WA-Sen Looking Safer for the Democrats

If the Republicans are to take over the Senate this fall, they are going to need to pick up 10 seats (or nine, and convince Joe Lieberman to caucus with them in his Independent state). And looking through the individual races, if the Republicans are going to get to that 9-10 seat pick up range, they are going to have to win in Washington state (or at least come close enough to make the Democrats shift serious resources away from other key races to the state). Yet looking at the latest polling from the race, the GOP is far from doing what it needs to do in the Evergreen state.

A new poll commissioned by The Seattle Times and The Spokesman-Review of Spokane finds that the state's voters, frustrated with the deepest economic slump since the Great Depression, have retreated somewhat from their 2008 embrace of President Obama.

Voters, however, pin more blame on Republicans for the economy and trust Democrats more to fix the nation's problems. Still, significant chunks of the electorate blame both and trust neither.

[...]


In the season's marquee campaign, Sen. Patty Murray, an 18-year incumbent Democrat, led Republican Dino Rossi. Forty-nine percent said they definitely or probably would vote for Murray; 41 percent went with Rossi. As a group, independent and undecided voters appeared to favor more of Rossi's policy positions asked about in the poll.

As bad as these individual numbers are for the Republicans, the trend estimate is actually worse:



It is still possible for the Republicans to get control of the Senate without winning Washington -- but it'll be tough. Which is to say despite all of the talk of the Democrats' demise, they may still be in control of the Senate come this January.