Real Clear Politics has their polling data on key Senate races up. Personally, most of them seem fairly accurate, although I doubt Coleman can beat Mondale by that wide a margin.
For the record, here’s my guess on the two biggest races in South Dakota and Minnesota:
South Dakota: This one is almost too close to call, but I have the feeling that South Dakota’s strong GOP leanings will be just enough to put Thune over the top. Look for a near 50-50 split between Johnson and Thune. 80% of the population of the state lives in the far eastern segments, so results in those areas will be key, and those are the areas in which Johnson is the strongest.
Minnesota: This is going to be the big upset. Look for the results to wildly fluctuate for some time, but Coleman is going to pull ahead by a hair. My prediction for results is we’ll see is Coleman up around 44-45% and Mondale up around 43-44%. A lot of former Wellstone partisans will either stay home or vote for the Greens. The Wellstone funeral/rally will have been the deciding factor that brought enough GOP partisans to the polls to narrowly put Coleman over the top.
Overall, I think there’s a good chance that we’ll see the GOP maintain the House and get at least the slimmest of majorities in the Senate. The only major GOP upset will likely be Arkansas where Hutchinson is poised to lose big (I agree with RCP 6% margin, which for this election is a pretty large margin.) If the GOP doesn’t screw things up in the next two years, this could mean a realignment towards the Republicans for 2004.
