Charlie Cook, typically overly-cautious with his election predictions, finally concedes what we've known for a while:

It seems farfetched that Republicans would lose Stevens, Sununu, Dole, Coleman, Smith, and Wicker, in addition to relinquishing the even more endangered open seats in Virginia, New Mexico, and Colorado, but a net loss of nine seats...is no longer implausible. In 2006, the odds against a six-seat Republican loss were equally strong, but it happened.

History shows, moreover, that close Senate races tend to break in the same direction, as they did two years ago.

The bottom line is that things have gotten worse for Senate Republicans over the past few weeks, so much worse that a magnitude of losses that seemed impossible just a few months ago now seems entirely possible.

We're coming up on the end of the fundraising quarter, all the more important to contribute to our Road To 60 ActBlue page. Help us get to 120 contributors and $10,000 raised by Tuesday at midnight.

In the meantime, here's some Senate race news to chew on:

• Does the Road to 60 run through Kentucky? It's starting to look like it might. Last week, Survey USA released a poll showing Democrat Bruce Lunsford gaining 15 points in 6 weeks to come within 3 points of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Clearly an outlier, right? Wrong.

  U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Democratic challenger Bruce Lunsford are knotted in a statistical tie for McConnell's seat, according to the latest Courier-Journal Bluegrass Poll.

  The poll found that each candidate would get the support of 41 percent of likely voters if the election were held today. But McConnell nudged ahead 45-44 when undecided respondents who were leaning toward a candidate were included into the poll results.

  BruinKid listed this as the 10th most likely Republican seat to topple in his latest Senate rankings. Looks like Lunsford's in for an upgrade.

  Give to the Bruce Lunsford campaign HERE.

• Thanks to some strong recent polling for Democratic challenger and Road To 60 candidate Kay Hagan, both Charlie Cook and Stu Rothenberg have moved the NC Senate race from Leans Republican to Toss-up. Hell, even Pollster's trend estimate for the race currently has Hagan up by 2%. Sen. Elizabeth Dole is in trouble and she knows it. In 2006 Dole spent 13 days in North Carolina; in 2007, that was up to 50; this year: 97.

  Give to the Kay Hagan campaign HERE.

• Classic. Oregon Democratic Senate challenger Jeff Merkley came out boldly against the $700 billion bailout plan and is actually running against Sen. Gordon Smith on it. So Smith finally decides to engage, with what The AP calls a "hastily called news conference Friday night."

  By running the ad -- and attacking Smith on the campaign trail -- Merkley "is putting his personal and partisan interest above that of scores of thousands of Oregonians" and other Americans, Smith said...

  "Part of being a U.S. senator is actually understanding and reading bills of this magnitude, and not prejudging when the stakes are this high," said Smith, a two-term Republican who is locked in a tight battle for re-election with Merkley, the Oregon House speaker.

  Merkley "is not showing leadership. He is showing partisan opportunism. This is a profile in cowardice," Smith said.

  Wow, can you say pot calling the kettle black? Man, Merkley is the one driving this debate and he is the one showing leadership. And all Smith can do is whine about it.

  More of this please. Give to the Jeff Merkley campaign HERE.

• Congratulations to Rick Noriega, who won Blue America's Senate challenger contest with 917 votes and almost $20,000 raised. Here's Rick with a strong message for incumbent John Cornyn on the economy and the bailout (h/t Burnt Orange Report):

  You can give to the Rick Noriega campaign HERE.

Only 8 more donors at our Road To 60 ActBlue page to get us to 120 total contributors and just $103 more in donations will get us to a total of $10,000 raised. Please help us pass these benchmarks by Tuesday at midnight to help our great Senate challengers win Barack Obama 60 seats in the Senate for an actual working Democratic majority. Imagine that!

[editor's note, by Todd Beeton]Slightly revised to reflect updated fundraising numbers.