Calculating Senate odds

A recent wave of stories about the 2004 Senate races has suggested the Democrats are on the brink of recapturing majority control of the narrowly divided chamber.

Don’t believe it.

Independent election analysts who closely track these contests tell me these heavily slanted stories are overplaying the Democrats’ chances in the strongly Republican South and West. They see the GOP’s 51-48 majority (with one independent) not changing or growing by one or two seats.

A typical report in this month’s ultraliberal the Nation magazine — titled “Will the Senate tip?” — all but forecasts a Democratic takeover in the making. “If the Democrats re-elect their incumbents, hold three of the five [open Democratic] Southern seats and win the four GOP-held seats outside the South, where they are currently running strong, they’re at 51,” the magazine indicated.

Time Magazine breathlessly reported that “suddenly the math has changed: Democrats can see their way to a net gain of two seats, which would give them a slim advantage in the Senate.”

But that’s not how Senate elections tracker Jennifer Duffy of the Cook Political Report sees these races shaping up. Asked if these media reports are exaggerated, she replies, “Absolutely. These Southern Senate races are far from a done deal.”

Nathan Gonzales, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report, which also closely follows Senate races, goes even further:

“There’s no question that the Senate is competitive and is in play and over the past few months Democratic opportunities have gotten better,” he told me.

“That being said, the landscape is still difficult for the Democrats, who have to win in Republican-leaning states. Our outlook is either no change in the Senate’s mathematical makeup or Republicans plus one,” he said.

Clearly, the math is against the Democrats, who have far more open seats to defend. Only 11 Senate races are now competitive now, but seven of them are held by Democrats.

“What it comes down to is that for the Democrats to actually regain the majority, they have to win nine out of 11 of those races. We just have to win four to hold on to our majority,” said Dan Allen, chief spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

There’s little doubt the Republicans will lose a seat in Illinois, and the GOP’s open seats in Oklahoma and Colorado look competitive right now, though these are both GOP-leaning states. But the biggest battle for the Senate will be won or lost in the conservative, Republican-trending South, where five Democratic retirements have given the GOP a lot of chances for net gains. Among them:

• Georgia: “It’s gone for the Democrats,” Mr. Duffy told me. The front-runner is Republican Rep. Johnny Isakson, the likely winner of the July 20 primary. Democrats have been unable to recruit a strong opponent. A solid pickup for the GOP.

• Louisiana: Republican Rep. David Vitter leads in the polls and has $3.4 million cash on hand. The Democrats are split in a bitter intraparty fight. This state has never elected a Republican senator, but the betting here is they will this year.

• North Carolina: Former Clinton chief of staff Erskine Bowles makes another bid for the Senate after losing to Elizabeth Dole in 2002 with only 45 percent of the vote. Polls show him leading Republican Rep. Richard Burr, 47 to 39 percent. But Republican strategists say Mr. Bowles’ numbers are the result of months of costly TV ads, while Mr. Burr has not run one TV ad and is still at nearly 40 percent. A tossup.

• South Carolina: Republican polling shows Democrat Inez Tenenbaum, state education superintendent, trails Republican Rep. Jim DeMint by 7 points, 43 percent to 50 percent. Miss Tenenbaum is running as a centrist and backs President Bush on Iraq, a constitutional amendment on same-sex “marriage,” the death penalty and the antiterrorism U.S.A. Patriot Act.

But this is a Republican state Mr. Bush carried by 16 points in 2000. Mr. DeMint, whose general election campaign is just starting, has a united party behind him and a well-financed war chest. Mr. Rothenberg rated this one “lean to takeover.”

• Florida: Former state Education Commissioner Betty Castor is the Democratic front-runner, but that could change. She is under fierce attack in her party primary from Rep. Peter Deutsch for not firing an alleged terrorist, Sami Al-Arian, when she headed the University of South Florida in the 1990s. Mr. Al-Arian was fired last year after being indicted on charges he was the North American head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Former Rep. Bill McCollum, who lost his 2000 Senate bid, is leading a large Republican field including former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Mel Martinez. But Mr. McCollum’s polls have not budged in months, while the White House-backed Mr. Martinez’s numbers have risen in recent weeks.

We won’t know how this race will go until the candidates are selected in the Aug. 31 primary. But this is a strongly Republican state, and White House political strategist Karl Rove is betting a Martinez candidacy will be swept to victory by the state’s large Hispanic community.

Donald Lambro, chief political correspondent of The Washington Times, is a nationally syndicated columnist.