Let's face it, that's the next national biggie. (Here in MA, we need to get Romney out the same year).
I was looking at the list of senators up for reelection in 2006, mainly for an eye to which parties have how many seats up, and who might be vulnerable.
As for the party breakdown, it's just about even: 16 Democrats, 16 Republicans, and Jeffords.
The first-glance 'fairly safe seats' breakdown, however, I think favor us. Now, I don't know if any of the senators up for reelection in 2006 have said anything about retiring, and that would skew my thoughts on this. But I looked at the list of Senators for a few things--Dems in clearly blue states or Repubs in clearly red states, or 'clout' for lack of a better term. (Example of 'clout'--Robert Byrd, Dem in a swing state, but will never lose an election in WV).
I came up with ten 'safe Dem' seats: Akaka-HI, Byrd-WV, Carper-DE, Clinton-NY, Corzine-NJ, Feinstein-CA, Kennedy-MA, Kohl-WV, Lieberman-CT, and Sarbanes-MD. I came up with seven for the Repubs: Burns-MT, Frist-TN, Hatch-UT, Lott-MS, Lugar-IN, Nelson-NE, and Thomas-WY
Now, these aren't absolutes, and there's varying qualities of 'safe'--Ted Kennedy's probably a lot less vunlerable than Herb Kohl. But this is my initial list of the 'more safe than not' seats.
The six 'vulernable Dem' seats are all in Purple States except for Conrad of ND. The others: Bingaman-NM, Cantwell-WA, Dayton-MN, Nelson-FL, and Stabenow-MI
The nine vulnerable Repubs are on three tiers. The first two are Allen of VA and Hutchison of TX. These are fairly red states, but I think the Dems are going to go hard after these two.
The next are the six from purple states: Dewine-OH, Ensign-NV, Kyl-AZ, Santorum-PA, Snowe-ME, Talent-MO
The last is the one Repub from a true blue state, Chaffee of RI.
Then there's Jim Jeffords, who I expect to get it from both parties and still be reelected--he's popular in VT.
It's going to be interesting. There are no 'glaring' takeover opportunities for us, like Illinois was this year--but there's none really for them, either, like SC and GA were this year. They'll go hard after Conrad of ND. We'll try to get Chafee to switch parties :-). Past that, they'll waste money going after Hillary, we'll waste money going after Frist, and it'll come down to the purple states again.
But there are opportunities. We need to be looking now at who might run against the Santorums and the Dewines, and watch our own flanks with the Cantwells and Daytons.
Thoughts?