13 Senate races

Houston Chronicle:

How hostile is the political environment for Senate Republicans this year?

In Oregon, embattled GOP incumbent Sen. Gordon Smith has aired commercials praising Barack Obama, John Kerry and Ted Kennedy — everybody, it seems, but Republican standard-bearer John McCain.

In Minnesota, endangered Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, who once described President Bush as the answer to his prayers, is now mimicking Obama instead with a "Hope Express" bus tour.

Even deep in the heart of Dixie, appointed Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker crows on his campaign home page about leading the opposition to Bush Medicare policies.

"I don't think that anybody realized it was going to be this tough of a cycle," said Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev. "We're dealing with an unpopular president. We have a financial crisis. Republicans get a lot more of the blame than Democrats do."

...

Republicans are just not as good as Democrats in allocating blame. Democrats were responsible for the financial meltdown and they have successfully transferred that responsibility in large part to Republicans. Republicans need to be more offense oriented.

Of the 13 races discussed the most likely GOP losses are in Virginia, New Mexico, and North Carolina where Libby Dole has not been very effective this year. Not mentioned are races in South Carolina and Idaho where Republicans are leading by large margins.

There are several close races where Democrats are leading incumbents that are within the margin of error, but history suggest the incumbent is likely to lose. New Hampshire and Oregon fall into this category. The Minnesota race has a third party candidate who is drawing about 16 percent of the vote making that one hard to predict, but I think Coleman has a good chance of holding it.

A sidebar story discusses 10 close House races, some of which look like potential GOP take backs. I think Pete Olson's race against Nick Lampson in Tome Delay's old district is one of those.