Senate News & Analysis
There is no single “right” way to handicap a race.
You can evaluate where the race is at a particular moment and “rate” what you see. Or, after noting the candidates’ current standing, you can make an informed projection about how the race will play out, changing your…
Latinos are growing into a powerful voting bloc, but there is the real possibility that the U.S. Senate won’t have any additional Hispanics next year.
Last year, a handful of Latinos had an opportunity to get elected and join Florida’s Marco Rubio and New Jersey’s Bob Menendez as…
Former Sen. Bob Kerrey’s last-minute reversal to get into the Nebraska Senate race is reason to re-evaluate our rating.
In the last week’s edition of RPR, we moved the Nebraska race to Safe for the Republicans based on the lack of credible Democratic candidates, but we also wrote…
Sen. Claire McCaskill (Mo.) knows exactly where she needs to be positioned. And she has done about as good a job as possible to sell herself to Show-Me State voters as an “independent” Democrat who doesn’t always agree with her party or her president.
But even veteran party…
Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe’s surprise retirement announcement on Tuesday dramatically shifts her Maine seat from the Safe Republican column and places it firmly in the center of the fight for the Senate majority.
The moderate Snowe had burnished her own independent credentials so deeply that the only real…
The fight for control of the United States Senate changed only slightly, but still noticeably, over the past three months, as President Barack Obama’s poll numbers improved and the focus on the GOP presidential race further damaged an already weak Republican brand.
With the focus of political discussion…
ARIZONA – Open; Jon Kyl (R), not seeking reelection. August 28 primary.
Democrats remain optimistic about their chances of picking up this open seat, predicated largely on what they see as a strong recruit in former U.S. Surgeon General (under George W. Bush) Richard Carmona, who jumped into…
MINNESOTA – Amy Klobuchar (D), elected 2006 (58%). August 14 primary.
GOP operatives privately admit that Sen. Klobuchar is an excellent politician. Pete Hegseth, executive director of Vets for Freedom, just got into the race. Klobuchar ended December with about $4.6 million in the bank and is a…
PENNSYLVANIA – Bob Casey (D), elected 2006 (59%). April 24 primary.
Casey isn’t charismatic, but his positioning as a pro-union, cultural moderate is a good one for a Democrat in the Keystone State. And the Casey name (his father was governor) is still a plus in parts of…
It is a little more than eight months until Election Day, but even now two Republican-held Senate seats look increasingly like the keys to whether Democrats can hold their narrow majority in November.
Republican strategists are overwhelmed with opportunities and potential opportunities this cycle, and even a modest…