It’s Octo­ber, and that means the Tossup and Leans cat­e­gories nar­row again, acknowl­edg­ing that we have but a month left until Elec­tion Day. We have some movers this time, too, as the uncer­tain­ties of the upcom­ing election’s races con­tinue to fade.

Here is the cur­rent map:

As always, “Con­tin­u­ing” refers to the seats in Sen­ate Classes 2 and 3, which are not up for elec­tion this cycle. And, also as always, the details are below the fold.

Here the high­lights of the past two weeks, walk­ing from the Pacific to the Atlantic:

  • Hawaii: This has been con­sid­ered a mar­gin­ally com­pet­i­tive race for a while, but the lat­est poll, from the Hon­olulu Civil Beat, has Demo­c­rat Mazie Hirono with a com­mand­ing 16 point lead over Repub­li­can Linda Lin­gle. Hirono has led in every sin­gle poll con­ducted through the entire race. This is still “Likely Democrat”.
  • Nevada: Three new polls in the past week, with con­flict­ing opin­ions. Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling saw a four point lead for Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Shel­ley Berkley (D-​​Las Vegas) over incum­bent Sen­a­tor Dean Heller. On the other hand, NBC/​Wall Street Jour­nal/​Marist and the Republican-​​leaning Nevada Retail Asso­ci­a­tion both came away with Heller leads, by six and five points, respec­tively. I’m still not ready to call this race a “Tossup”, but I’m watch­ing for a clearer trend. Intrade’s mar­kets show Heller at 66 per­cent, and Berkley at 45 per­cent; the 109 per­cent total is illus­tra­tive of how lightly the Nevada mar­ket has been traded.
  • Ari­zona: One new poll from Ras­mussen shows Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jeff Flake (R-​​Mesa) with a six point lead over Demo­c­rat Richard Car­mona. Real­Clear­Pol­i­tics thinks that this race is a tossup, but a com­bi­na­tion of Flake’s extra­or­di­nary charisma and the nat­ural Repub­li­can lean to the state should con­tinue to give him the edge. I’m not mov­ing Ari­zona from “Likely Repub­li­can” until I see at least one cred­i­ble poll with Car­mona ahead. The Intrade mar­kets agree, with Flake get­ting 75 per­cent to Carmona’s 27.5.
  • New Mex­ico: a new Ras­mussen poll shows Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mar­tin Hein­rich (D-​​Albuquerque) with a 13 point lead over his pre­de­ces­sor, for­mer Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Heather Wil­son (R-​​Albuquerque). No change here; the Land of Enchant­ment is clearly enchanted by Hein­rich, and stays “Likely Democrat”.
  • Mon­tana: No new polls this week. Intraders are inclined to believe Rehberg will win here; he is given a 60 per­cent like­li­hood (up three from last week), with Tester at 40 per­cent (down five). Trad­ing fre­quency has been on the rise, so these num­bers are more cred­i­ble than many others.
  • North Dakota: No new polls this week here, either. The Intrade mar­kets agree with my assess­ment that Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Rick Berg (R) has the edge; they give him 65 per­cent to Attor­ney Gen­eral Heidi Heitkamp’s 43 per­cent. Of course, the 108* per­cent total tells us that the mar­kets aren’t being traded very well.
  • Mis­souri: Also a poll-​​less week, but Intraders are giv­ing incum­bent Demo­c­ra­tic Sen­a­tor Claire McCaskill a 66–33 edge over Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Todd Akin (R-​​Wildwood). The over­all con­sen­sus is that this is now McCaskill’s race to lose. If I went with my gut, Mis­souri would move to “Leans Demo­c­rat”, but the model, lack­ing new polls, is still stuck on “Tossup”.
  • Wis­con­sin: Yet another state with­out any polls this week. But the Intrade mar­ket has been busy, and Repub­li­can for­mer Gov­er­nor Tommy Thomp­son is melt­ing down against Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Tammy Bald­win (D-​​Madison). Bald­win is lead­ing Thomp­son 68–37. I’m still wait­ing for a new round of polls to show a solid Bald­win lead in order to move the Bad­gers to “Likely Democrat”.
  • Michi­gan: As if we needed more evi­dence that Michi­gan is safe for Demo­c­ra­tic incum­bent Sen­a­tor Deb­bie Stabenow in her race against Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Pete Hoek­stra (R-​​Zeeland). When Ras­mussen and Gravis both show mid-​​teen leads for the Demo­c­rat, it’s game over. Unless some huge event occurs between now and next month, Stabenow will keep her job. Intraders agree, giv­ing Stabenow an 86 per­cent chance (the same as a week ago) to Hoekstra’s 19 per­cent (up five). It’s now a safe enough race that it will drop off of the list, bar­ring a shift to “Leans Demo­c­rat” between now and elec­tion day.
  • Indi­ana: One new poll from Howey/​DuPauw has Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Joe Don­nelly (D-​​Granger) with a two point lead over Tea Party can­di­date Richard Mour­dock. Indi­ana is so lightly polled that we can’t really con­clude any­thing from this other than it remains a tossup. Intrade mar­kets show essen­tially the same thing, with Mour­dock lead­ing 52–49.
  • Ohio: Five new polls were pub­lished in the past week. The Uni­ver­sity of Cincin­nati and FOX News both have incum­bent Demo­c­ra­tic Sen­a­tor Sher­rod Brown ahead of Repub­li­can state Trea­surer Scott Man­del by seven points, while CBS/​New York Times/​Quinnipiac, The Colum­bus Dis­patch, and The Wash­ing­ton Post show Brown lead­ing by ten, ten, and 12 points, respec­tively. Even Gravis found a lead for Brown, albeit by a sin­gle point, but their extreme house bias to the right sug­gests a com­fort­able Brown lead. All in all, it’s enough for me to move the Buck­eyes one col­umn to the left; Ohio is now “Likely Demo­c­rat”. Intraders are even more bull­ish for Brown than they were a week ago, giv­ing him a 75 per­cent chance (up three from last week) to Mandel’s 25 per­cent (down nine).
  • Florida: Four new polls this time, from The Wash­ing­ton Post, CBS/​New York Times/​Quinnipiac, Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling, and Gravis. All but Gravis show incum­bent Sen­a­tor Bill Nel­son with a lead over Con­nie Mack, IV (R-​​Fort Myers), rang­ing from nine to 14 points. Gravis, always the out­lier to the far right, has them tied. Last time, I said I was near­ing the point where was going to move Florida to “Likely Demo­c­rat”, and was wait­ing another week. It’s been a week, and Nelson’s lead is widen­ing. Florida is now “Likely Democrat”.
  • Vir­ginia: Just one new poll this time, from Suffolk/​WWBT, had Demo­c­ra­tic for­mer Gov­er­nor Tim Kaine tied with Repub­li­can for­mer Gov­er­nor George Allen. One poll show­ing a tie isn’t enough to move Vir­ginia out of “Leans Demo­c­rat”. Intraders are increas­ingly con­fi­dent in a Kaine vic­tory, giv­ing him a 75 per­cent chance of win­ning (up seven from a week ago), to Allen’s 30 per­cent (down ten).
  • Penn­syl­va­nia: This is a new state on the list. The Key­stone State has been “Likely Demo­c­rat” the entire elec­tion cycle, reflect­ing high expec­ta­tions of incum­bent Demo­c­ra­tic Sen­a­tor Bob Casey, Jr., beat­ing coal mine tycoon Tom Smith next month. Casey has had com­fort­able double-​​digit leads in all polls from June through August. Recently, though, the race has tight­ened some­what. CBS/​New York Times/​Quinnipiac and Morn­ing Call have Casey lead­ing by six and eight points, respec­tively. Though it hasn’t moved enough to jump to “Leans Demo­c­rat”, this is now a race to watch.
  • Con­necti­cut: While Repub­li­can Linda McMa­hon had a small lead over Demo­c­ra­tic incum­bent Sen­a­tor Chris Mur­phy for a while, things seem to be turn­ing back in Murphy’s direc­tion. The Hart­ford Courant/​UConn and Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling show Mur­phy leads of four and six points, respec­tively. It’s not yet enough to move the state out of “Tossup”.
  • Mass­a­chu­setts: Three new polls, from Ras­mussen, The Boston Globe, and WBUR/​MassINC. The Globe saw a five point lead for Demo­c­rat Eliz­a­beth War­ren over Repub­li­can incum­bent Sen­a­tor Scott Brown*, and Mass­INC saw her ahead by four, but Ras­mussen saw an unad­justed tie, which adjusts to just over a point in Warren’s favor. The over­all trend is still in Warren’s direc­tion. It’s enough to push the race to “Leans Demo­c­rat”. Intrade agrees; War­ren is given an 85 per­cent chance (up an amaz­ing 26 points in the past week) to Brown’s 29 (down 13 from a week ago).
  • Maine: A few recent polls sug­gest that the Sen­ate race here has tight­ened up, though not dan­ger­ously for inde­pen­dent Angus King, who is expected to cau­cus with the Democ­rats should he win. In the sum­mer, King was lead­ing by nearly 30 points. Now, the lat­est polls from Ras­mussen, Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling, and Maine People’s Resource Cen­ter show him lead­ing Repub­li­can Char­lie Sum­mers by 12, eight, and 16 points, respec­tively. It’s still “Likely Inde­pen­dent”, but both Sum­mers and Demo­c­rat Cyn­thia Dill have been whit­tling away at King’s lead, which is no longer a king’s lead.

Last week’s move to the left con­tin­ues, with Florida and Ohio mov­ing to “Likely Demo­c­rat”, though some states moved to the right within their cat­e­gories. Our four tossups from last time remain: Con­necti­cut, Indi­ana, Mis­souri, and Mon­tana. Repub­li­cans’ best chance is still Indi­ana, while Democ­rats’ best is prob­a­bly Con­necti­cut or Mis­souri. Mon­tana is still a coin flip, because of the paucity of data. The Repub­li­cans’ chance of tak­ing over the Sen­ate con­tin­ues to decrease. More­over, North Dakota, which has been lightly polled for some time, may not still be “Leans Repub­li­can”; the absence of data leaves us effec­tively blinded there. The Intrade mar­kets moved a decent amount: they still give Repub­li­cans about an 18 per­cent chance of hold­ing at least 51 Sen­ate seats (same as last week), with a 67 per­cent chance of Democ­rats hold­ing at least 50 seats (up seven points), and now a 16 per­cent chance of either 48 or 49 seats (down five points).

How cred­i­ble do you think those mar­ket num­bers are? Do you agree or dis­agree with my state analy­ses above?

*Editor’s Note: I erro­neously listed the sum of the Intrade mar­ket in North Dakota as 109 per­cent, instead of 108 per­cent. And I had Sen­a­tor Scott Brown’s first name wrong. I regret the errors.

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