Senate 2008 – The rankings

Looking into the 2008 senate elections, we've been given a good look at what everyone here thinks on the details and the general picture of the 2008 elections. Now it's time to look at a bunch of 2008 senate rankings from various groups.

CQ Politics ranks two Democratics seats as “leans Democratic” (Landrieu and Johnson) and four as being “Democrat favored” (Baucus, Harkin, Lautenberg, and Pryor) everyone else is considered “safe Democratic”.

The Republicans, on the other hand, start off with one seat being listed as “leans Democratic” (Open Virginia), two as “no clear favorite” (Open Colorado and Coleman), four as “leans Republican” (Open Nebraska, Collins, Smith, Sununu), and ten as being “Republican favored” (Stevens, Chambliss, Sessions, McConnell, Dole, Domenici, Inhofe, Graham, Alexander, and Cornyn). The rest are considered safe.

Cook ranks one Democrat as being a “leans Democratic” (Landrieu) and one as being “likely Democratic” (Johnson – Poss. Ret.) while everyone else is considered “safe”.

For the Republicans, he lists two seats as being “Toss-up” (Colorado and Virginia open seats), four as being “leans Republican” (Collins, open Nebraska, Coleman, and Sununu), and five as being “likely Republican” (Stevens – poss. ret., Domenici – poss. ret., Craig, Smith, and Dole), the rest are considered “safe” with Inhofe and Cochran considered as possible retirements.

Rothenberg considers three Republicans (Sununu and open seats for Virginia and Colorado) to be “toss-ups”; three Republicans (Coleman, Collins, and Smith) and one Democrat (Landrieu) to be “narrow advantage incumbent party”; five Republicans (Dole, Domenici, Open Nebraska, McConnell, and Stevens) and one Democrat (Johnson) to be “clear advantage incumbent party”; and everyone else is considered to be safe. *note, Rothenberg has only officially updated 'til Hagel's announced retirement

Also, Larry Sabato has his own senate predictions in addition to House and Governor's races with some analysis of the states if you care to read them.

I want to say that I personally don't agree with Cook's assessment that Sununu can be considered a “leans Republican”. Even if Shaheen doesn't jump in, this race is, at best, a toss-up and a lean-Democratic if she does jump in. That's just me though, what do you guys think?