GOP's Hopes Rise for Control of Senate - Many vulnerable Democrats are keeping their distance from President Obama, constraining his policy options.

From The Wall Street Journal:

Even as Republicans focus on a tumultuous presidential campaign, they see their chances rising to take control of the Senate, the last bastion of Democratic power in Congress.

It's a prospect already shaping life on Capitol Hill, as emboldened Republicans, who are expected to retain control of the House, dig in against compromise on issues such as tax increases and stimulus spending.

And many vulnerable Democrats are keeping their distance from President Barack Obama, constraining his policy options.

The political arithmetic for 2012 shows what Democrats are up against. Republicans would need to gain just four Senate seats to win a majority.

Twenty-three seats held by Democrats or their allies are up for election next year, compared with 10 for the GOP.

This tough electoral map for Democrats is a byproduct of the party's success in 2006, when it gained Senate control by winning long-shot victories in conservative and swing states.

Now, those Democrats are about to face re-election, but in less favorable political circumstances.

That's the situation in Missouri, Montana and Nebraska, as well as West Virginia, where Democrat Joe Manchin won a special election last year.

All four states went Republican in the presidential voting in 2008.

Meanwhile, retirements of Democratic senators have forced the party into competitive races that incumbents might have won handily in New Mexico and Wisconsin, as well as in North Dakota, a conservative state that is all but sure to be picked up by Republicans.

In the swing state of Virginia, Democrats lost an advantage with Sen. Jim Webb's retirement after one term.

The upshot is a target-rich environment for Republicans, even as their task of defending their own incumbents has become somewhat easier in recent weeks, as tea-party challenges to Republican Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah, Richard Lugar of Indiana and Olympia Snowe of Maine have faded.

Democrats would rather run against tea-party newcomers than incumbents.

The political battlefield appears so heavily tilted against the Democrats that some analysts say control of the Senate is the Republicans' to lose.

Nine of the races for Senate seats now in Democratic hands are already competitive, and one additional Democratic seat is likely to go Republican, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.

The Cook report judges Republicans to be at risk of losing only two of the 10 GOP-held seats up for election next year.

Democrats, fighting hard against these odds, have raised more money than Republicans and recruited strong candidates in battleground states such as Indiana and Nevada.

"Democrats have their work cut out for them," said Geoff Garin, who has conducted polls for Senate Democrats. "But we clearly have a fighting chance to keep the majority."

Democrats say their own prospects have brightened recently in some ways.

In Massachusetts, they are encouraged that Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard law professor who was the force behind creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, recently took steps toward running against Sen. Scott Brown for the seat long held by the late Edward Kennedy.

In Nevada, Democrats believe that Dean Heller, a Republican appointed to a Senate seat this year, is vulnerable. Democrats are counting, too, on a lift from the Obama re-election campaign, which is expected to invest heavily in mobilizing Latino voters.

Also working in the Democrats' favor: The GOP has yet to rally behind strong challengers for some potentially vulnerable Democrats, among them Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania.

Elsewhere, Republicans are battling through sometimes-bitter primary contests that could damage their prospects against top targets.

For instance, although Nebraska's Ben Nelson is considered one of the most vulnerable Senate Democrats, the state's Republicans are brawling for the right to run against him in a crowded field.

Similarly, Republicans haven't settled on a marquee candidate to face Democrat Sen. Claire McCaskill in Missouri, who is considered at risk in a state that appears to have grown more conservative since 2008, when it went for Republican John McCain in the presidential race by a slender 0.1% margin.

Ms. McCaskill has underscored her independence from President Obama by moves such as supporting a federal spending cap the White House opposed. But she was thrown on the defensive this year when she was forced to pay back taxes on a corporate airplane she co-owns.

While Republican prospects to claim the Senate are strong, the character of a GOP-dominated Senate is hard to predict before primary contests are resolved. The tea party exerted a strong influence on the 2010 elections, but the movement is uneasy with or even hostile to some possible GOP candidates.

They include former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, who is drawing attack ads from the conservative group Club for Growth even before he declares his candidacy, and former Rep. Heather Wilson of New Mexico, who had built a centrist reputation.

At the same time, the clout of the tea party could push Republican candidates to tack to the right, even if the movement's designated favorites don't win their primaries.

Members of both parties agree that GOP control of the Senate would mean a dramatic shift in policy. For the past year, Democrats' 53-47 Senate majority has been their principal leverage in shaping legislation and defending against the conservative agenda that has barreled through the House—controlled 240-192 by the GOP—including an austere budget proposed by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.

"If the GOP had just four more seats, the Ryan budget would sail through Congress," warns a Democratic campaign committee fund-raising letter.

The Republicans' Senate prospects appear to promise conservative gains even if the party doesn't win the White House. And if the party wins the Senate, Mr. Obama, if re-elected, would be hobbled by facing a Congress with both houses in GOP hands.

The electoral map is already having an effect on the Capitol's legislative landscape, where gridlock has reigned.

Efforts to overhaul entitlements and the tax code have stalled. Many of Mr. Obama's judicial and executive branch appointments have languished.

A key question for the coming months is whether the logjam will break in the face of what polls show to be plunging public confidence in Congress.

For now, Republicans have a powerful incentive to postpone big decisions, rather than compromise. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.), for instance, might get a better deal on entitlement and a tax overhaul after the 2012 elections.

Predictions are hazardous in such a volatile political and economic environment.

For Republicans, control of Congress was a distant dream for most of 2009, but the 2010 midterm elections produced a 63-seat GOP gain, giving the party control of the House.

"How can I feel safe predicting anything in a world where Washington has an earthquake and a hurricane in the same week?" said Bernadette Budde, a senior vice president for the Business Industry Political Action Committee.