Current Projection: Democratic Pickup of 6 seats
Republican Held: Democratic Pickups 6
Republican Held, Uncompetitive Republican Locks (10): Alabama (Sessions), Georgia (Chambliss), Kansas (Roberts), Mississippi-A (Cochran), Nebraska (Open, Johanns), Oklahoma (Inhofe), South Carolina (Graham), Tennessee (Alexander), Wyoming-1 (Barrasso), Wyoming-2 (Enzi)
Democratic Held: Democratic Losses, 0
Democratic Held, Uncompetitive Democratic Locks (10): Arkansas (Pryor), Delaware (Biden), Illinois (Durbin), Iowa (Harkin), Massachusetts (Kerry), Michigan (Levin), Montana (Baucus), Rhode Island (Reed), South Dakota (Johnson), West Virginia (Rockerfeller)
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There are new polls from virtually every single state in this update. Here are the category changes:
- Alaska upgrades from "Toss-up" to "Lean Democrat"
- Colorado downgrades from "Likely Democrat" to "Lean Democrat"
- Mississippi-B downgrades from "Toss-up" to "Lean Republican"
I have also tightened up the forecast a bit, so that I am no longer projecting Democratic pickups in an X-Y format. From now on, I will project an exact number every time. Right now, I project six, as Democrats win all five Republican held seats where they lead, sneak in one where they trail (either Oregon or Mississippi), and lose zero seats. In other words, virtually exactly the same thing as 2006.
* = Stevens now has a self-financing primary challenger. Let's hope that Stevens wins, because after his indictment today, I have no idea how he can catch Begich. Stevens is too old to campaign, isn't really raising any money, and now he is national news for his indictments. If he survives the primary, Alaska becomes the fifth more or less guaranteed Democratic pickup this cycle.
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