Polls show Democrats closing in on Senate

Democrats are within striking distance of taking control of the U.S. Senate on Election Day, a series of new polls for McClatchy Newspapers and MSNBC shows.

Democratic Senate candidates are tied or ahead in every one of 10 pivotal battleground states. No Democrat trails in those races; no Republican leads. Democrats must gain six seats to capture control of the 100-member Senate.

Democratic candidates have a strong chance to win all seven at-risk Republican Senate seats -- in Virginia, Missouri, Ohio, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Montana and Pennsylvania.

And they are in position to hold their three most vulnerable seats -- in New Jersey, Maryland and Washington.

This in-depth, state-by-state look at the political landscape of 10 Senate battleground states five weeks before Election Day Nov. 7 is based on a series of polls by Mason-Dixon Polling and Research, Inc. Seven were conducted for McClatchy Newspapers and MSNBC, and three for other newspapers were made available to McClatchy.

"These numbers look very encouraging for the Democrats to take control of the Senate," said Mason-Dixon pollster Brad Coker.

Democrats are faring well and Republicans are on the defensive for several reasons: dissatisfaction with President Bush, disapproval of the war in Iraq, anti-incumbent sentiment and anxiety about the economy.

Strategies fall flat

Aggravating those factors is the fact that several Republican strategies don't appear to be working well at this point:

* Voters who don't like Bush are taking it out on the Republican candidates, regardless of whether Republicans run from or with the president.

* Voters in all but one state rank Iraq as their top concern, above terrorism, despite Bush's campaign to link the unpopular war to the more broadly supported effort against terrorism.

* A majority of voters think Iraq is going badly. Those who think that support Democrats by solid margins.

* The fact that Democrats haven't spelled out clear alternatives on Iraq -- a main complaint from Republicans -- doesn't seem to matter.

"The Democrats haven't said anything that makes people say, 'Yeah, that's the way to go.' People just don't like what the Republicans are doing," Coker said.

The undecided factor

Another problem for the Republicans: None of their Senate candidates in these 10 competitive states has the support of more than half the voters, and undecided voters may be hard for them to persuade.

"Undecided voters typically go more for challengers than for incumbents," said Coker. "Even the two Republican incumbents who are tied, in Missouri and Virginia, are still in the low 40s. Those are not very impressive numbers for an incumbent. It doesn't mean they're definitely going to lose, but it's a warning sign."

Despite all that, Democrats still face challenges in seizing control of the Senate.

Most notably, they're still locked in several close races that could be decided by which party does a better job of turning out its core supporters -- something the Republicans are very good at, and they have more money to do it with.

Results in states held by Republicans

Missouri

Incumbent Republican Sen. Jim Talent: 43 percent

Democratic challenger Claire McCaskill, the state auditor: 43 percent

Missouri is the one state where health care topped Iraq among voters' concerns, perhaps because McCaskill has made an issue out of Bush's ban on federal financing for most embryonic stem cell research.

She led by nearly 2-1 among health-care voters. She also led among voters who cited Iraq as their No. 1 issue.