It is time once again to take a look at the state of the midterm election races in the Senate. It has been over a month since we last examined the state of these races, and there has been some movement in both directions. Of course, the most dramatic of these has been in Delaware, but other states have been moving around as well (although admittedly, not as drastically).

I should also mention that there appears to be a bit of movement over on the House side of things, at least from what you hear through the filter of politicians and the mainstream media. Republicans, once confident in their bragging about how they were definitely going to wrest control of the House from the evil clutches of Nancy Pelosi, are now not sounding quite as confident as they sounded a few weeks ago. The media is slowly picking up on the storyline "Have Republicans peaked too early?" or perhaps "Democrats see rise in fortunes." Whether all of this means anything is impossible to know (well, I should say: impossible without subjecting 435 House districts to a microscopic analysis, which is beyond our abilities given our resources and schedule).

Since our last overview of the state of the Senate midterms, there has been quite a bit of movement, as 11 states changed categories in our five somewhat-arbitrary groupings: Safe Republican, Lean Republican, Safe Democratic, Lean Democratic, and Too Close To Call. Four of these switches were in the Democrats' favor, and seven in Republicans' favor. There are 37 Senate races this year, and of the 63 seats not up for grabs, 40 of them are Democrats, and 23 Republicans.

Let's take a little closer look at all of these races.

Safe Republican (14)
[AL, AR, AZ, GA, IA, ID, IN, KS, NC, ND, OK, SC, SD, UT]

Republicans lost one state from this category, but gained four, resulting in an overall gain of three safe seats.

Alaska moves all the way down to Too Close To Call, due to Lisa Murkowski's entry as a write-in candidate after being defeated in the Republican primary by Joe Miller. But this isn't really accurate, since it is pretty likely that one of these two will win the state, resulting in either a Republican or an "Independent" (who likely will caucus with Republicans) holding this seat. So the seat itself is likely a Safe Republican seat, even if the race is a tossup between the individual candidates at this point.

Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, and North Carolina all moved up to Safe Republican from Lean Republican, as all four races seem like a lock at this point. The Republican candidates all have double-digit leads over their Democratic opponents, and no reversal of these trends seems likely.

With the 23 Republican seats which aren't up for election, this gives the Republicans 38 fairly safe seats, at this point (23 plus these 14, plus Alaska).

Safe Democratic (5)
[HI, MD, NY(a), OR, VT]

Democrats added a safe seat in this category this time around, as Oregon looks more and more firm for Ron Wyden. He's got a 16-20 point lead at this point, which seems to be growing as time goes on.

Both Senate seats in New York are up for election. The one in this category is Chuck Schumer's, just to clarify, which is a regular election. The other is a special election for the seat Hillary Clinton vacated when she joined Obama's administration.

Democrats, as mentioned, hold 40 seats which are not up for election this time around. Add to this the Safe Democratic seats, and Democrats start with 45 seats which they won't have to worry about this November.

Lean Republican (4)
[FL, MO, NH, OH]

There was quite a bit of movement in this category this time around. Arkansas, Iowa, Indiana, and North Carolina all moved to Safe Republican. Florida and Ohio both moved up to Lean Republican from Too Close To Call. But the biggest news is, of course, the fact that Delaware moved from Lean Republican all the way to Lean Democratic, by the virtue (pun intended) of Christine O'Donnell, the Tea Party favorite who surprised everyone with her upset victory in the Republican primary. More on this race in a moment.

In Ohio, Rob Portman has opened up a wide lead in a race that was formerly neck-and-neck. The size of this lead would even normally put this state into Safe Republican, but we're going to wait and see whether this is just a spike in the polls or a lasting lead, so for now we'll keep Ohio as Lean Republican. New Hampshire and Missouri both show Republicans with a decent lead, but neither race can be said to be a complete lock at this point, so they have not moved.

The big news here, though, is the Florida three-way race. Charlie Crist entered the race as an Independent after bailing out of the Republican primary and the Republican Party earlier, and up until recently he was polling ahead of both the Republican and the Democrat in the race. But in roughly the last month, Marco Rubio has surged in the polls, and now enjoys a double-digit lead over Crist (with the Democrat trailing well behind both). The trend is definitely in Rubio's favor at this point, so it's hard to say that this race is Too Close To Call at the moment. But this has been a very volatile race all along, so anything is possible in the next few weeks.

Adding the Lean Republican to the running total so far gives the Republicans 42 Senate seats.

Lean Democratic (3)
[CA, DE, NY(b)]

There was a lot of movement in this category for Democrats, some good and some bad. First the bad news -- Connecticut and West Virginia moved down to Too Close To Call. This should be worrisome news to Democrats, since both races were seen as almost-certain Democratic victories up until a few weeks ago. More on these states in a moment.

The good news is that Oregon moved out of this category, up to Safe Democratic. And the even-better news is that California and Delaware moved to Lean Democratic, California from Too Close To Call and Delaware all the way from Lean Republican.

In California, Barbara Boxer has opened up a lead over Carly Fiorina. Boxer has been hitting Fiorina's business record hard, both in debates and in advertising. Fiorina shipped a bunch of jobs (around 40-50,000) overseas while she ran the computer giant Hewlett-Packard, which isn't exactly something to brag about in this economy (California's unemployment rate is north of 12 percent, I should mention). Boxer has opened the race up from a dead heat to a comfortable lead, which seems to be growing.

Delaware was an outright gift to Democrats, from the Tea Party. Instead of nominating Mike Castle in the Republican primary, Delaware Republicans went instead for Tea Party trainwreck Christine O'Donnell. This will result in Democrats likely retaining a seat they had all but written off as a Republican pickup. Democrat Chris Coons has opened up a 16 point lead which would normally cause us to rank this state as Safe Democratic, but Christine O'Donnell raised a whopping two million dollars right after her primary victory -- and two million bucks buys a lot of advertising in this tiny state. So we're going to wait and see if it has any impact before declaring Delaware safe for Democrats.

New York's Kirsten Gillibrand also should probably be a Safe Democratic seat, but there were a few strange outlier polls which showed her only up by a small margin (while all other polls give her a double-digit lead), so the race will remain in Lean Democratic for now.

Adding the Democratic leaners to the safe seats, we come up with 48 seats total for the Democrats.

Too Close To Call (11)
[AK, CO, CT, IL, LA, KY, NV, PA, WA, WI, WV]

This leaves 11 races too close to call at this point. Of these, we're already counting one (Alaska) in the Republican column, meaning the balance of power in the Senate will be determined by the ten remaining races.

From the last time we took a look at the state of the Senate races, three states moved from Too Close To Call to Lean Republican (Arkansas, Florida, and Ohio), and one state (California) moved to Lean Democratic. Three states moved into this category, two from the Democratic side (Connecticut and West Virginia) and one which is both too close to predict but also predictably going to wind up Republican (Alaska). In no particular order, let's take a look at all of these races.

Louisiana should probably move from this category into one of the Republican columns, on poll numbers, but we're keeping it here at least until the new ad runs (during the next New Orleans Saints game, it is rumored) which will remind all of Louisiana's voters about David Vitter's preoccupation with patronizing prostitutes. If this ad doesn't cause any movement in the polls, this state will likely be ranked Republican the next time we take a look at the midterms.

In Pennsylvania, Republican Pat Toomey has been up in the polls for a while, but it seems his lead is dwindling of late. The late movement by Joe Sestak has kept this race a tossup, for now. More good news for Democrats is that the lead enjoyed by Kentucky's Rand Paul seems to also be shrinking, although this could be the result of just one outlier poll which put Paul up by only two points, so it may just be a statistical aberration.

The news is not so good for Democrats over in Wisconsin, however. Russ Feingold may be in trouble, as his Republican opponent has very recently opened up a substantial lead in the polls. No wonder President Obama chose to go there to rally the Democratic voters. The other bad news for Democrats is the severe shrinkage of large leads in both Connecticut and West Virginia, both previously seen as fairly safe states for the Democrats. Connecticut still shows a lead for Richard Blumenthal, but it's a lot smaller lead than the Democrat has held until now. West Virginia actually shows a slight Republican lead at the moment.

Washington state seems especially volatile this year as well. The state has swung back and forth a number of times. Democrat Patty Murray is up in the polls for now, but the most recent ones show only a tiny lead. Likewise, in Nevada, Harry Reid is up by a few points, but this race has also swung back and forth repeatedly. Illinois and Colorado also must be seen as total tossups at this point, although Colorado may be moving towards the Republican.

And last but not least, the Alaska race is certainly going to be an interesting one. Lisa Murkowski got a piece of good news for her write-in campaign when it was announced that correct spelling will not be required of the voters when they write in her name on the ballot. Which, from the point of view of someone who has had to regularly write or type "Murkowski," has to be seen as a point in her favor. The most recent polling from Alaska had Murkowski and Miller neck-and-neck, with Miller up by only two points, so it is a real possibility that Murkowski may actually win as a write-in candidate (a rarity in politics, it must be admitted). But, unlike Charlie Crist in Florida, Murkowski shows no signs yet of being so annoyed at the Republican Party that she's flirting with caucusing with the Democrats, so the seat will likely remain in the "R" column, no matter which of these two candidates winds up winning it.

Conclusion

At this point, it appears that Republicans may pick up six of the tossup races (AK, CO, LA, KY, PA, WI) and Democrats may pick up five (CT, IL, NV, WA, WV). But there's a lot of guesswork in that estimate, and the election is still over a month away, so none of that should be seen as written in stone.

If this is the way the chips fall on Election Day, then Republicans will wind up with 47 seats in the new Senate, and the Democrats will hold on to 53 seats. This is a more pessimistic outcome than the last time we looked at the races, but there's still a lot of volatility out there, so many of these could change very quickly in the coming weeks. And while most of this is based on public opinion polling, the only real poll that counts is the one at the ballot box.

From now up to the election, I'll be taking a look at the state of the races much more often than once a month, to track how the political landscape is shaping up out there.

Cross-posted at The Huffington Post

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-- Chris Weigant