60-40 FILES:

Calculating Senate odds (Donald Lambro, July 12, 2004, Washington Times)

There's little doubt the Republicans will lose a seat in Illinois, and the GOP's open seats in Oklahoma and Colorado look competitive right now, though these are both GOP-leaning states. But the biggest battle for the Senate will be won or lost in the conservative, Republican-trending South, where five Democratic retirements have given the GOP a lot of chances for net gains. Among them:

• Georgia: "It's gone for the Democrats," Mr. Duffy told me. The front-runner is Republican Rep. Johnny Isakson, the likely winner of the July 20 primary. Democrats have been unable to recruit a strong opponent. A solid pickup for the GOP.

• Louisiana: Republican Rep. David Vitter leads in the polls and has $3.4 million cash on hand. The Democrats are split in a bitter intraparty fight. This state has never elected a Republican senator, but the betting here is they will this year.

• North Carolina: Former Clinton chief of staff Erskine Bowles makes another bid for the Senate after losing to Elizabeth Dole in 2002 with only 45 percent of the vote. Polls show him leading Republican Rep. Richard Burr, 47 to 39 percent. But Republican strategists say Mr. Bowles' numbers are the result of months of costly TV ads, while Mr. Burr has not run one TV ad and is still at nearly 40 percent. A tossup.

• South Carolina: Republican polling shows Democrat Inez Tenenbaum, state education superintendent, trails Republican Rep. Jim DeMint by 7 points, 43 percent to 50 percent. Miss Tenenbaum is running as a centrist and backs President Bush on Iraq, a constitutional amendment on same-sex "marriage," the death penalty and the antiterrorism U.S.A. Patriot Act.

But this is a Republican state Mr. Bush carried by 16 points in 2000. Mr. DeMint, whose general election campaign is just starting, has a united party behind him and a well-financed war chest. Mr. Rothenberg rated this one "lean to takeover."

• Florida: Former state Education Commissioner Betty Castor is the Democratic front-runner, but that could change. She is under fierce attack in her party primary from Rep. Peter Deutsch for not firing an alleged terrorist, Sami Al-Arian, when she headed the University of South Florida in the 1990s. Mr. Al-Arian was fired last year after being indicted on charges he was the North American head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Former Rep. Bill McCollum, who lost his 2000 Senate bid, is leading a large Republican field including former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Mel Martinez. But Mr. McCollum's polls have not budged in months, while the White House-backed Mr. Martinez's numbers have risen in recent weeks.

The idea that the election of a black Democratic statewide candidate anywhere is a foregone conclusion is absurd on its face.

Posted by Orrin Judd at July 12, 2004 10:02 AM