Yes Santa Claus, we have Virginia.

Latest from Rasmussen ... had Tester up by 4.

Michael J Fox gave us Missouri.

Stow some guts :)  "Today" the Senate is ours.

Yes I am curious why TX-22 went into the toss up category.  I know its a deeply Republican District, but the Democrat is Nick Lampson who has a ton of money, and the Republican is a write in with a hyphenated last name.

I guess my only concern is that determining the intent of the voter is allowed in Texas, so mispelled attempts or vague references to the Republican (can't say a write in candidates name!) could be interpreted by partisan vote counters as a vote for Republican.

"Is that a cop-out?"

I don't think so.  Your reasoning is consistent with standard probability theory.  For example, assume there are three races, in each of which you think the Democrats have a %70 chance of winning.  The probability that they will all win is:
.7*.7*.7 = .343
The probability that exactly two of them will win is:
3 * (.7*.7*.3) = .441.
So, in this case, it is more likely that only two will win.

I've been wondering if how accessable AZ really is. Last I looked Kyl had an 8 point lead. Isn't that a lot to over come in three or so days? I know Kos and you are ranking it about TN.

Great news in AZ. I think the DSCC ads start tomorrow ....that can help pull this over the top.  

A new Survey USA polls has Cardin/Steele at 47% a piece.

And, apparently, the GOP internal tracking polls show Chafee and Whitehouse tied. They also, supposedly, claim Talent is gaining a bit of momentum and that Jim Webb is starting to pull away in Virginia.

The Survey  USA poll, however, is based upon a likely voter model whcih inludes a hgher African American voter turnout, and that 1/3 of them voting for Steele. So, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama need o be out campaigning with Cardin very visibly to make sure this one doesn't sneak up on us.  In fact, Obama is in Maryland today.

On wednesday we may have to re-evaluate how we handicap races but I agree that the smell of the past, especially the GOPs ability to pull it out when it counts is hard to overcome.

What is going on in Montana?

Last poll out of AZ has Kyl up by only 4%.

It's moving our way.  If this is a wave, he's falling.  I might say this one is more likely than Missouri, and I think definitely more likely than Tennesee now.  
I agree that 2/3 is more likely, with Tester and Webb winning, but I'm not seeing Missouri.  I think McCaskill has a good chance, but I think she'll narrowly lose.
If you're in Missouri, Virginia, Montana, Arizona, Tennesee or near Rhode Island, spend the weekend working for the campaigns.  Get us a Democratic Senate.

I get the personal osychology part - you don't want to set yourself, or all of your Loyal Readers up for a disappointment. But this is politics, man!

I know picking the DEMs to only win one or maybe two of the really close races seems to make sense and is the seemingly cautious way to go, but I think iit's worng.

The trend is my friend and the DEMs will most likely take all three or none of the hot Senate seats.

IIRC, it's been shown that in wave or momentum elections, Senate seats don't break evenly, but fall disproportionately to one party or the other. If this holds, true, then the competitive seats will almost all break for the Dems.

"The trend is my friend and the DEMs will most likely take all three or none of the hot Senate seats."

If the probabilities of winning each race are independent, then its ok to just multiply the probabilities of winning each race to get the overall probability.  In this way, you can get high probabilities for splitting the results (ie, Dems winning 2 out of 3 close races).

However, if there is an unknown bias for or against Democrats, then this comment is correct, and you are more likely to either win or lose all the close races.

   Maxine Moul and Scott Kleeb have realsitic shots at victory.  I'm surprised by all these chances in deep red states.  We seem to be highly succesful in all states, except for Nevada.  We should be doing better in Nevada.    

I watched MSNBC's Coverage with Russert interviewing  Ford. Ford claimed that Dems are turning out to vote at a higher percent(14%) in early voting.  He also claimed that the DNC's internalls have them up a few in the state.  What do we make of this?

This may be obvious, but the chart looks great printed in landscape format and makes a great scorecard.

   You copped out on the Senate forecast.  You're predictions race by race show the Democrats taking the Senate 51-49.  But you left the overall prediction at 50-50.  Come on!  Stop showing your conservative bias.

Polling has us up 36-28. THat's pretty good IMO.
7% was going to other write ins.

Oh well, I'll enjoy my 1 term democratic representation in the House while it lasts. Whoever has the seat in 2008 certainly won't be as bad a Tommy DeLay.

Can we have a printable copy of the forecast Monday so that we can print it out and carry it with us?

I want mine Tuesday so that after a long day of GOTV I can relax at the local Democratic victory party and check off the dominoes as they fall across the country.

Three 52% probabilities make an expected average total of just over 1 1/2.  Your prediction of 3 in individuals but 2 in aggregate is exactly the right thing to do.

That was the key insight in Sam Wang's election site at Princeton in 2004.

Menendez has a great spot running now pretty often on TV where he walks along a boardwalk and talks about how bad Bush and the GOP have been for the country. Menendez consistently opposed Bush and the war from the beginning and it's helping him big now. I think that ad and the one from DSCC tying Kean Jr to Bush and the war is the reason Menendez is pulling ahead.

It's truly amazing that we've got any sort of chance.

Look at the arithmetic: we started the year with the Senate 55-45 GOP.  The 33 seats up for election this year are 18 D, 15 R. And in 6 of those 15 (ME, IN, MS, TX, UT, WY), the Dems are essentially not contesting the seats.  That gives the Dems only 9 Senate seats that are even remotely potential pickups: RI, PA, OH, VA, TN, MO, MT, AZ, and NV.

So to take the Senate, the Dems have to win 6 of 9 contested GOP-held seats, without losing any of their own seats.  Jack Carter never quite got Nevada into play, so that increases the challenge to winning 6 of 8.

Pulling that off would be quite extraordinary, no matter how big the wave.  For me, this year's always been about taking the House, and getting the Senate close enough so that it's put-up-or-shut-up time for GOP moderates - no more catch-and-release, thanks - before taking the Senate for real in 2008.

If we get lucky and win the Senate this year, that would be great.  And it's been worth working for and contributing money towards.  (I don't regret a dollar that I've contributed to Lamont, Tester, Webb, or McCaskill.)  But the odds have always been against us in 2006.  In all likelihood we'll set it up this year, and break through in a big way in 2008.

SUSA in MD is an outlier.  The last two SUSA polls have shown tie and Steele +1, so this one actually shows no movement.  We shall see if the IVR is the magic crystal ball in this state, but it definitely disagrees with the other polls...