Forces align against GOP in Senate races
Republican Senate campaign chief hopes to hold losses to two seats
 Alex Wong / Getty Images file | Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., who heads his party's senatorial campaign effort, says he's getting a little more optimistic about this fall's election outcome, but admits challenges have been huge. |
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WASHINGTON - Even the top Republican in charge of the party's Senate campaigns concedes that the GOP will lose seats this year — the only question is how many.
With President Bush's ratings at rock-bottom, fewer Republicans signing up to vote, and voters nationally gravitating toward Democrats in public polls, the GOP is bracing for defeats in November that will expand Democrats' now razor-thin 51-49 majority in the Senate.
Democrats have solid chances of winning five seats, according to strategists in both parties and public polls, and realistic shots at picking off another three to five Republican senators. Republicans have only one good opportunity for replacing a Democrat, in Louisiana.
A quirk of the political calendar — Republicans are defending 23 seats this year to Democrats' 12 — put the GOP at a disadvantage from the start. Worse still, those include five Republican retirements — which typically make it harder to keep a seat — compared to none among Democrats.
The scent of defeat threatens to become a self-fulfilling prophecy: Republican donors are sitting on their hands, giving Democrats a nearly 2-to-1 advantage in fundraising that limits the GOP's ability to defend key seats.
Democrats are pouring cash into TV advertising and on-the-ground voter mobilization. They're competing aggressively in 11 states, including GOP strongholds like Alaska, North Carolina and Virginia that they hope to convert by translating Barack Obama's appeal to African American and young voters into wins for Democratic Senate candidates.
"It shapes up to be a very good Democratic year. This could be one of those change elections — I call them tectonic," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., the head of his party's Senate campaign arm, which has $46.2 million in the bank.
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., the GOP Senate campaign chief, says he'll be lucky if his party can hold its losses to two seats — a more optimistic assessment than just a few weeks ago, when he said the best case scenario would be four losses.
"I'm getting a little bit more optimistic," said Ensign. "There's no question the challenges have been huge."
His top goal now is meeting a low bar — retaining sufficient numbers to deny Democrats the 60 votes they would need to break filibusters. Today, the GOP Senate campaign arm has $24.6 million and has yet to run an ad.
Most strategists see a 9-seat gain for Democrats as next to impossible. Schumer said there would have to be "a huge hurricane." To get there, everything would have to go Democrats' way.
They would have to sweep competitive contests in Alaska, Colorado, Mississippi, New Hampshire and Oregon while closing the deal in two states they are now favored to win: New Mexico and Virginia. Both those races are open with the retirements of longtime GOP Sens. Pete Domenici in New Mexico and John Warner in Virginia.
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Then Democrats would have to beat at least two more Republican incumbents in tougher challenges to Sens. Susan Collins in Maine, Norm Coleman in Minnesota and Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina. Emboldened by money and the poor climate for Republicans, they're also eyeing even longer-odds GOP bastions like Georgia and Kentucky, home to Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
The only real challenge for a seat now held by a Democrat is in Louisiana, where Sen. Mary L. Landrieu has never drawn more than 52 percent of the vote and is up against Republican State Treasurer John Kennedy. Strategists in both parties have long expected that race to be close.
They also agree that Democrats are very likely to win seats to replace retiring Republicans in New Mexico — where Democratic Rep. Tom Udall is running well ahead of GOP Rep. Steve Pearce — and in Virginia — where former Gov. Mark Warner is favored to beat former Gov. Jim Gilmore.
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