Senate Forecast - July 30 - Baked Alaska

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DCW Senate Forecast: 55.9 (up from 55.8), highlighted by OpenLeft, SSP Cook and Rothenberg all moving Alaska in the Democrat's direction.

The DCW Senate Forecast is an average of the projections of the Democratic held seats in the 2009 Senate. (We count Sanders and Lieberman as Democrats in the Senate Forecast. Feel free to subtract one if you so desire!) A history of the Forecast going back to November 2006 is at bottom and in the left sidebar.

For analysis of the races, be sure to check out the latest installment of Sunday with the Senators.

Be sure to also check out our Presidential Forecast and our House Forecast.

The following seats are unanimous strong and are not shown in the table below (We do show VA as it is a pickup):

Solid Democrat: AR (Pryor), DE (Biden), IA (Harkin). IL (Durbin), MA (Kerry), MI (Levin), MT (Baucus), RI (Reed), SD (Johnson), WV (Rockefeller)
Solid Republican: AL (Sessions), ID (Open), KS (Roberts), MS (Cochrane), NE (Open), OK (Inhofe), SC (Graham), TN (Alexander), TX (Cornyn), WY (Barraso), WY (Enzi)

The sources are sorted by each sources Senate Projection:

DCW Senate Forecast
State	Current	538 .com	EV .com	Open Left	Crystal Ball	Cook	CQ	SSP	Roth	....
Date		7/28	7/19	7/29	6/18	7/17	7/29	7/29	7/30
Dem-Strong		15	13	13	12	12	12	13	12
Dem-Lean		2	2	4	4	2	3	3	2
Tossup		1	4	0	2	6	4	1	4
Rep-Lean		3	4	4	4	2	2	4	2
Rep-Strong		14	12	14	13	13	14	14	15
Dem-Prediction		18	17	17	17	17	17	17	16
Dem '10/'12 Seats		39	39	39	39	39	39	39	39
Senate Projection		57	56	56	56	56	56	56	55
Dem-Gain		6	5	5	5	5	5	5	4
AK (Stevens)	R	DL	T	DL	T	T	DL	T	T
CO (Open)	R	DL	DL	DL	DL	T	T	DL	T
GA (Chambliss)	R	R	RL	R	R	R	R	R	R
KY (McConnell)	R	RL	T	RL	R	R	R	R	R
LA (Landrieu)	D	D	T	DL	DL	DL	DL	DL	T
ME (Collins)	R	R	RL	R	RL	RL	RL	R	R
MN (Coleman)	R	R	RL	RL	RL	T	T	RL	T
MS (Wicker)	R	T	T	RL	T	T	T	RL	RL
NC (Dole)	R	R	R	R	RL	RL	R	RL	R
NH (Sununu)	R	D	D	D	DL	T	T	DL	DL
NJ (Lautenberg)	D	D	DL	DL	D	D	D	D	D
NM (Open)	R	D	D	D	DL	DL	DL	D	DL
OR (Smith)	R	RL	RL	RL	RL	T	RL	RL	RL
VA (Open)	R	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D

Here are the seats that span 3 categories:

• CO - Two projections have it as strong D, 3 as Tossup. Udall is up by 9 or more points in all polls since June.
  
• KY (McConnell): EV.Com has it as a Tossup
• LA (Landrieu) (NEW): 1 at Dem-Strong, 2 at Tossup
• MN (NEW): 538 at Rep-Strong.
  
• MS (Wicker): Rothenberg has it as a "Clear Advantage" for Wicker, but Rasmussen's poll out on 6/24 shows Wicker with a 1 point lead.
  
• NH (Sununu): Shaheen has opened up a 14 point lead in 2 straight polls, but Sununu has a big money advantage.
  

The Senate Projection for each source gives Democrats 1.0 seats in a state that is projected solid for the Democrat (or seats that are not up for reelection this cycle), 0.8 seats for a Democrat-Lean, 0.5 seats for a a Tossup, 0.2 seats for a Republican-Lean, and obviously 0 seats for a solid Republican seat or a Republican seat not up for reelection this cycle.