reality-based educator

Yesterday's set of McClatchy/MSNBC senate polls that showed Dems either tied or losing many of the battleground Senate races they need to win to take control of the Senate, coupled with three polls (Wash Post/ABC News, Pew, Gallup) showing Democrats' lead in the generic ballot shrinking to single digits, set off a round of congratulatory back-slapping among Republican strategists and commentators on TV and the web.

But Gallup has released a new slate of Senate polls today that suggests the Senate is still very much in play for Democrats:

WASHINGTON — Democrats, poised to score gains in the U.S. Senate, are struggling to pull ahead in the final seat they need to win control, USA TODAY/Gallup Polls in six key states find.

Democratic challengers are leading Republican incumbents — in some cases narrowly — in Missouri, Montana and Rhode Island, according to the USA TODAY surveys. Other polls show Democratic challengers ahead in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Even if Democrats sweep those five races, however, they would fall one seat short of the six needed for majority status. Two GOP targets, in Tennessee and Virginia, now lead by 3 percentage points among likely voters.

"It says to me the Senate is still very much in play and could go either way," says Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the non-partisan Rothenberg Political Report.

...

In the House, Democrats need to pick up 15 seats to regain control for the first time since 1994. Rothenberg and other non-partisan analysts predict they will.

In the Senate, the USA TODAY state polls show the Democratic incumbent considered most at risk, Democrat Robert Menendez of New Jersey, is now 10 points ahead of Tom Kean. Among GOP incumbents, however, Conrad Burns trails Jon Tester by 9 points in Montana, Jim Talent trails Claire McCaskill by 4 points in Missouri, and Lincoln Chafee trails Sheldon Whitehouse by 3 points in Rhode Island.

Republican Sen. George Allen leads Jim Webb in Virginia and Republican Bob Corker leads Harold Ford in Tennessee by identical 49%-46% margins.

Several races remain fluid. In Rhode Island, where Whitehouse's lead has tightened from an 11-point margin a month ago, 16% of likely voters say they made up their minds within the last week and 13% are still undecided. In Missouri, 7% remain undecided.

So the congratulatory back-slapping among Republican strategists and Internets people may be premature. While I have NEVER really expected Democrats to win back the Senate this cycle, I did think that the possibility existed on the outside that they could sweep all these Senate races in a "wave year" if everything went their way. The Gallup poll provides some evidence that the possibility exists for Dems to win 6 Republican seats and hold onto their own seats (though Gallup didn't poll the Maryland race and Republicans believe they have a good shot to pick that seat up from Dems because of the strength of their candidate, Michael Steele.) Again, EVERYTHING would have to go their way, which doesn't make the possibility of Dems taking back the Senate likely, but the possibility still exists.

And with one day to go, who would have thought six months ago that Dems would be favored to win 20+ seats in the House and 4+ seats in the Senate? Who would have thought that Dems would be expected to retake power in the House and have an outside shot at retaking the Senate? The expectation was that Karl Rove and the RNC would turn the campaign to national security issues and blow the Dems out in the final weeks of the campaign by painting them as "soft on terror." The strategy worked right around the 9/11 anniversary but fizzled when the Foley scandal exploded and Republicans fell behind on the generic ballot numbers by double digits. While the GOP has managed to get the generic ballot numbers down to mid-single digits in the last days of this campaign, it seems almost certain that it is too little, too late for them to hold onto the Congress and lose less than 4 seats in the Senate.

We'll see, of course. The GOP claims its GOTV operation will trump voter anger about the war. The GOP is claiming they've got the momentum going into the final day of the campaign. But many of the professional analysts like Stu Rothenberg, Chuck Todd, and Charlie Cook think this cake is already baked and the only question for election night will be the size of the "Democratic wave."

I'm not ready to claim a Democratic Wave and I definitely see some momentum shifting toward the GOP in the last day or so (though how could it not - did anybody expect the Democrats to win a generic ballot match-up by double digits?). I still see substantial gains for Democrats tomorrow night. While Rothenberg has claimed Dems will win 34-40 House seats and Todd says he expects Dems to win at least 18 seats and more likely 35 seats, I am going to be a little more conservative in my prediction. I see Dems winning between 18 and 24 seats in the House. The drop in generic ballot numbers, along with the Republican GOTV operation and the criminality the GOP has been engaging in with their systematic Fake Dem Robocall Operation (see Josh Marshall for details) and their potential for Diebold fraud makes me think some close races will fall Republicans way this year which would ordinarily go the other way in a real "Wave Election." As for the Senate, I see Tester winning in Montana, Casey in PA, Brown in Ohio, Whitehouse in Rhode Island, Menendez in NJ, and Cardin in Maryland while Allen wins in Virginia and Corker wins in Tennessee. I'm unsure about the McCaskill/Talent race in Missouri, so I am predicting 4 Senate seat gains for Dems with the possibility of a 5th. Of course, Allen could lose in VA to give Dems power back in the Senate, but right now the momentum looks like it has shifted away from Webb to Allen. And Chafee has a chance to hold his seat against Whitehouse in Rhode Island, but I just feel like the bluest state in the nation is a difficult place for a Republican, even one as liberal as Linc, to win.