Now they could lose the Senate entirely.

For months, critics within her party have said Dole, chairwoman of the committee that manages GOP Senate races nationwide, hasn't measured up in her role as the party's chief recruiter, coach and fundraiser. Two weeks before the November mid-term election, her committee remains behind its Democratic counterpart in fundraising and, suddenly, there are red states at risk that the GOP never thought it might have to defend.

Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, chairman of the committee that manages Democratic Senate races, has been crowing for a week that his party is "on the edge" of triumph.

Dole, who heads the National Republican Senatorial Committee, refuses to entertain defeat.

"We'll keep the majority in the Senate," Dole said in a joint appearance with Schumer on Wednesday at the National Press Club in Washington. "I'm not making any predictions about how many seats we end up with, but we will keep the majority."

Political analysts say Democrats have gained momentum in recent weeks and almost certainly will pick up at least four seats in the Senate. The party could win as many as seven -- one more than it needs to gain control of Congress' upper chamber for the first time since 1994.

Some political observers in Washington believe Dole, a first-term senator from Salisbury, will be among those blamed if the Democrats take over - despite the fact that she was saddled with an increasingly unpopular war and a president who has sunk in the polls.

There is much at stake. The House is expected to swing to the Democrats, with analysts predicting Republicans will lose 20 to 30 seats. Should the Senate switch its majority, too, the result for public policy could be bitter showdowns between a Democratic Congress and a Republican White House on matters such as homeland security, domestic issues and the war in Iraq.

"The Senate is certainly in play," said Nathan Gonzales, political editor for The Rothenberg Political Report, an independent newsletter in Washington.

"I think Liddy Dole is going to get plenty of blame," he said. She might be blamed, he said, for not raising enough money and for tactical errors in states such as Tennessee, for example, where some say the GOP may have waited too long before attacking Democrat Harold Ford.

But, Gonzales said, Dole would not be solely responsible for a poor outcome nationally in November.

"The president has more impact on this than Liddy Dole," Gonzales said.

Jennifer Duffy, who monitors Senate races for the Cook Political Report, pegs the odds at 50-50 that the chamber will change hands. She agrees that Dole shouldn't shoulder all the criticism if that happens.

"She got dealt a pretty lousy hand and, given that, she's done the best she can with it," Duffy said. "At the end of the day, she's going to come out on the losing end of it."

Dole's background

Despite being a freshman senator, Dole came to her Senatorial Committee post with significant star power among Republicans and deep managerial experience. She was president of the American Red Cross in the 1990s and served in previous GOP administrations as both U.S. secretary of transportation and of labor.

Dole's work as chairwoman has kept her on the road in places such as New Jersey, Missouri and Ohio and, for the past month, away from North Carolina. Next week, she plans to be in Virginia to stump for incumbent U.S. Sen. George Allen.

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