Senate ranking thread : looking ahead at 2012

[dmmidmi]

Of course this is ridiculously early, but here's what I see so far...

Could Change Hands
Maine (Snowe)
Michigan (Stabenow)
Pennsylvania (Casey, Jr.)

Maybe a Republican pickup here, but not that likely.

Even Chance of Changing Hands
Connecticut (Lieberman)--does this really count, since he already caucuses as a Democrat?
Florida (Nelson)
Missouri (McCaskill)
Ohio (Brown)
Virginia (Webb)

Dems could get swept here I guess, but I'm not really counting on that happening.

A Good Chance of Changing Hands
Massachusetts (Brown)
Montana (Tester)
Nebraska (Nelson)
Nevada (Ensign)

If all four change hands, this is a wash.

Retirement Watch
Delaware (Carper) - Even if he retires, I still doubt it would change hands.
Hawaii (Akaka) - If he retires, it depends on what Laura Lingle does.
Wisconsin (Kohl) - It will depend on what Paul Ryan and Russ Feingold do.

So, anywhere between two and five seats. I'll go with GOP+3 for right now.

[dmmidmi]

>60%:
ND: Conrad was popular, but we must remember that Lincoln also was very popular until it came down to the Obamacare votes. Also, Pomeroy was also quite popular.

I have yet to see anything to imply that Conrad is in any kind of re-election trouble, let alone a convincing argument that he's more likely to lose than not.

[dmmidmi]

The Republicans will take 2-4 seats, depending on whether Obama gets re-elected. Given the huge amount of seats that the Democrats need to defend (23, compared to just 10 for the Republicans), the Democrats are almost certainly going to suffer a net loss even if Obama gets re-elected.

In terms of determining how the parties need to delegate resources, the number of seats (2:1) that Democrats will be defending seems important. What's more important is which seats each party needs to defend, and in what type of environment. In 2010, the GOP had to defend almost as many seats (even seats with incumbents) as the Democrats did, but how many of those incumbents would have been deemed "vulnerable" in any environment? Maybe one or two?

Point is, if the Democrats have to "defend" 20 seats, but only 2 or 3 appear to be vulnerable (e.g. unpopular with constituents, etc.), and Republicans have to "defend" 10 seats, but 4 or 5 are vulnerable, does it really matter how many seats each party is "defending"?