From what I can tell of the polls and where they sit today, Democrats are looking at probable wins in

• Virginia (!!??)
• New Mexico
• Colorado
• Hew Hampshire, Shaheens lead seems to be solid after a few tough months
• Oregon
• Alaska, only due to the Republicans incu\mbant being a felon!

Assuming Lieberman does not bolt, then that would be 57 I believe.

These are looking possible (from Likely to remote, in order)

• North Carolina
• Minnesota
• Georgia

In North Carolina, Hagan is ahead by most polls, but Dole may score big with a barrage of really shoddy and dishonest negative adds. The Republican party has a history of scoring big in this state with gutter snipe trash- will it work this time? Franken has been trading the lead in the polls almost weekly with the republican Incumbent. Interestingly, polling within the set of supporters for the Independent in the race is finding a lot of people who would vote Democrat but don't want Franken, or people whose second choice would be Franken. Trailing third party/Independents often see a decline in support coming into the end, and if these supporters break for Franken, that could win him the seat.

The are looking improbable

• Kentucky (home seat of the house minority leader)
• Mississippi

So, with a likely win in North Carolina, the Democrats stand at 59. It really all could come down to Al Franken, since Georgia, Kentucky and Mississippi all look unlikely at this point.

The other possibility is that most polls only track respondants with a listed (land line) number, and either weight 'Traditional Voters' (usually middle class party-affiliated registered voters who are over 30 and have voted before). However, Every polling of 'first time voters' (typically not represented in polls- younger people who have IP Phones or Cell phones and thus can not be easily polled, or have never voted before and are thus not considered likely voters) who 'intend' to vote for the first time all overwhelmingly support Obama. So if this group actually shows up and they extend their loyalty to Obamas party, then we could see some interesting results.

While this technically-savvy 'wireless' first time voter may throw off results in areas with large tech-heavy metro centers, I doubt they will play much in places like Mississippi and Kentucky. However, there is also Texas, which has large numbers of these 'wireless youth'. So Thats why, despite the polls, I think the Texas seat is in play and while not a likely Democrat win- is more likely than say Mississippi.

However, while the republicans gloated over the demographic 'pip' they got out of letting NOLA drown, there are now large numbers of angy ethnically Black and Hispanic people residing in Texas and Mississippi, who are motivated to vote and very unlikely to vote republican. So who knows.

However, Pollsters are often (but not always, obviously) very smart people who get paid lots of money to be right - the numbers may actually not be off at all, and thus we may not have a democratic 60 seat majority. And, should they be wrong, they could just as easily be wrong in a way that skews to the Left- IE, that under-represents the republican vote.

So its still a horse race. We'll probably see a democratic president and certainly a democratic senate. But The presidency and the '60 seat' possibility is still just that.