Reidblog [The Reid Report blog]

WASHINGTON — 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 showed Monday.

Democratic Senate candidates are tied, have a slight edge or an outright lead 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 - with their candidates tied in Virginia and Missouri, holding a slight edge in Ohio, Rhode Island and Tennessee, and leading in Montana and Pennsylvania.

And they are in position to hold their three most vulnerable seats - with a slight edge in New Jersey and leading in 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. Each state poll was by phone of 625 likely voters in the final week of September. The error margin is plus or minus 4 percentage points.

"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 some anxiety about the economy.

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. ...