Senate Update: 4 Days to Go

With four days before election day, it looks as though Barack Obama will win the presidency. But not we look to see what kind of Democratic majorities he'll be working with in Congress. The House of Representatives is harder to predict, but it looks as though Democrats are going to gain 20-40 seats.

The Senate, on the other hand, has become easier to predict with a flurry of new polling from the eight competitive races (where all of the seats are currently held by Republicans). I have separated these races into three categories: likely Democrat, toss-up, and likely Republican--along with the averages for each race. Currently, my averages project that the Democrats will have 56 seats, the Republicans will have 42 seats, and the Independents will have 2.

Likely Democrat:
In these three races, if nothing changes drastically in the next few days, it looks as though the Democrats will win these seats.

New Hampshire--Shaheen +7.9
Recent polls show that Jeanne Shaheen has been pulling away from incumbent John Sununu, and is currently ahead by somewhere between 5 and 13 points. But Shaheen's totals have not matched Barack Obama's totals in the state, meaning that there are some Obama-Sununu voters. I still pit Shaheen as a heavy favorite to pick up this seat, but given this state's independent streak, a good number of undecideds may break for Sununu in the final few days making the race closer than expected.

Alaska--Begich +7.6
After 40-year incumbent Sen. Ted Stevens was convicted on seven charges of corruption and is now officially a felon, this race was basically over. The two polls that have come put since then have had Democratic challenger Mark Begich up by 8 points and 22 points respectively. It will take a day or two before my average for this race to reflect those numbers, but it is clear that Begich will be the new senator from Alaska.

Oregon--Merkley +5.2
The race between incumbent Sen. Gordon Smith and Jeff Merkley was once considered to be a toss-up, but now it looks as though the race is breaking Merkley's way. He's led in the polls for over a month now, and a new poll from Public Policy Polling puts him up by 8 points, his largest lead to date. Smith has not had much help from the McCain campaign because they have not seemed to pick up any momentum in the state, and Smith basically has to fend for himself. Oregon only allows mail-in voting and early reports show that turnout is way down in typically Republican areas. Things are looking bleak for Smith. Expect this seat to flip.

Toss-Up:
These races really could go either way, but it appears that the Democrats have a slight advantage in North Carolina while the Republicans have a slight advantage in Georgia. Minnesota is still a dead heat.

North Carolina--Hagan +2.2
Democratic challenger continues to have a small yet significant lead in this race against one-term incumbent Sen. Elizabeth Dole. But in a state that is known for last minute mud-slinging nasty attack advertising, it comes as no surprise that the Dole campaign has released a controversial new ad, which implies that Hagan is an atheist. The ad points out Hagan's ties to a local atheist group that supposedly donated money to her campaign, and at the end of the ad an audio clip of a voice comes on and says "There is no God." Viewers are led to believe that the voice is Hagan's, though the Dole campaign has admitted that it is not her in the clip. Here is the infamous ad. If it is successful, Dole may keep her seat--but it also may backfire and cause her to lose by an even larger margin. Over the next few days, I will be looking to see what kind of an effect this has on the race.

Minnesota--Coleman* +0.2
Incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman has jumped up a point since my last update two days ago, but the polls for this race have been all over the place. Rasmussen and Mason-Dixon have Coleman up by 4 and 6 points, respectively. Public Policy Polling and Minnesota Public Radio have Al Franken up by 5 and 4 points, respectively. Such volatile polling is probably due to the fact that Independent candidate Dean Barkley continues to hold onto about 15% of the vote in this race. And if the Barkley vote collapses (which is likely), it is unclear who it is likely to break for. Basically, this race could not be closer and harder to predict.

Georgia--Chambliss* +3.4
Democratic challenged Jim Martin is polling a few points behind incumbent Sen. Saxby Chambliss in most recent polling. Chambliss runs into the problem of early voting, where the Democrats have shown up in huge numbers and where the Obama campaign is making a serious play for the state and upping its advertising and get-out-the-vote effort. Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com seems to think that the polls have been lowballing Jim Martin because they have shown that there is a fairly high number of African Americans, who he thinks will vote for Democrats down the ticket, such as Jim Martin. Both Silver and I think this race is a true toss-up and something I will be keeping a very close eye on election night.

Likely Republican:
These two races were once thought to be toss-ups, but in the past week that have broken in the direction of their respective Republican candidates.

Kentucky--McConnell* +5.2
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell looked to be in some serious trouble last week against Bruce Lunsford. But the last three polls taken show that McConnell has widened his lead again to about five points. Lunsford looked to be gaining ground on McConnell, but then his poll numbers stalled out at around 44%. He also is not going to have the up-ticket coattails that are bound to occur in states like North Carolina and Georgia. He's going to need the vast majority of the undecided vote to break for him if he wants a shot to unseat McConnell.

Mississippi (Special)--Wicker* +8.5
This race appeared to be tight until about a week ago, when a Press Register poll showed that Sen. Roger Wicker had an 11-point lead over challenger Ronnie Musgrove. Rasmussen's latest poll backed up that finding and showed Wicker up by 11 points. Musgrove, a conservative Democrat, has not been funded as well by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee as candidates like Martin and Lunsford and appears to be heading towards defeat, barring a Democratic landslide.

So, all in all, it looks like the Democrats will have around 57-60 seats in the Senate. But the odds for picking up that 60th seat which would grant them a filibuster-proof majority--which would come from either Georgia, Kentucky, or Mississippi--are becoming increasingly unlikely.