Today's Winner: Democrats

Political junkie site Real Clear Politics puts US Sen. Maria Cantwell's seat in the "Likely Democrat" column in its big roundup for the 2012 election.

Here's they're analysis, which rings true in Washington State where the GOP is having trouble fielding a compelling candidate.

Likely Democrat: Diane Feinstein (Calif.), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Robert Menendez (N.J.), Bob Casey (Pa.), Maria Cantwell (Wash.), Joe Manchin (W.Va.). These seats are not likely to be competitive, but could become so in the right circumstances. There would need to be continued Democratic weakness at the top of the ticket, and the GOP would need to find a quality candidate. The latter hasn’t happened yet, and the filing deadlines are approaching.

As we noted earlier today, KING 5 interviewed business journalist Phillip Yin (who?), who says he's running against Cantwell.

Meanwhile, in a follow-up to our admittedly mean Morning Fizz item about Cantwell's other potential rival: Republican state Sen. Michael Baumgartner (R-6, Spokane) still only has two reactions to his Twitter entreaty for thoughts on his potential candidacy—one of which appears to be a parody. Ouch.



Today's Loser: Democrats

However, even if Cantwell's chances look good, RCP simultaneously predicts that Republicans are going to steal the US Senate overall.

After saying the Republicans will hold the US House and are "slight favorites" to win the White House, they drop this extra bummer on the Democrats:

The Democrats’ chances of holding the Senate aren’t particularly good. Right now Republicans hold 47 of the 100 seats; if they win the presidency, they would need to pick up three more seats to have a majority. As of today, they are favored to pick up two Democratic seats. Two Republican seats are tossups, along with six Democratic seats. If we assume Democrats pick off one of the two Republican tossups, and that Republican pick off half of the Democratic tossups, Republicans would have a 51-49 majority.