Election 2010: Republicans In Better Shape Than in 2008 Defending Senate Seats
Posted Dec 10, 2008 at 9:59 AM
Maurice Berger, Political Director, PollTrack
According to CQ Politics, the Repiblican senate campaign still has an uphill battle in 2010, but the party is in better shape than in 2008 when it was forced to defend many more seats than the Democrats: In 201, "the GOP will not have the kind of steeply slanted playing field it had to deal with this year. In the flip side of the party’s successes in its better times of 2002, the Republicans ended up defending 23 seats to the Democrats’ 12. That would have made it hard for them to hold their ground, even if the overall political atmosphere had not been so toxic. The slate of regularly scheduled 2010 races gives the Republicans another defensive chore, though it was not nearly as big: 19 Republican-held seats are scheduled to be up that year to 15 Democratic-held seats. Special elections will narrow the margin further, to 19-17, because of picks President-elect Barack Obama has made for his White House team from among his former Democratic Senate colleagues."
