Time is run­ning out, and so the mar­gins of Tossups and Leans shrink yet again.

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: Two new polls in the past week, from the Las Vegas Review Jour­nal/​SurveyUSA and Ras­mussen. They show Repub­li­can incum­bent Sen­a­tor Dean Heller lead­ing Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Shel­ley Berkley (D-​​Las Vegas) by six and seven points, respec­tively. The over­all adjusted mar­gin is some­where in the neigh­bor­hood of five points. The story is com­plex. On the one hand, this sort of rel­a­tively sta­ble mar­gin should mean “Likely Repub­li­can” this late in the cycle. On the other hand, last week’s Behav­ior Research Cen­ter poll in Ari­zona sug­gested that the ever-​​increasing His­panic vote is not being ade­quately cap­tured in most cur­rent polling meth­ods. Per­haps this explains why the past two bien­nial elec­tions have had Democ­rats over­per­form­ing the polls. I’m keep­ing Nevada “Leans Repub­li­can”, but I’m def­i­nitely curi­ous to see how Berkley does rel­a­tive to the polls. Intrade’s mar­kets show Heller at 80 per­cent (up 11 from last week), and Berkley at 25 per­cent (down five).
  • Ari­zona: No new polls this week, but Demo­c­rat Richard Car­mona is seri­ously giv­ing Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jeff Flake (R-​​Mesa) a run. As Ari­zo­nans learn about Car­mona, they’re dis­cov­er­ing that he is excep­tion­ally cen­trist. The race, then, is between an extreme con­ser­v­a­tive (Flake is the third most con­ser­v­a­tive mem­ber of the House) and a cen­trist. Ari­zona is a con­ser­v­a­tive state, true, but on a statewide basis lies closer to Car­mona than to Flake. If it were strictly based on the issues, Car­mona would win. If it were strictly party line, Flake would win. And the adver­tis­ing has got­ten espe­cially nasty and per­sonal on both sides. It’s now too close to call, and Ari­zona stays “Tossup”. The Intrade mar­kets are still con­fi­dent about Flake; he’s at 76 per­cent (up 16 from last week) to Carmona’s 35 (down eight).
  • Mon­tana: One new poll, from Ras­mussen, has Demo­c­ra­tic incum­bent Sen­a­tor Jon Tester tied with at-​​large Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Denny Rehberg. This adjusts to Tester lead­ing by a point or so. A sin­gle poll that close to the mid­dle isn’t enough to move Mon­tana out of “Tossup” ter­ri­tory. Intraders are still inclined to believe Rehberg will win here, though not as much as last week; he is given a 70 per­cent like­li­hood (up five from last week), with Demo­c­ra­tic incum­bent Sen­a­tor Jon Tester at 33 per­cent (down 12).
  • North Dakota: One new poll, from Forum/​Essman, shows Repub­li­can at-​​large Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Rick Berg ten points ahead of state Attor­ney Gen­eral Heidi Heitkamp. If you look at the his­tory of polls in North Dakota, this race has had Forum/​Essman and Ras­mussen show­ing huge leads for Berg, and Mason-​​Dixon show­ing a close race. It’s really hard to tell who’s right on this, but it’s either going to be really close or a Berg blowout. I’m call­ing North Dakota a “Tossup”, but really this is hugely bimodal, and it’s impos­si­ble for me to gauge which mode is cor­rect. Intrade has at-​​large Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Rick Berg at 85 per­cent (up three from last week) to state Attor­ney Gen­eral Heidi Heitkamp’s 15 per­cent (down a whop­ping 24), mostly reflect­ing the lat­est poll.
  • Mis­souri: Two new polls here. Ras­mussen, has Incum­bent Demo­c­ra­tic Sen­a­tor Claire McCaskill lead­ing Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Todd Akin (R-​​Wildwood) by eight. Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling shows McCaskill up by six. With these two polls, plus the his­tor­i­cal data, it appears that WeAskAmerica’s poll from a cou­ple of weeks ago was an out­lier. Mis­souri moves to “Likely Demo­c­rat”. Intraders agree, giv­ing McCaskill a 72 per­cent chance (up five from last week) to Akin’s 15 per­cent (down a remark­able 22). This is a rare case where the sum of the two can­di­dates is less than 100 percent.
  • Wis­con­sin: Three new polls this week, from Mar­quette Uni­ver­sity, NBC/​Wall Street Journal/​Marist, and Ras­mussen. They split the dif­fer­ence, with Marist show­ing Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Tammy Bald­win (D-​​Madison) ahead of Repub­li­can for­mer Gov­er­nor Tommy Thomp­son by four points, while Mar­quette and Ras­mussen have Thomp­son up by one and two, respec­tively. With­out the Ras­mussen poll, Mar­quette would have looked like the out­sider. With it, the story is more com­pli­cated. I know many lib­er­als will sim­ply dis­miss the two polls, but that’s not rea­son­able to do here. I’m keep­ing Wis­con­sin at “Leans Demo­c­rat”, but it’s now closer to “Tossup”, pend­ing another poll to gain a clearer pic­ture. Intrade has Thomp­son at a 36 per­cent chance (down three from last week) to Baldwin’s 65 per­cent (down one). This brings the two roughly in line; the sum is 100 per­cent (plus round­ing error).
  • Indi­ana: One new poll from Ras­mussen has Repub­li­can Richard Mour­dock ahead of Demo­c­ra­tic state Trea­surer Joe Don­nelly by five. The error bars are still too large to pull Indi­ana out of “Tossup”. Intrade mar­kets dis­agree, with Mour­dock lead­ing with a 80 per­cent chance (up 14 from last week) to 26 per­cent (up 16). These wide swings sug­gest that the mar­ket isn’t very effi­cient for Indi­ana, per­haps a reflec­tion of the opac­ity that comes from infre­quent polling.
  • Ohio: Five new polls were pub­lished in the past week. Sur­veyUSA, Ras­mussen, and Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling all saw Demo­c­ra­tic incum­bent Sen­a­tor Sher­rod Brown five points ahead of Repub­li­can state Trea­surer Josh Man­del. CBS News/​Quinnipiac and Suf­folk found Brown up by nine and seven, respec­tively. No move­ment this week means Ohio stays “Likely Demo­c­rat”. Intraders give him a 87 per­cent chance (up 15 from last week) to Mandel’s 15 per­cent (down 13).
  • Florida: Oddly, the Sun­shine State’s Sen­ate race was unpolled this week. Absent polling to the con­trary, Florida remains “Likely Demo­c­rat”. Intraders agree, giv­ing Nel­son a 84 per­cent chance of win­ning (up four from last week) to Mack’s 14 per­cent (up one).
  • Vir­ginia: One new poll was pub­lished this past week. Ras­mussen found Demo­c­ra­tic for­mer Gov­er­nor Tim Kaine lead­ing Repub­li­can for­mer Gov­er­nor George Allen by one point. While this con­firms WeAskAmerica’s pre­vi­ous poll as an out­lier, it’s not nearly enough of a mar­gin to move the Old Domin­ion into “Leans Demo­c­rat”. Vir­ginia stays “Tossup”. Intraders are still con­fi­dent in a Kaine vic­tory, giv­ing him a 72 per­cent chance of win­ning (down one from a week ago), to Allen’s 34 per­cent (down four).
  • Penn­syl­va­nia: Three new polls this week. Morn­ing Call, Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling, and Quin­nip­iac show Demo­c­ra­tic incum­bent Sen­a­tor Bob Casey lead­ing CEO Tom Smith by two, 11, and three points, respec­tively. PPP is almost cer­tainly the out­lier this week. With momen­tum in Smith’s favor, Penn­syl­va­nia moves to “Leans 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 25 per­cent (up 14). The wide Smith swing, cou­pled with the sum of the two can­di­dates being 115 per­cent, sug­gests inef­fi­ciency in at least Smith’s submarket.
  • Con­necti­cut: Two new polls this week. Hart­ford Courant/​UConn has Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Chris Mur­phy (D-​​Cheshire) six points ahead of Linda McMa­hon, while Siena has Mur­phy up by two. Con­necti­cut remains “Leans Demo­c­rat”. Intraders agree, giv­ing Mur­phy the edge with a 66 per­cent chance (down nine from last week), to McMahon’s 37 per­cent (down eight). The two sub­mar­kets appear to be cor­rect­ing for being well over 100 per­cent last week.
  • Mass­a­chu­setts: No new polls, so Mass­a­chu­setts stays “Leans Demo­c­rat”. Intrade is less con­fi­dent than last week; War­ren is given a 72 per­cent chance (up three points in the past week) to Brown’s 27 (down eight 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 92 per­cent chance of win­ning (up 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”.

Two states swapped columns this week. Mis­souri shifted left to “Likely Demo­c­rat”, while Penn­syl­va­nia swung the other way, into “Leans Demo­c­rat”. Our five tossups from last week remain: 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 was unchanged this week in my model, but was essen­tially unchanged in mar­kets this week; Intrade mar­kets give Repub­li­cans about an 25 per­cent chance of hold­ing at least 51 Sen­ate seats (up one from last week), with a 66 per­cent chance of Democ­rats hold­ing at least 50 seats (up three), and now a 11 per­cent chance of either 48 or 49 seats (down two). In the indi­vid­ual num­ber mar­kets, Intraders are most inclined to believe that Repub­li­cans will hold 48 seats.

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

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