GOP Is Losing Ground

Republicans no longer have a realistic chance of holding their own in this year's Senate contests.

by Charlie Cook
The National Journal

One of the less pleasant aspects of writing a political column when one party is having a particularly grim year is that the story gets so repetitive. Some years, the Democrats are in the political toilet. This year, the Republicans are in that unenviable position.

In the presidential race, presumptive Republican nominee John McCain is behind but still very competitive. For the GOP, that is the bright spot on the horizon. In the House and Senate contests, the debate is about how many seats the Republicans will lose; they no longer have a realistic chance of holding their own.

So, even though a nonpartisan analyst naturally desires to be balanced, in a year like this I can place very little good news on the Republican side of the scale.

In the Senate races, the outlook for the GOP is bad and getting worse. Few Republicans think that they have any real hope of holding retiring Sen. John Warner's seat in Virginia. Former Gov. Mark Warner, who is a Democrat, appears to have a lock on that contest, which The Cook Political Report rates as "Likely Democratic." In New Mexico, where Republican Sen. Pete Domenici is retiring, GOP Rep. Steve Pearce is the underdog, trailing Democratic Rep. Tom Udall in a contest that we moved this week from the "Toss-Up" column to "Leans Democratic."

(Continued here.)