What are GOP Senate prospects in 2014?
All those 2008 seats won by Democrats are up. We’d have to have a complete disaster not to pick up more than a few...
AK... Begich (fluke) - easy pickup
AR... Pryor (retiring ?) - pickup
CO... Mark Udall - competitive
IL... Durbin - competitive with the right candidate
IA... Harkin - (retiring ?) - should beat him anyway
LA... Landrieu - (retiring ?) - very weak, pickup for us
MA... Kerry (retiring ?) - if Brown loses, he could run again
MI... Levin (retiring ?) - 36 yr incumbent, should take down
MN... Al Franken (fluke) - stolen election, should win (Pawlenty may run)
MT... Baucus (retiring ?) - 36-yr incumbent (40 including prior House service), should face strong challenger
NH... Shaheen (competitive) possible rematch against Sununu
NJ... Lautenberg (retiring ?), open seat could give us a shot
NM... Tom Udall (whispers might retire after 1 term, though he should be favored unless the GOP has a strong candidate)
NC... Hagan (fluke) - weak incumbent, GOP should take it back
OR... Merkley - depends on challenger, he upset Gordon Smith
RI... Jack Reed - invisible incumbent, but GOP never challenges him
SC... Graham - replacing him with a Conservative in the primary would be a “pickup”
SD... Tim Johnson (retiring ?) - ex-Gov. Mike Rounds may run, and will be a pickup
VA... Mark Warner - if strong challenger runs like Gov. Bob McDonnell, he is beatable
WV... Rockefeller (retiring ?) - with open seat, we should finally pick this one up after more than a half-century
So, all in all, if we don’t grab at least 10 of those contests, that would be a poor performance on our part (although whom is elected President will tilt it — if Zero wins, I think we get a dozen... if the GOP wins, a lesser amount).