Signs point to Republican Senate gains

Like us on Facebook

The Cook Political Report expects Republicans to gain between 7 to 9 seats. There are currently 57 Democrats, two independents that caucus with the Democrats, and 41 Republicans in the Senate.

Republicans hold a 10 percentage point lead in the latest weekly tracking of voting preferences for the 2010 congressional races, according to the most recent weekly Gallup generic ballot poll.

The organization found that, based on candidates of differing party affiliations and experience, Americans are most likely to prefer "a Republican who has not served in Congress," a choice embraced by 38 percent of those polled. The next closest choice was "Democrats serving in Congress" at 24 percent.

Sabato says the scenarios for the election largely depended on "how quickly, the deeply troubled American economy recovered from the Great Recession." Democratic hopes of an economic revitalization have been dashed, he said.

"The economy appears rotten, with little chance of a substantial comeback by November 2nd," he said. 

Another Gallup poll asking potential voters from August 23 to 29 how much "thought they had given to the elections," showed 54 percent of Republicans and 30 percent of Democrats had given "quite a lot of" or "some" thought to the election.

Meanwhile, minority and young voters, who made a significant impact in the 2008 election, appear to have reverted to previous levels of interest, according to the group. While whites and blacks were about equally likely to say they had given "quite a lot of" or "some" thought to the 2008 general election, that figure was now 42 percent for whites and 25 percent for blacks. While the difference in attention between young adults (18 to 29) and older adults (30+) was just 12 percentage points in 2008 -- 75 percent to 87 percent -- that gap has increased to 23 point -- 19 percent to 42 percent.