How Bad Will It Be?

Last summer, Senate Republicans seemed headed for a cliff in the 2008 election and likely to land on the wrong side of a 60-seat, filibuster-proof Democratic majority. Fights over immigration and Iraq had plunged Republican approval ratings to new lows, and a string of retirements left the GOP in danger of losing more than a dozen seats. Senator John Ensign, chairman of the Senate GOP's campaign arm, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), says donors wouldn't so much as take his calls.

But Republican prospects have "improved quite a bit," Ensign says, now that things are going better in Iraq. The number of competitive races has shrunk as Democrats failed to recruit blue-chip candidates in red states like Tennessee, North Carolina, Kansas, and Nebraska. NRSC executive director Scott Bensing says recruiting Republican candidates was "painstaking" a year ago, but now Republicans have strong candidates for a number of contested seats where John McCain's nomination should help win independents.

Even so, November's Senate races are an uphill battle. Republicans control 23 of the 35 seats up for election this year, and 9 of the 10 vulnerable seats are held by Republicans, mostly in blue states and states that are trending Democratic. The Republicans are also at a disadvantage on money: The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee had $29 million in cash on hand at the end of 2007, to the Republicans' $12 million. "We're going to have a more Democratic Senate, we're just not sure how much more," says Larry Sabato of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. "It's possible that McCain has stabilized things enough for Republicans so that what might have been a disastrous year for the GOP may become a tolerably bad year."

Just how much the Democrats increase their ranks will matter a great deal. They now control the Senate 51 to 49. If they take 7 or 8 seats, they'll put a GOP majority out of reach for many election cycles. And, assuming they can pick off a few liberal Republican votes, they'll have the effectively filibuster-proof Senate needed to pass an Obama administration's legislative wish list.

So how go the races for the 10 Senate seats in play? Let's start with the 4 Democratic-leaning states with Republican incumbents: Minnesota and New Hampshire are toss ups, while Maine and Oregon look good for Republicans.

To win his second term, Minnesota's Norm Coleman will have to defeat trial lawyer Mike Ciresi or comedian and former Air America radio host Al Franken, who will contend for the Democratic nomination at the state party's convention in June. In a recent poll, Coleman was a couple points ahead of Ciresi and a few points behind Franken, but Republicans are salivating at the opportunity to run against Franken, author of Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot. Franken is not necessarily too liberal or eccentric for a state that has elected Paul Wellstone and pro-wrestler Jesse Ventura, but the NRSC's Bensing says Franken is a "nasty, sarcastic, mean person, and Norm Coleman's going to chew him up." Sabato is more cautious. "This is a state that could turn on a dime," he says, adding that "if McCain puts [Minnesota governor Tim] Pawlenty on the ticket, that could save Coleman" by boosting Republican turnout and attracting Independents.

New Hampshire's freshman senator John Sununu faces a tough rematch with former governor Jeanne Shaheen, whom he beat by 5 points in 2002. The polls, though favoring Shaheen, have been wildly volatile. The underlying fact is that the state is becoming more Democratic. Registered Republicans outnumbered registered Democrats by about 10 percentage points in 2002; that GOP edge has almost disappeared. Democrats took over both House seats and the state legislature in 2006. Yet Sununu is optimistic, insisting, "New Hampshire remains a state where limiting taxes and the size of government is very important."

Across the New Hampshire border, Maine's junior senator, Susan Collins, is being challenged by congressman Tom Allen. Although he is probably the strongest candidate Maine Democrats could have wished for, multiple polls have shown her ahead by more than 20 points. Both candidates have high name recognition, and Allen will probably need Collins to make a serious gaffe (think "macaca") for this race to become competitive.