It seems increasingly likely to me that we will not know who will control the Senate on election night, Tues., Nov. 4.
The reason is simple: The results from two or three very close Senate contests may not be determined on election night . And, it's quite possible that if there are additional nail-biters elsewhere, which polls currently show to be very possible in several states, there could be three or four seats that are still up in the air on Nov. 5 and thereafter.
Voting in the Alaska Senate election will not be finished until well after most people in the country have gone to bed Nov. 4.
And, if current polling is any indication, it's quite possible that the results of the Louisiana Senate contest will have nobody getting 50 percent or more, meaning a runoff election will be needed. A runoff might be necessary in Georgia, as well.
If there are a couple of other close seats where absentee ballots or a recount may be needed to determine a winner, that could mean four or five Senate elections may still be unknown Wednesday, Nov. 5.
Any number of scenarios are possible, of course, but following are some of the likeliest, in my opinion, at least based on current polling and projection models:
a) Republicans pick up three Senate seats outright on Nov. 4 and go on to pick up another close one in the days following, then win a runoff election in Louisiana in December, giving them a net pickup of five. If Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine follows through on his previous threat to switch the parties he caucuses with if Republicans do well, that could mean that Republicans could win the Senate, but we might not know until late December.
b) Republicans could pick up three Senate seats outright on Nov. 4, then pick up two more later, but King remains with the Democratic caucus, leaving the Senate in Democratic hands (50-50, with the Vice President as the tie-breaker).
c) Republicans could pick up three seats on Nov. 4 and then pick up three more seats by December. In that case, it is very possible that King would switch to the new Republican majority running the Senate, padding their majority by another seat, giving them a 52-48 majority.
d) Republicans could win three seats Nov. 4, followed by a period where two or more seats are questionable, with Republicans eventually picking up only one more Senate seat, leaving Democrats in charge of the Senate 51-49.
e) Of course, it's also possible that Republicans pick up so many seats outright on
Nov. 4 that what happens after that won't affect who the majority party will be. If that's the case, Republicans could net upwards of 7-8 seats.
f) It's also possible that Democrats hold enough seats Nov. 4 that what happens thereafter won't affect who the majority party will be.
And then there's Greg Orman, the independent Senate candidate in Kansas. If he wins the seat, we'll have to wait until he decides to tell everyone the party with which he plans to caucus. That could throw yet another monkey wrench into an election year where there already seem to be a lot of potential complications. (Although the fact that Orman supported Barack Obama in 2008, but then dropped his support for Obama because of Obamacare and supported Romney in 2012, tells me that Democrats shouldn't get their hopes up about him, unless Democrats win a majority without him, in which case he might want to join the Democratic majority to exert maximum influence).
Unless things change significantly between now and election day, it seems to me that we probably won't know who will be in charge of the next Senate until mid-November at the earliest, and possibly as late as mid-December.