Will Democrats Lose the Senate?

Color me skeptical, but if the wave is as big as they say it is possible the GOP will take the Senate or simply split the difference and tie the Dems as 50 to 48 with two Independents. (In that case they will split the committees and have co-chairs, assuming Sanders and Lieberman vote with the Democrats).

(The Economist) Only 37 of the Senate’s 100 seats will be up in November. The Democrats are defending a majority of 59 to 41 (though their majority includes two independents), which means that the Republicans need a net gain of ten seats to win control. Until recently this feat was thought to be beyond their reach, and many pollsters continue to think so. RealClearPolitics, a website that publishes an average of multiple polls, is projecting a Republican gain of only six. To gain ten, as the Wall Street Journal argued recently, the Republicans would have to win virtually every competitive seat without losing any of their own.

That is a very tall order. And yet Bill Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, thinks that this could be another of those election years, such as 1980, 1986 and 2006, when most of the close races tip in the same direction and produce a shift of control. It is certainly the case that many once-safe Democratic seats, such as Wisconsin and Washington, are looking vulnerable. The Cook Political Report now judges it possible for the Republicans’ Carly Fiorina, the deep-pocketed former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, to defeat the sitting Democrat, Barbara Boxer, in California. As well as winning the House and Senate, says Mr Galston, the Republicans could hit the trifecta, capturing Mr Obama’s former seat in Illinois, Vice-President Joe Biden’s in Delaware and, in Nevada, unseating Harry Reid, the majority leader.

For the RCP average check here.