Last Wednesday on the back of the Gallup poll indicating a tie in the congressional ballot 48% - 48% and Quinnipiac's poll showing DeWine essentially tied in Ohio (Brown 45%, DeWine 44%) I asked whether we were seeing movement toward the GOP. The Columbus Dispatch did show a 3-point move toward DeWine, but still has him trailing by 5-points. So a little movement toward DeWine, but when you look at the Univ. of Cincinnati and the SurveyUSA polls that showed 4 and 10-point leads respectively for Brown, on balance, the other polling did not confirm Quinnipiac's one-point race.

The two other Senate races I suggested to keep an eye for new polling were Pennsylvania and Missouri:

If Rick Santorum can pull to within 3-7 points in the RCP Average (currently at Casey +8.6%) and Jim Talent can bump his lead up to 2-4 points (currently he has a scant 0.3% edge in the RCP Average) that would be a further indication that a real tightening is taking place across the board. On the other hand, if Bob Casey holds on to closer to a double-digit lead in Pennsylvania and Claire McCaskill stays tied or pulls ahead in Missouri, that would not be consistent with a GOP tightening.

Well we have a host of new polls on the Pennsylvania race and none of them are good news for Republicans. With the Green party candidate off the ballot the latest Quinnipiac poll, released today, gives Casey a 14-point lead, the IssuesPA/Pew poll has Casey up 23% (which is obviously exaggerated), the Philly Inquirer and Rasmussen Reports both have the race at 10 points. With the RCP Average now back up to Casey +12.8% it's pretty clear that the bump for the President and Republicans in the Generic ballot has done little to help Rick Santorum.

We don't have anything to report from Missouri, but of more concern for the GOP is the shape of the races in Tennessee and Virginia, both states thought likely for the Republicans to hold. Harold Ford appears to now have a legitimate shot at winning this seat for the Democrats. The latest RCP Average has this race tied, and there is a recent Democratic poll from BSG giving Ford a 6% lead. In Virginia, George Allen's campaign continues to slowly unravel, taking this race from an easy Republican hold to a toss up today.

Now, Republicans hold structural advantages in all three of these states (MO, TN & VA), and at the end of the day would probably be favored to hold all three, but the fact that they are legitimately in play with a month and half to go, means the Democrats now have a real shot at capturing control of the Senate.

As I discuss in my column today on where the election may be headed:

The Democrats' odds of capturing the Senate have actually improved the last two months at the same time their national numbers vis-a-vis the Republicans have declined. The better analogy politically for 2006 may be 1986 when the Democrats picked up 8 Senate seats and only 5 House seats. Because of Reagan's landslide in 1980 there were many weak GOP incumbents in 1986 that were taken out. Today Republicans have less of an issue in that regard as their 1994 weak incumbents were taken out in 2000 (Grams, Abraham, Ashcroft, Gordon, and Roth). The point of the '86 analogy is not that the Democrats are going to take over the Senate, but rather that because of the inability to gerrymander states, Democrats might be headed for better success in the Senate than the House.

Just based on the most recent RCP Averages the Democrats are headed for a 4 seat pick up in the Senate and that includes the GOP picking up New Jersey.

With six weeks to go Chuck Schumer looks to be getting the best of Elizabeth Dole.