Lately, we’ve been run­ning our Sen­ate Watch arti­cles on Tues­days. How­ever, with tomorrow’s sec­ond Pres­i­den­tial debate, this week’s Sen­ate Watch is run­ning today instead. We’ve had some interesing move­ment over the past six days.

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 week, walk­ing from the Pacific to the Atlantic:

  • Nevada: Three new polls in the past week (plus an absur­dity from Gravis Mar­ket­ing). Suffolk/​KSNV, Ras­mussen, and Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling all had Repub­li­can incum­bent Sen­a­tor Dean Heller lead­ing Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Shel­ley Berkley (D-​​Las Vegas) by three points. Nevada remains “Leans Repub­li­can” (but see below regard­ing Ari­zona). Intrade’s mar­kets show Heller at 69 per­cent (up seven from last week), and Berkley at 30 per­cent (down eight).
  • Ari­zona: I had an error in my cal­cu­la­tions last week. Ari­zona should have moved from “Likely Repub­li­can” to “Leans Repub­li­can”. I planned to cor­rect that in this week’s install­ment, even if there were no new polls. But there was a new auto­mated poll, from Behav­ior Research Cen­ter, who has a long his­tory of qual­ity polling. They found Demo­c­rat Richard Car­mona ahead of Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jeff Flake (D-​​Mesa) by four points. One of the rea­sons for their num­bers being to the left of the gen­eral con­sen­sus appears to be that they are the only ones to con­duct the poll in both Eng­lish and Span­ish. Are His­pan­ics who claim to be likely to vote actu­ally reg­is­tered? Cer­tainly they could lie, and that would shade the results to the left of real­ity. On the other hand, an auto­mated poll, which excludes house­holds with­out land­lines, tends to shade to the right. If we assume that BRC’s con­clu­sions are accu­rate, this could account for the his­tor­i­cal Nevada polls shad­ing to the right of actual results, and could mean that Nevada is more of a “Tossup” than “Leans Repub­li­can”. In any case, this is enough that Ari­zona moves to “Tossup” from what should have been “Leans Repub­li­can” last week, but was listed as “Likely Repub­li­can”. The Intrade mar­kets are still con­fi­dent about Flake, though less so than last week; he’s at 60 per­cent (down eight from last week) to Carmona’s 43 (up 11).
  • Mon­tana: One new poll, from Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling, has Demo­c­ra­tic incum­bent Sen­a­tor Jon Tester ahead of at-​​large Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Denny Rehberg by two points. This adjusts to a tie, keep­ing Mon­tana in the mid­dle of “Tossup” ter­ri­tory. Intraders are still inclined to believe Rehberg will win here, though not as much as last week; he is given a 65 per­cent like­li­hood (down four from last week), with Demo­c­ra­tic incum­bent Sen­a­tor Jon Tester at 45 per­cent (up six). The lat­est poll doesn’t move Mon­tana; it stays “Tossup”.
  • North Dakota: No new polls, so North Dakota stays “Tossup”. The Intrade mar­kets are too lightly traded to make sense. They have at-​​large Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Rick Berg at 82 per­cent (up 19 from last week) to state Attor­ney Gen­eral Heidi Heitkamp’s 39 per­cent (up eight).
  • Mis­souri: No new polls here, either. Incum­bent Demo­c­ra­tic Sen­a­tor Claire McCaskill is still expected to have the edge over Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Todd Akin (R-​​Wildwood). Mis­souri stays “Leans Demo­c­rat”. Intraders agree, giv­ing McCaskill a 67 per­cent chance (up five from last week) to Akin’s 37 per­cent (unchanged).
  • Wis­con­sin: Two new polls this week, from CBS/​New York Times/​Quinnipiac and Ras­mussen, show Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Tammy Bald­win (D-​​Madison) with leads of two and four points, respec­tively, over Repub­li­can for­mer Gov­er­nor Tommy Thomp­son. It keeps Wis­con­sin pretty deep in “Leans Demo­c­rat”, but not deep enough to push it into “Likely Demo­c­rat”. Intrade has Repub­li­can for­mer Thomp­son at a 39 per­cent chance (up two from last week) to Baldwin’s 66 per­cent (up one).
  • Indi­ana: No new polls, and the light polling and close results of them leave Indi­ana a “Tossup”. Intrade mar­kets dis­agree, with Mour­dock lead­ing with a 66 per­cent chance (up 11 from last week) to 10 per­cent (down 25).
  • Ohio: Four new polls were pub­lished in the past week. Sur­veyUSA, NBC/​Wall Street Jour­nal/​Marist, Ras­mussen, and Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling saw four, 11, one, and seven point leads for Demo­c­ra­tic incum­bent Sen­a­tor Sher­rod Brown over Repub­li­can state Trea­surer Josh Man­del. There’s evi­dence of tight­en­ing in the race, but it seems to have plateaued too far from the mid­dle to chance columns; Ohio stays “Likely Demo­c­rat”. Intraders give him a 72 per­cent chance (unchanged from last week) to Mandel’s 28 per­cent (down one).
  • Florida: Three new polls were pub­lished this week. NBC/​Wall Street Jour­nal/​Marist,Tampa Bay Times/​Miami Her­ald/​Mason-​​Dixon, and Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling have Demo­c­ra­tic incum­bent Sen­a­tor Bill Nel­son with a 13, five, and eight point lead, respec­tively, over Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Con­nie Mack, IV (R-​​Fort Mey­ers). Florida remains “Likely Demo­c­rat”. Intraders agree, giv­ing Nel­son a 80 per­cent chance of win­ning (down ten from last week) to Mack’s 13 per­cent (down seven).
  • Vir­ginia: Three new polls were pub­lished over the past week. CBS/​New York Times/​Quinnipiac and NBC/​Wall Street Jour­nal/​Marist found Demo­c­ra­tic for­mer Gov­er­nor Tim Kaine lead­ing Repub­li­can for­mer Gov­er­nor George Allen by seven and one point, respec­tively. WeAskAmer­ica, on the other hand, had Allen up by five. It seems, based on the dates of the three polls, that Allen jumped up after the Pres­i­den­tial debate. It’s time to move Vir­ginia back to “Tossup”. Intraders are still con­fi­dent in a Kaine vic­tory, giv­ing him a 73 per­cent chance of win­ning (down five from a week ago), to Allen’s 38 per­cent (unchanged).
  • Penn­syl­va­nia: Four new polls this week. Siena, Susque­hanna, Philadel­phia Inquirer, and Ras­mussen show Demo­c­ra­tic incum­bent Sen­a­tor Bob Casey lead­ing CEO Tom Smith by nine, two, ten, and four points, respec­tively. Given the mix, Penn­syl­va­nia remains “Likely Demo­c­rat”. Intraders still have high expec­ta­tions of incum­bent Demo­c­ra­tic Sen­a­tor Bob Casey, Jr., beat­ing coal mine tycoon Tom Smith next month. They give Casey a 90 per­cent chance of win­ning (down four from last week), to Smith’s 9 per­cent (down 16).
  • Con­necti­cut: While last week looked like a tossup between Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Chris Mur­phy (D-​​Cheshire) and Linda McMa­hon, this week makes last week’s Quin­nip­iac poll the out­lier. Ras­mussen has Mur­phy up by five. Con­necti­cut moves back to “Leans Demo­c­rat”. Intraders agree, giv­ing Mur­phy the edge with a 75 per­cent chance (up 15 from last week), to McMahon’s 45 per­cent (also up 15).
  • Mass­a­chu­setts: Three new polls, from WBUR/​MassINC, Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling, and Ras­mussen. WBUR/​MassINC has a three point lead for Repub­li­can incum­bent Sen­a­tor Scott Brown over Demo­c­rat Eliz­a­beth War­ren. But the more recent PPP and Ras­mussen polls have War­ren up by six and two points, respec­tively, which adjust to some­where in the four to five point range. I’m inclined to put more cre­dence in the more recent polls, in part because they agree with each other pretty closely. Mass­a­chu­setts stays “Leans Demo­c­rat”. Intrade is less con­fi­dent than last week; War­ren is given a 69 per­cent chance (up two points in the past week) to Brown’s 35 (up one from a week ago).
  • Maine: No new polls, but Intraders are still bull­ish on inde­pen­dent Angus King, who is expected to cau­cus with the Democ­rats should he win. They give King a 91 per­cent chance of win­ning (down one from last week), to six per­cent for Repub­li­can Char­lie Sum­mers (unchanged) and four per­cent for Demo­c­rat Cyn­thia Dill (unchanged). It’s still “Likely Independent”.

Three states moved columns this week. Ari­zona and Con­necti­cut moved left one col­umn (two for Ari­zona if you look at my error from last week), putting them in “Tossup” and “Leans Demo­c­rat”, respec­tively. Vir­ginia moved one col­umn to the right, back into “Tossup”. Our four tossups from last week now becomes a slightly dif­fer­ent group of five: Ari­zona, Indi­ana, Mon­tana, North Dakota, and Vir­ginia. Repub­li­cans’ best chance is prob­a­bly Ari­zona, though they have a slight advan­tage in all but Vir­ginia; Democ­rats’ best chance is Vir­ginia. The Repub­li­cans’ like­li­hood of tak­ing over the Sen­ate fell a bit more in my model, but was essen­tially unchanged in mar­kets this week; Intrade mar­kets give Repub­li­cans about an 24 per­cent chance of hold­ing at least 51 Sen­ate seats (unchanged from last week), with a 63 per­cent chance of Democ­rats hold­ing at least 50 seats (also unchanged), and now a 13 per­cent chance of either 48 or 49 seats (down one).

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

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