We are f*****'ed in the Senate

Fueled by excitement over the Dem. win in LA, I've been going over the 34 Senate races available.

It doesn't look good.

#1: There are 19 Dem seats up for election vs. 15 GOP seats.

#2: There are 6 Dem open seats (due to retirements), vs. 2-3 GOP seats.  Of these, only Daniel Inouye's seat in HI is a Democratic lock.

#3: Of the 13 remaining Dem incumbents, 4 of them face extremely close races.

While Dems can look forward to a chance at a Democratic takeway in IL, it's their only even chance.  Everything else is a strong uphill battle.  Hell, holding onto some seats is going to be a strong uphill battle.

See the Extended version for details

Why this matters, other than the thought of either a filibuster-proof Senate w/ GOP Pres, or a Dem pres and Repub Senate, is that I still think that it's possible to skew these odds in the Dems favor somewhat.  If a strong Dem candidate fires up the current non-voting registered voters and registers new Dem voters in enough of these key states, we have a lot better chances.

If anyone is interested in continuing this analysis, we could start working on a rought statistical model to track these races.  i.e. Incumbent's margin of victory, the results (GOP vs. Dem) of the 2003 local elections, etc, etc.

Let me know if you're interested (although we probably won't need to kick into high gear till after the Primaries.)

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