With less than a week to go before the midterm elections and plenty of early ballots already cast, especially in Georgia, Texas and California according to NPR, the Republican vs. Democratic race for control of the Senate remains in a dead-heat, say the latest data from FiveThirtyEight. 

The GOP needs just one net seat to take control of the Senate. Most polls show the Democratic Party is in for a heavy Republican wave in the House of Representatives. Considering that inflation and the economy are at the top of most voter’s lists of concerns and throwing in the history of a sitting president’s party’s losses in midterms, the possibility of holding the Senate at 50-50 plus Vice President Harris would be considered a rare victory for the Democrats.

Still, the party seems to be holding out hope there is an upset in the works for the House majority if those early voters include a lot of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents who are still upset about the Supreme Court’s decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health and its overturning of Roe v. Wade.

FiveThirtyEight says the GOP’s best chance of picking up Senate seats are in Nevada and Georgia, while Democrats are still holding out hope for Pennsylvania, even after John Fetterman’s shaky debate performance against Dr. Mehmet Oz last month. Meanwhile, Arizona and New Hampshire have strong Democratic incumbents while GOP-held seats in North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin are “close, but likely Republican.”

Two Wild Cards: Then there’s Utah and Iowa. Seven-term Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-IA), 89, is facing an unusually strong challenge from Democrat Michael Franken. Incumbent Mike Lee has failed to secure an endorsement from fellow Republican Utah Sen. Mitt Romney and leads the polls by only the margin of error, according to FiveThirtyEight, over former Republican presidential candidate Evan McMullen, who is running as an independent who says he will not caucus with either party, if elected.

--TL