The retirement of Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska) has given the GOP good odds of picking up the Senate in 2012. The scenario of Obama winning re-election and the GOP winning the Senate could be a very possible scenario.
The electoral implications of the impending retirement of Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska are fairly obvious. This is bad news for Democrats, who were already going to have a difficult time holding on to their narrow 53-47 advantage in the upper chamber.
It’s not as bad for them as something like the retirement of Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota, which took a seat that Democrats were likely to retain and turned it into a likely gain for Republicans. Rather, with middling approval ratings in a red state in an anti-incumbent climate, Mr. Nelson’s re-election prospects were tenuous to begin with. If Democrats can get former Senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska to run in Mr. Nelson’s place, their odds of retaining the seat will not necessarily be worse than they would have been with Mr. Nelson.
[….]
The apparent good news for Democrats is that they are likely to win the majority of Senate races next year. If you sum up the percentage forecasts across all 33 races, it comes out to 18 or 19 wins for Democrats, versus 14 or 15 for Republicans.
The problem, of course, is that that Democrats were already in possession of 23 of the 33 seats. If they retained just 18 or 19, they would lose a net of 4 or 5 seats to Republicans — enough to cost them control of the chamber.
Thus, I concur with the conventional wisdom that Republicans are favorites to win control of the Senate next year.
This is the glimmer of hope for 2012.
Tags: US Senate
