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By Charlie Cook, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Thursday, April 8, 2004

Over the past couple of months, the 2004 campaign has turned into a riveting three-ring political circus. The presidential race promises to end in a photo finish. Meanwhile, Senate Republicans will likely keep their slim majority, but Democrats now have a plausible shot at capturing control. And even though the Republican grip on the House is so strong that ousting the GOP from power looks virtually impossible, House Democrats have been showing real signs of life lately.

After being a punching bag during much of January and February, President Bush turned aggressive in March. His decision to come out swinging definitely heartened fellow Republicans. Yet it's unclear whether Bush has regained any ground. This presidential contest resembles a football match: It will probably be a game of inches, one decided by a relatively small number of votes in 16 to 18 battleground states.

Bush has two dark clouds over his presidency -- Iraq and the jobless nature of this economic recovery. Neither problem is likely to turn into an asset. And either one could become a very serious liability.

Presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry has his crosses to bear as well. He isn't gregarious and doesn't connect particularly well with voters. He also has to deal with the stigma of being a Massachusetts liberal -- a label that makes it more likely that Republican charges of his being outside the mainstream will stick. As a Bush campaign strategist said a year ago, just as there is a presumption among many swing voters that a Southern Democrat is a centrist, there is a presumption that a Massachusetts Democrat is a liberal.

Thus, Bush is trying to be the first elected president since Woodrow Wilson in 1916 to win a close re-election fight, and Kerry is trying to be the first non-Southern Democrat to win the presidency since John F. Kennedy in 1960.

[See The Cook Election Preview of the White House race]

Their fight for the White House will likely have a spillover effect on some Senate races. The landscape of the battle for Senate control has shifted recently: Nine contests are now too close to call.

Democrats are the underdog in their quest to hold one of their open seats -- retiring Sen. Zell Miller's Georgia seat. The Democrats also have another five seats that are very vulnerable: the open ones in Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina and South Carolina, plus the one Minority Leader Tom Daschle is trying to retain in South Dakota. The GOP has four very vulnerable spots -- the open seats in Colorado, Illinois and Oklahoma, and the Alaska seat occupied by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who was appointed by her governor father.

When all of these battles have been fought, one party or the other will probably pick up a disproportionate number of the vulnerable Senate seats, if history is any guide. With nine races too close to call, anyone with any stake in the overall outcome ought to be very nervous. Since open-seat contests tend to be volatile, the large number of them make this Senate election year a prognosticator's nightmare.

[See The Cook Election Preview of Senate races]

In the race for control of the House, the GOP-led redistricting in Texas puts a thumb on the Republican side of the scale in what otherwise would be a very close competition nationwide between the parties. As it has become increasingly likely that the presidential contest will be close, some intriguing House races have emerged. These races may not ever become truly competitive, but they have made it interesting to follow House campaigns again.

Even in the House, where loss of Republican control is nearly impossible in this election, Democratic hopes of capitalizing on a special-election gain in Kentucky and a potential win in South Dakota on June 1 are matched with intriguing possibilities of Democratic gains elsewhere -- for example, in newly open seats in Louisiana and Washington state.

[See The Cook Election Preview of House races]

Again, our money is still on Republican retention of the Senate and certainly the House, but as Lewis Carroll's Alice observed in Wonderland, things are getting "curiouser and curiouser."