STATE OF PLAY:

The Senate: Big GOP Comeback, But a Majority? (Bob Benenson, CQ-Roll Call)

It was just a year ago that a Minnesota court declared Al Franken the winner of the state’s contested 2008 election and gave his party a theoretical “filibuster-proof” 60-seat majority. So the fact that it’s even a possibility — although still rather slim — that the Republicans could reclaim Senate control is a sign of how sharply the political pendulum has swung back. Having already pushed the Democrats back to 59 with Scott P. Brown ’s January special-election win in Massachusetts, the GOP is currently favored to take Democratic seats in North Dakota, Delaware and Arkansas, is running tossup bids to take seats in Illinois (President Barack Obama ’s old spot), Nevada (Majority Leader Harry Reid under the gun), Colorado, Indiana and Pennsylvania, and beyond that is in the hunt to take as many as four other Democratic seats.