing the Republican primary into even further chaos yet!