Taegan Goddard's Political Wire

September 22, 2005

How Democrats Could Take Control of the Senate

Larry Sabato looks at the Democratic chances for taking over the Senate after next year's elections, noting that "Katrina, Iraq, gas prices, growing national debt, President Bush's unpopularity, and other factors might conspire to produce Democratic gains or even a takeover."

How to do it? Assuming Democrats can hold all open seats (MD, MN, and possibly NJ) and win the close Democratic seats (WV, FL, WA, ND), they would need six seats to take control.

Two Republican senators -- Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) and Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) -- "are in deep trouble, and may be ripe for the plucking." To get the other four seats, "there appear to be only five possibilities in the nation: the Tennessee open seat of retiring Senator Bill Frist (R), plus defeats of incumbent GOP senators Conrad Burns (MT), Mike DeWine (OH), Jon Kyl (AZ), and Jim Talent (MO). All of these are possible, none at the moment is likely."

The bottom line: "Democrats have only a long-shot chance at Senate takeover, and they are short of opportunities to make it happen. Of course, if 2006 turns into a Democratic 1994, then even our mind-stretching list of upsets and perfect-D luck is a possibility."

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Taegan D. Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including the Washington Post, USA Today, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer and Christian Science Monitor.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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