National Public Radio has taken a look at the races for the state legislatures across the country. Overall, they find a challenging environment for Democrats which is especially troublesome given that reapportionment is upon us. The difficult environment is largely a result of the fact that Democrats currently hold more seats in a year that anti-incumbency seems to be the mood of an angry electorate.

It's conceivable that Republicans could take over as many as 20 chambers this fall. Conversely, it's difficult to name more than a handful of states where Democrats could win control.

"It's not exactly going way out on a limb to say this is a challenging election for Democrats," says Tim Storey, an elections expert with the National Conference of State Legislatures. "That's fairly obvious."

Playing On Democratic Turf
Part of the reason is simple math. Democrats are offering up many more targets.

About 6,000 of the nation's 7,400 legislative seats are at stake this fall. Democrats currently hold 55 percent of the total. The party also controls 60 chambers nationwide, compared with 36 that are held by Republicans. (Two are tied and one – Nebraska's — is nominally nonpartisan.)

Democrats have scored gains in both legislative seats and chambers three election cycles in a row — 2004, 2006 and 2008. They won many marginal seats that they'll have a hard time holding this year.

"You're building on three cycles of Democrats gaining seats," says Josh Goodman, a political reporter and blogger with Governing, a state and local government magazine. "If Democrats didn't win a seat in those three years, when would they ever win it?"

Difficult Year For Incumbents
Given that the president's party almost always loses seats during midterm elections — and that Democrats have few places left where they can realistically go on offense — Republicans would be likely to make gains under almost any circumstances.

An average of a dozen legislative chambers change hands every election cycle. It's especially tough to be running as the party in power in most states this time around.

States have had to fill budget shortfalls totaling about $300 billion over the past couple of years, meaning legislators have done almost nothing but cut spending or raise taxes, or both. They don't have a lot of shining recent policy breakthroughs they can brag about.

"This recession has made it difficult for anyone to govern and make everyone happy," says Michael Sargeant, executive director of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.

According to NPR, the ten state legislative chambers to watch are the Alabama Senate (D:20 R:15), Colorado Senate (D:21 R:14), Indiana House (D:52 R:48), Kentucky Senate (D:17 R:20), Montana Senate (D:50 R:50), New Hampshire Senate (D:14 R:10), New York Senate (D:32 R:28 1 vacancy), Ohio House (D:53 R:46), Pennsylvania House (D:103 R:97), and the Texas House (D:73 R:77). Of these Texas will likely gain 3 to 4 House seats, Colorado may add one while New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania are likely to lose a House seat each.