Senate Takeover Unsure for Two Reasons

A Democratic takeover of the U.S. Senate is a bit of a long shot because a smaller proportion of its seats are being contested than are being contested in the House.

And there's a second reason why it'll be harder for the Democrats to take over the Senate. Senate races are statewide. Ballots for the U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania, for example, will be marked (manually or electronically) in every polling place in the state. But ballots for Representative from District x will be marked only in the polling places in that district.

So what? you might ask.

Here's what. In the Senate race, Karl Rove has a lot more electronic polling places to choose from in deciding which ones to shift some numbers around in. And the Democrats, conversely, have many more polling places to try to keep under surveillance.

John Kerry conceded Ohio quickly two years ago, perhaps thinking he didn't really want to be president all that much anyway, Bush had made such a mess to have to deal with. If Bob Casey "loses" to Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania, he'd better be ready to put up more of a protest than Kerry did.