Control of Senate Will Come Down to the Wire

Looking past the Presidential race to the battlegrounds for the Senate, the situation looks much better for the Democrats than it did a year ago when they appeared on track for an epic defeat.

With the staggered 6 year terms, only a third of the seats are up for election in 2012. That means the Democrats and Republicans each start with 44 safe seats, leaving competitive races in just 12 states. Here's the RCP poll margins:

State	Republican	Democrat	9/27 RCP
Florida	Mack	Nelson	8.8
Ohio	Mandel	Brown	7.5
Missouri	Akin	McCaskill	5.3
Wisconsin	Thompson	Baldwin	5.0
Virginia	Allen	Kaine	3.6
Connecticut	McMahon	Murphy	2.4
Indiana	Mourdock	Donnelly	2.0
Massachusetts	Brown	Warren	1.4
Montana	Rehberg	Tester	-1.7
Nevada	Heller	Berkley	-2.0
Arizona	Flake	Carmona	-3.5
North Dakota	Berg	Heitkamp	-5.0
Battleground average			2.0

The Democrats have a lead of only 2% in the battleground states, compared to a 3.8% lead for President Obama in a different but overlapping mix of 12 battleground states. That's an uncomfortably thin margin.

On the other hand, the Republicans have only locked down Nebraska among the 8 states that looked most vulnerable. Worse, their candidates trail badly in Ohio and Florida, which does not bode well for winning one of them in the Presidential race.