海角大神

The Washington Post鈥檚聽Chris Cillizza notes that election projections are聽starting to turn significantly in favor of a Republican takeover of the Senate:

In addition to Alaska and Louisiana, Republicans have also been performing well in polling in Colorado lately, where Congressman Cory Gardner appears to have pulled ahead of Sen. Mark Udall (D) and how leads by聽a small margin in the RealClearPolitics average.聽There鈥檚 also good news for Republicans right now in Iowa, where Joni Ernst has posted strong leads in highly respected polls from The Des Moines Register聽and聽Quinnipiac聽and now has just over a two point lead in the polling average. Add these two states in to the list of states where Republicans are already performing well, and you will find yourself with a very red map. At this moment, in fact,聽all of the states which RealClearPolitics lists as 鈥渢oss-ups鈥澛燿ue to how close the candidates are in the polling average, it鈥檚 the Republican candidate that has the lead. When you give the toss-ups to the candidate in the lead, that leaves us with a Republican pickup of seven seats and聽a Senate in January that would have 52 Republicans, 47 Democrats or Independents caucusing with Democrats, and Kansas Independent Greg Orman聽who still isn鈥檛 saying whom he would caucus with if he won in November. Obviously, this projection also assumes that the GOP will hold on to the Senate seats in聽Kentucky聽and聽Georgia; however, given current polling trends it looks like this is exactly what will happen.聽If this trend continues, then Republicans wouldn鈥檛 need to worry about Kansas, because they would still have a majority even if Sen. Pat Roberts loses. Vox鈥檚 鈥渁ggregation of aggregators鈥� agree, pointing out that all of the major forecasters now give the edge to the GOP,聽including Sam Wang at the Princeton Election Consortium聽who has been alone among forecasters this year in predicting that the Democrats would hold on to the Senate.

Based on these numbers, at least, it looks like voters might be starting to finalize their decisions and turn toward the GOP. It鈥檚 worth keeping in mind, though, that we are still at that point in the race where things could still be very much in flux, which is why the phrase 鈥渋f this trend continues鈥� is so important. It was just two weeks ago, after all, that the polls seemed to be indicating that聽the race for Senate control was tightening聽thanks to signs of strength among Democratic candidates in North Carolina, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Colorado. There have really only been a handful of truly reliable polls released since then, and while they do seem to show things tipping in the GOP鈥檚 direction, it鈥檚 clearly far too early for either Republicans to start celebrating or Democrats to start panicking. On the other hand, it鈥檚 worth nothing that聽recent national polling聽has also been聽quite favorable to the GOP,聽and it鈥檚 possible that we鈥檙e starting to see those national numbers filter down to the state races.

In either case, given this volatility, it鈥檚 far too early to start making ground pronouncements about what is going to happen in November. If the polling models are still showing the same thing a week or two from now, of course, it would be a different story. Additionally,聽Nate Silver聽says that while it鈥檚 too early for Democrats to panic, it may be soon depending on how the polls keep going:

So, yes, the trends are most definitely moving in the GOP鈥檚 direction and there鈥檚 little reason to think that the political climate will improve for Democrats any time soon, but given the fact that we鈥檙e still looking at a battle for the Senate that could tip one way or the other based just on what happens in one or two states, and that聽we may not even know who controls the Senate until after the Senate convenes in January,it鈥檚 still far too early to make definitive predictions. That being said, were I a Democrat, I would be starting to get worried.

Doug Mataconis appears on the Outside the Beltway blog at http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/.