Just how much do Democrats stand to lose this year?

[peace frog]

Just how much do Democrats stand to lose this year?

A rundown of this year's Senate races, and why the future for Democrats is looking bleak

By Alex Koppelman
Monday, Jan 25, 2010 16:48 EST

As if Democrats didn't have enough reasons to be good and scared about what's going to happen to their party this fall, Beau Biden's announcement that he won't seek his dad's old Senate seat adds another to the laundry list. Despite the fact that the party has a 59-seat majority in the Senate right now, it really can't afford to be giving any away, and that's what Biden's move may end up doing.

As things stand right now, it seems just about impossible to believe that the Republicans will take back the Senate in November. But it's likely they'll take a sizable chunk out of the Democrats.

From the 59 seats the Democrats currently hold, you can almost certainly subtract at least three: In addition to the vice-president's old seat, North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan's retirement all but gives his to the GOP, and Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln seems doomed. That takes them down to 56. Then there's a very big name who, according to recent polling -- and FiveThirtyEight.com's Nate Silver -- seems like he's about to have some more time to spend with his family: Majority Leader Harry Reid. That's 55.

From there, things are less clear. In Pennsylvania, Sen. Arlen Specter, the newly minted Democrat, is still having real trouble against his old Republican primary nemesis, former Rep. Pat Toomey. Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh's race seems like a toss-up now, but it gets tougher if Rep. Mike Pence, a high-ranking House Republican, gets in. In Colorado, which had been trending blue, Sen. Michael Bennet, who was appointed when Ken Salazar became secretary of the interior, is vulnerable, and he can't count on the wave of Latino voters that the Obama campaign brought to the polls in 2008. If all of them lose -- not by any means a certainty, but let's just assume it for the sake of argument -- then the Democrats are down to 52.

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/01/25/senate/index.html

[hobbit709]

1. They might do better if they ran as Democrats

instead of Republican-Lite.

[dgibby]

3. You're asking way too much from the gang who couldn't shoot straight. n/t

[AlinPA]

2. Illinois looks bad for us, Kirk would take the seat there.

[depakid]

4. "Losing" Harry Reid is a net positive

and Blanche Lincoln is another of what might be called "cancers in the locker room" that Democrat are better off without- someone ho blurs the distinctions between the parties.

Pretty well dug her own grave while doing so.