Hotline has a major round-up of Senate fundraising numbers; Senate Guru reformatted much of the information to be a little more readable, and has some thoughts.
I see lots of good news here. Democrats may be playing even less defense than expected. Only three Democratic incumbents -- Landrieu, Durbin, and Kerry -- have Republican challengers with more than $70k cash on hand, and Durbin and Kerry are safe nonetheless. That leaves a lot of room for Democrats to focus on open seats and taking out Republican incumbents.
And several of those Republican incumbents should be sweating the money situation. Al Franken outraised Norm Coleman ($2.2 million to $2.1 million), and Jeanne Shaheen outraised John Sununu ($1.2 million to $1 million); both Franken and Shaheen trail in the cash on hand department, but continued solid fundraising (and good polls in Minnesota and great ones in New Hampshire) is pretty damn sweet. Next door to New Hampshire, Maine's Tom Allen trails Susan Collins but has an impressive $2.6 million cash on hand.
In the battle for New Mexico and Colorado's open seats, the Udalls are kicking ass. New Mexico's Tom raised more than Republicans Wilson and Pearce combined, and holds a similar cash on hand advantage. Colorado's Mark outraised sweatshop-promoter Schaffer ($1.5 million to $1 million) and has nearly double the cash on hand.
Mark Warner continues to pull in ridiculous money ($2.5 million) on the way to joining Jim Webb in Virginia's senate delegation.
Unfortunately, in Oregon Merkley and Novick are underperforming financially, just as they've been showing other signs of weakness. And Texan Rick Noriega's totals (both money raised this quarter and cash on hand) weren't where they should be, though Burnt Orange Report points out that his fundraising picked up substantially in the latter part of the quarter, once it was clear he was the nominee.
But back on the up side, Andrew Rice pulled in an extremely nice-for-Oklahoma $431k. Oklahoma will remain a long, long shot, but Rice could outperform expectations -- that would be some serious map-expansion. Add in races like Alaska and Mississippi, where Democrats Mark Begich and Ronnie Musgrove may trail their opponents in fundraising but are polling well, and it continues to look like a great year for Democrats.
For context and rankings on these races and more, see brownsox' State of the Senate: April.