Take a careful look at Friday’s detailed analysis by liberal Nate Silver. Then add in news that Democrat Beau Biden won’t run in Delaware and new data from Rasmussen showing conservative Mike Pence beating incumbent Evan Bayh in Indiana, and it sure looks like an eight-seat pickup is well within reach.
Of course, politics remains a fluid and fickle game. All could change. And if you really want to believe that former governors George Pataki and Tommy Thompson would run in New York and Wisconsin, respectively, then perhaps one can also imagine the GOP taking over the Senate. A pipe dream? Likely, and not one to get terribly excited about anyway. But just to be able to see such a potential result as anything but crazy has got to be demoralizing to the Obama White House.
And a very small reason to smile on a Monday morning.
Finally, as Don Johnson points out, Silver’s methodology gives Jane Norton a 73 percent chance, and Ken Buck a 53 percent chance, of beating Michael Bennet. Tom Wiens et al. were not included in his analysis.
My opinion is that any GOP candidate in the race now will beat Bennet, and Norton will most likely split the GOP vote and ensure a victory for the democrats (though I would argue even if she wins, its a victory for the democrats).
Some of these models are based on the premise that registered republicans will vote for the republican, this is not true this year. The GOP base wants a real conservative republican, we want the GOP that I was raised to respect- not the special interest puppets that we have today.
Jane Norton represents the essential elements of distaste in the GOP, and I won’t be voting for her under any circumstances.