In my last iteration I expressed doubt that the Democrats could pick up North Carolina and Oregon and suggested that the trends toward Hagan and Merkley would not hold; even as I am not confident that the blue wave will prove a tsunami and can't move North Carolina and Oregon outside the toss-up column, I can't ignore the numbers altogether. Under this analysis, the Democrats will require Martin (Georgia), Lunsford (Kentucky), or Musgrove (Mississippi) to score an upset to reach 60 seats (assuming arguendo that Lieberman will continue to vote with the Democrats for organizational purposes, even as he may withdraw from the Democratic caucus and restyle himself as an "I" [as against "ID"]), although 60 cannot be regarded as particularly significant or more than symbolic; more practical purposes 58 (with, for instance, Smith and Dole retaining their seats) should suffice.

I don't expect that the trend toward Hagan should continue, and even as I've dropped North Carolina to a toss-up, I probably continue to rate it as a Republican advantage; I don't think that Dole'll lose, but I don't imagine that she'll win by more than four points, an outcome I'd not otherwise have contemplated. I thought that Gordon would succeed as Susan Collins (emphasizing his being a moderate, a must given the slightly Democratic nature of his state), but it seems now that he may suffer the fate of Lincoln Chafee, and I expect that if the current national mood persists, Merkley will solidify the slight margin he's posted in the last two major polls and will get the nod from me in the next iteration of my predictions.

Minnesota back in the Republican column (I continue to believe, my general love for Al Franken notwithstanding, that the DFL selected the wrong candidate; I expect, as first I did in March, Franken to lose by two or three points a seat that otherwise would have gone to the DFL candidate by a nose); Alaska in the Democratic column for the first time (the change du jour, of course, although I fully expect Stevens [or another Republican candidate, should the indictment cause some grand change; it can't be good, at the very least, when the editorial the lead of which one quotes on the front page of his campaign site begins "[w]hatever [folks in Alaska] might think about Sen. Ted Stevens’ honesty or lack thereof"] to mount a very strong campaign, one about the success of which no one can be certain, and one that many are much too quick to write off [thus the "toss up" designation, which has remained unchanged in my analysis for some time]).

Assumes Franken as the DFL candidate in Minnesota (even as I love Al, I'm convinced, even as he narrows the gap in most polls and even as Obama is a better top-of-the-ticket candidate for Franken than would have been HRC, that he'll not beat Coleman, and I wouldn't be shocked were many others to come to that realization and to make what might be expected to be a perfunctory September primary [the DFL have, after all, endorsed Franken, by acclamation, no less, after it became apparent that he had the support of better than 60 per cent of party conventioneers] a bit interesting; I'm not certain, though, that the primary victory of any of the other candidates or potential candidates would change the ultimate result, coming as it would rather late in the process, and so I maintain Minnesota as a Republican toss-up, although I've moved it from >40 to >50 and will, should current trends continue and circumstances hold, probably move it to "leans Republican" when next I update).

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