2010 Election: Reset

I have gotten a little ahead of myself by going into individual analyses of competitive races, without really going into much detail setting up the score and what the stakes are. To do that, I have taken all 36 elections and went ahead and, without any calculations, purely from a quick observation of Wikipedia and RealClearPolitics, made some early calls. I left all of the races that have been concentrated on by RealClearPolitics to delve into later and read quick summaries of the races on Wikipedia to determine the most likely outcome of the least competitive races. Most of the races feature long-time incumbents with little challenge if any from the opposite party. A few of the races have significant favorites, but still felt like they were competitive enough to call leans. With all this in mind, let's look at the latest states that I have called:

Alabama - Republican
Alaska - Republican
Arizona - Lean Republican
Georgia - Republican
Hawaii - Democrat
Idaho - Republican
Iowa - Lean Republican
Kansas - Republican
Maryland - Democrat
New York (Schumer) - Democrat
Oklahoma - Republican
Oregon - Lean Democrat
South Carolina - Republican
South Dakota - Lean Republican
Vermont - Democrat
Utah - Republican

Now, let's update the standings:

Current count (including leans):

Democrats: 45
Independents: 2
Republicans: 35

[*Edit* Wanted to note that I count Independents as Democrats in most of my calculations because despite the interesting theories surrounding the possibility of Joe Lieberman switching over to caucus with Republicans should the majority swing in the balance, I find it more likely he sticks with Democrats. Despite recent events he still has a lot more in common with them than with Republicans.]

That leaves us with 18 seats left in play. The magic number for Democrats is 4. If they can get 4 out of those 18 seats, they will hold onto the majority. Can Republicans pull off their magic number of 16? It's certainly a long road, but with the current political climate, it's all down hill!

My plans for the next week:

The Senate analysis will be put on hold for a little while as, tomorrow, I will be attending CPAC where I will take good notes and come back here with daily reports. After the dust settles from CPAC, I will resume the Senate analysis and hopefully get some more projections done! After the Senate is complete, I will move onto the House and try to get a handle on the situation there.