Larry J. Sabato on THAT WILD AND WACKY SENATE: Some Updates on the Upcoming 2010 Senate Showdown.
So much has happened recently in many of the 2010 Senate contests that you would think we were in the middle of the election year. We’re still seventeen months out from Election Day, yet the battles are turning white hot in many states.
Let’s take a look at what has occurred in recent weeks in more than a dozen states featuring the big showdowns of ’10. For a comprehensive outlook on Senate 2010, please see our earlier three-part series (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3).
It is important to start with what hasn’t changed. Democrats are nearly certain to maintain control of the Senate at the midterm election. At worst for them, Democrats will lose a couple seats from their current 59-member majority (soon to be 60 with the probable addition of Minnesota’s Al Franken over the summer), and at best they’ll gain several seats to reclaim the kind of majority they last enjoyed in the early years of the Carter administration. Republicans who hope for another 1994-style landslide are dreaming, absent a massive downturn in popularity for President Obama.