Today the

Washington Post published an article that should send a greater message of
hope to the Democrats. “For GOP, Election Anxiety Mounts” talks about numerous
Republican Senate candidates opting not to run next year. This of course is
making the Republicans a little nervous.

Prominent Republicans have passed up races in North Dakota and West
Virginia, both GOP-leaning states with potentially vulnerable Democratic
incumbents. Earlier, Republican recruiters on Capitol Hill and at the White
House failed to lure their first choices to run in Florida, Michigan and
Vermont.

Those are just a handful of seats up for grab.

Early polling shows a potential loss of a seat for the Republicans in
Pennsylvania, where Rick Santorum is up for re-election, and one seat in Ohio,
where Paul Hackett is running against incumbent Mike Dewine. In both cases, the
Democratic challenger is ahead by over 8 points in a recent poll conducted by
the

Wall Street Journal.

Further more, in the same poll, the seat being vacated by Bill Frist is still
showing a Republican hopeful as the leader however his margin of victory has
been slowly slipping away. In August, Ed Bryant was holding about a 13 point
lead. Last month his lead slipped to 9 points over Democrat Harold Ford Jr.

Missouri is another interesting state where the Republican incumbent Jim
Talent has slipped to only a 1 point lead over Democratic challenger Clair
McCaskill. Other states where GOP support is slipping include Texas and Arizona.
The only state where the Republican incumbent is gaining support is in Nevada. 

In Florida where Katherine Harris is trying to take the seat from Democrat
Bill Nelson, Nelson has been holding a steady lead of 4 points. Florida is one
hot spot for the GOP, where they have failed to find a candidate suitable to run
against Nelson. They even tried to get MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough to throw his hat
back in the political ring to challenge Nelson but failed at their attempts.

With the Republican’s only holding a 5 seat lead over Democrats in Senate, we
could see a power shift come next November unless the political climate makes a
drastic change over the next few months. Iraq is certainly one of the hottest
topics to be heard on the campaign trail as support for the war continues to
fade away.

This news is coming only days after Howard Dean announced his new strategy
for the DNC. Firing back at RNC chairman Ken Mehlman for his continued
assertions that the DNC has no goals, Dr. Dean laid out a clear and promising
plan.

Dr. Dean wants to make the DNC the party of values, community and reform. He
is doing this armed with extensive polling data and under the advisement of
congressional leaders, governors and mayors. Dean has also hired on numerous
consulting firms and is expanding his grassroots program into a 50 state
program. His grassroots program is the same thing that made his 2004
Presidential bid hopeful.

The House side of things is still very uncertain. Their are numerous seats up
for grabs, which the Democrats could take control of. It has been over 12 years
since the Democrats controlled the House, so if the political climate continues
to stagnate then the Democrats have a very good shot at regaining both houses in
Congress.